Oneworld Classic Flight Reward Discussion - The Definitive Thread

[squid01]

I don't know the answer to this, but does MEL-ADL at the end of your trip (to return to your starting port) count as a surface sector, therefore putting you over the informal limit of two surface sectors that some people in this thread have said is sometimes (mistakenly) said by QF agents to exist?

But there isn’t anything in the OWCA rules about max two surface sectors?

 

[levelnine]

But there isn’t anything in the OWCA rules about max two surface sectors?

Yes, but see this post: "oneworld" award (132.4K/249.6K/318K/455K) Planning - The Definitive Thread

 

[squid01]

Yes, but see this post: "oneworld" award (132.4K/249.6K/318K/455K) Planning - The Definitive Thread

Yes I do recall that post now. Their help desk didn’t quote that as an issue though they said they couldn’t amend a booking to turn it into a OWCA.

The flights are all linked to my FF account but I told the guy to delink, so I could HUCA. When they do get de linked they will just go back into the availability pool yes?

Frustrating cough.

 

[levelnine]

The flights are all linked to my FF account but I told the guy to delink, so I could HUCA. When they do get de linked they will just go back into the availability pool yes?

I'm not sure what linking means in this context. My advice would be to make your life as simple for yourself as possible. If you only need the points, not the flights, associated with an existing booking, cancel it and push for an immediate reinstatement of points and book online.

 

[aikman]

What if you call and book your new itinerary as normal. Don't mention your existing booking. When they quote you the points required, tell them to cancel your existing booking and use those points towards your new booking.

This way you can at least identify the problem. They either reject your itinerary or they reject having to convert your existing booking into something completely different.

 

[MEL_Traveller]

Yes I do recall that post now. Their help desk didn’t quote that as an issue though they said they couldn’t amend a booking to turn it into a OWCA.

The flights are all linked to my FF account but I told the guy to delink, so I could HUCA. When they do get de linked they will just go back into the availability pool yes?

Frustrating cough.

Delinking flights is no guarantee seats will go back into the availability pool.

 

[djkelly69]

Or does the agent have to do something to enable the itinerary to be a OWCA?

Agent doesn't need to do anything. They likely won't know the rules or right rules anyway. If you are within the rules the system caps the points itself once you hit the limit.

IME of booking my OWA (and based on previous advice in this thread), I never mentioned a OWCA. Each time I called I just said "I have an existing award booking I need to make some changes to", reel off the PNR, then start giving them the details of the flights you want to add.

 

[squid01]

Agent doesn't need to do anything. They likely won't know the rules or right rules anyway. If you are within the rules the system caps the points itself once you hit the limit.

IME of booking my OWA (and based on previous advice in this thread), I never mentioned a OWCA. Each time I called I just said "I have an existing award booking I need to make some changes to", reel off the PNR, then start giving them the details of the flights you want to add.

Thanks for confirming their system should do all the work to cap it out. Was just on hold/another call for 2 hours. He cancelled the original placeholder booking and got my points back instantly which was good.

I then gave him the flights and he put me on hold for about 30 mins, it then dropped out. I gave my number and said call back if it drops out. No call back.

Guess I'll try for a fifth time.

 

[andye]

Spoke to another couple of dud agents last night, all of no help.

Early this morning spoke with another who seemed ok, was a very long call and on hold for quite a while while they spoke with the help desk. They linked the flights to me and I could see them in Check My Trip. They came back and said the points cost would be something stupidly high (as in the sum of all individual flights, not capping out). I told him to go back to the help desk and speak to someone who knows about the OWCA. He did and came back and they said they can't do it as you can't ammend an existing booking into a OWCA, it must be a new booking. That is not what I believe to be true at all.

Can the brains trust confirm, my existing booking I am trying to ammend has one flight on it. I am trying to get them to remove that one flight, then add all my other flights and having it cap out at the points cap. Is this scenario doable?

Also please look over my flights and let me know if any issues with the OWCA rules. From my perspective it is all good. Or could there be issues with so many segments on the one day (13/09)? Or too short connection times etc?

Need some help here as to where I may be going wrong.

Thanks

View attachment 278259

Think I may have an explanation though I'm not an old hand
You have returned to Australia in SYD.
You then also need to do a theoretical MEL-ADL to complete the itinerary but the general classic award rules (14.3.5) are that you can't have another second departure from your country of origin once returned. The SYD-MEL may also fall foul

 

[Mr H]

Think I may have an explanation though I'm not an old hand
You have returned to Australia in SYD.
You then also need to do a theoretical MEL-ADL to complete the itinerary but the general classic award rules (14.3.5) are that you can't have another second departure from your country of origin once returned. The SYD-MEL may also fall foul

I think you are allowed to travel within your country of origin, both at the start and end of the itinerary - but once you have left Australia, you cannot leave Australia again on the same itinerary.

