Oneworld Classic Flight Reward Discussion - The Definitive Thread

[vetrade]

Brains trust I have seem to have a problem,,booked my seats to Doha waiting for connecting flight to paris(going to Anzac Day at villes bretonoux) as they release them.They have not released business class tickets for 3 weeks prior to 20th April but have release Europe connectors for May am I in trouble or will they release some later on.

Along the same lines as Mr H suggested, I'd book whatever you can get now that will get you to CDG. QR is unpredictable - apparently they have had to take some of their A350's out of service because of issues with their paint (of all things). That has exaccerbated their well known unpredictability and lak of a pattern when it comes to the release of award seats. Certainly you should book what you can now, then you can change if more suitable availability is released. All their planes should be back in service well before you travel next April but who knows for sure whether they will be back flying all their usual routes or not?

I think your best bet would be to try and book DOH to LHR or HEL with QR. From LHR you could transit to CDG with BA, and from HEL there's plenty of AY flights to CDG. Both BA and AY usually have good award availability on LHR - CDG and HEL - CDG but I'd prefer AY as their taxes are minimal. QR does fly to a lot of other European cities you could possibly transit through to CDG, but most aren't serviced by OW airlines so you wouldn't be able to include them in your OWA.

 

[blu]

Do ticketing staff only work business hours? Can't get to eTicket, have paid and points taken. Mainly contacting SA agents.

 

[vetrade]

Do ticketing staff only work business hours? Can't get to eTicket, have paid and points taken. Mainly contacting SA agents.

Can't say specifically for SA, but several Fiji agents have said their people who do the ticketing knock off at 5pm

 

[Mr H]

I think your best bet would be to try and book DOH to LHR or HEL with QR. From LHR you could transit to CDG with BA, and from HEL there's plenty of AY flights to CDG. Both BA and AY usually have good award availability on LHR - CDG and HEL - CDG but I'd prefer AY as their taxes are minimal. QR does fly to a lot of other European cities you could possibly transit through to CDG, but most aren't serviced by OW airlines so you wouldn't be able to include them in your OWA.

Other options could be QR to Madrid and IB to Paris; or the eccentric option of Royal Air Maroc via Casablanca (although if the passenger didn't like the look of the RJ business class cabin...)

 

[jase05]

What a shame. I am rather looking forward to my upcoming flights on RJ.

I can’t say I’ve had a bad flight with RJ on either their 787 or A319.