 

[squid01]

I think you are allowed to travel within your country of origin, both at the start and end of the itinerary - but once you have left Australia, you cannot leave Australia again on the same itinerary.

That is what I believe to be correct. I have booked a OWCA with an internal domestic leg on the return home like this.

Had another lengthy call with another Fijian operator. He was actually not bad. Got it to the point of quoting the points and it capped out at the 318k. They need a couple hours to get the taxes quoted. I pushed to get them to do it right then and there and I would hold but they wouldn't let me. Gritting my teeth, if I hear nothing back then I will call in a few hours and push them even harder.

 

[andye]

I think you are allowed to travel within your country of origin, both at the start and end of the itinerary - but once you have left Australia, you cannot leave Australia again on the same itinerary.

Apologies for muddying waters

 

[blu]

We can enter our flight itinerary Online, all good until the end when it has some kind of taxes & charges calculation error (4002). We also need eight flights not the six allowed. Currently on hold to a call centre. Should I expect the phone assistance charge (10k points?) for online issues ?

 

[levelnine]

It's really interesting how the OWA is being devalued not through an increase in points costs, but instead through an inability to change the booking without risking losing all your flights.

Some real nightmare stuff in other threads: CX and QR flights disappeared from MBB on OWA RTW classic rewards booking. Need urgent advice please!!

 

[blu]

Just informed me they received a notice today that JL is suspending SYD flights for six months. Not said, but she may have been referring to just Premium Economy (which were were booking as no J).

 

[flapper]

A further update. A few hours later I was looking at Check My Trip and a SFO-LAX flight was included on my OWA itinerary, it was also showing on QF and AA. I rang QF to get it ticketed. I was told because it is a revenue ticket added to a rewards intinerary they need approval from AA, that could take 2-3 days. I'll keep checking and hoping. If AA refuse I'll try a AS flight, theer aren't any rewards seats showing on QF. If I need to buy a ticket it's not a problem, I'd rather it all on one ticket in case the flight to LAX is cancelled at the last minute (crew shortages not just a QF problem) and I'm stuck in SFO.

An update on trying to get AA to open up a revenue seat SFO-LAX for my OWA after QF cancelled by SFO-SYD flight. The short story is it was declined as it was due to a QF cancellation. The long story is. I was told I would get a response in 24-48 hrs. Then when I called up to check told 3-5 days. Then when I called again told 3-5 business days. Every time I got a diffferent story. I'm still trying to see if I can get a rewards flight in Y and that's another story, multiple calls today. One can't see the availability I can see, another said you can't add a Y seat to a J booking but could see flights I couldn't and another said QF wouldn't change the date of my QF flight to when there is rewards availability (he didn't even check with "the support team". I try again tomorrow.

 

[squid01]

That is what I believe to be correct. I have booked a OWCA with an internal domestic leg on the return home like this.

Had another lengthy call with another Fijian operator. He was actually not bad. Got it to the point of quoting the points and it capped out at the 318k. They need a couple hours to get the taxes quoted. I pushed to get them to do it right then and there and I would hold but they wouldn't let me. Gritting my teeth, if I hear nothing back then I will call in a few hours and push them even harder.

Update: the guy didn’t call me back in the afternoon, so it got to 6pm and I phoned up again. Got through to SA centre and explained I needed the taxes priced now so I can get the ticket issued. She got the pricing dept (or something) to start that. Was on hold for agesss but she kept giving me updates while I was on hold. Then the original guy from earlier in the day called back so I took that call and put the other on hold. Whilst I was speaking to him the other lady must have checked in on me and saw I wasn’t there so ended the call.

The original guy said they had priced the taxes at AU$1499 for both passengers. That seemed ridiculously cheap, as my first convoluted leg from ADL to LHR is that cost when I plug that into the Qantas site. Can there be discrepancies between Qantas site and when you call up like that?

Anyway I confirmed all the flight details again to ensure they priced everything correctly and they were all there. Went to pay with card over the phone, he said the payment wasn’t going through there was an error. He tried to call the payments team and was on hold for a while. Then came back and said it was because there was the phone payment fee which I requested be waived (because couldn’t book this online). The removal of that fee he said was causing the issue. I opted to just pay the $77/pax fee to get it done then and there, he tried that and still didnt go through.

I think he was bullshitting me on that error and there is something else wrong. He then said the line to the payment specialist team went down and he would have to call me back. Could be 12-24 hours. He said they have locked in the flights until 6th June, they won’t drop off until then (if not ticketed). This sounds impossible they could organise this?

Sorry for the long post. Is that operator full of it. Should I call up again and push for them to price it or wait for him to call back?

 

[Mr H]

Update: the guy didn’t call me back in the afternoon, so it got to 6pm and I phoned up again. Got through to SA centre and explained I needed the taxes priced now so I can get the ticket issued. She got the pricing dept (or something) to start that. Was on hold for agesss but she kept giving me updates while I was on hold. Then the original guy from earlier in the day called back so I took that call and put the other on hold. Whilst I was speaking to him the other lady must have checked in on me and saw I wasn’t there so ended the call.

The original guy said they had priced the taxes at AU$1499 for both passengers. That seemed ridiculously cheap, as my first convoluted leg from ADL to LHR is that cost when I plug that into the Qantas site. Can there be discrepancies between Qantas site and when you call up like that?

Anyway I confirmed all the flight details again to ensure they priced everything correctly and they were all there. Went to pay with card over the phone, he said the payment wasn’t going through there was an error. He tried to call the payments team and was on hold for a while. Then came back and said it was because there was the phone payment fee which I requested be waived (because couldn’t book this online). The removal of that fee he said was causing the issue. I opted to just pay the $77/pax fee to get it done then and there, he tried that and still didnt go through.

I think he was bullshitting me on that error and there is something else wrong. He then said the line to the payment specialist team went down and he would have to call me back. Could be 12-24 hours. He said they have locked in the flights until 6th June, they won’t drop off until then (if not ticketed). This sounds impossible they could organise this?

Sorry for the long post. Is that operator full of it. Should I call up again and push for them to price it or wait for him to call back?

The flights are not secured until you have paid. Maybe it will all happen by magic behind the scenes, but others' stories suggest it won't. Therefore you have nothing to lose by calling back, getting them priced, paid and ticketed but everything to lose by not doing so.

 

[Jacques Vert]

I'm currently working on planning for a trip to Singapore and Japan later this year. Requirements are to be in Singapore 30th September to 3rd October, and Japan 7th October to 10th October. The rest is fairly flexible.

To start off, the original plan was to fly direct to Singapore, but there are no direct flights from Sydney available in the week or so before. There is a BA Y+ direct, but would like to travel in J as much as possible.

So in true OWA fashion, looks like I'll be adding in a stopover. I can get SYD-KUL in J on 25th Sept, so thought I may spend a few days checking out Malaysia for the first time. I'll then add in a KUL-SIN in J on MH, probably on 29th Sept.

On 3rd Oct, I'm able to get JL36 from SIN-HND in J, which I believe should be their Sky Suites product.

Then coming home, the best I am able to find is JL51 from HND-SYD in Y+ on 14th Oct.

A few questions:

1. Any better ideas on how to get home in J? I can fly back anytime between the 10th and 15th of October.
2. When I do a multi-city booking online, the points are capping out at 209k. Any recommendations on how I can better take advantage of the benefits of a OWA? Should I consider doing SYD-ADL-KUL? I am PCP+, so will receive status credits for the booking and am happy to not fly direct (within reason).

NRT-MNL-SYD on 16th or 17th?

 

[flapper]

Update: the guy didn’t call me back in the afternoon, so it got to 6pm and I phoned up again. Got through to SA centre and explained I needed the taxes priced now so I can get the ticket issued. She got the pricing dept (or something) to start that. Was on hold for agesss but she kept giving me updates while I was on hold. Then the original guy from earlier in the day called back so I took that call and put the other on hold. Whilst I was speaking to him the other lady must have checked in on me and saw I wasn’t there so ended the call.

The original guy said they had priced the taxes at AU$1499 for both passengers. That seemed ridiculously cheap, as my first convoluted leg from ADL to LHR is that cost when I plug that into the Qantas site. Can there be discrepancies between Qantas site and when you call up like that?

Anyway I confirmed all the flight details again to ensure they priced everything correctly and they were all there. Went to pay with card over the phone, he said the payment wasn’t going through there was an error. He tried to call the payments team and was on hold for a while. Then came back and said it was because there was the phone payment fee which I requested be waived (because couldn’t book this online). The removal of that fee he said was causing the issue. I opted to just pay the $77/pax fee to get it done then and there, he tried that and still didnt go through.

I think he was bullshitting me on that error and there is something else wrong. He then said the line to the payment specialist team went down and he would have to call me back. Could be 12-24 hours. He said they have locked in the flights until 6th June, they won’t drop off until then (if not ticketed). This sounds impossible they could organise this?

Sorry for the long post. Is that operator full of it. Should I call up again and push for them to price it or wait for him to call back?

Definately call back. I usually call back straight after the call ends, it usually takes 5 or 6 calls. Don't tell them someone else is supposed working on it, just ask for it to be ticketed.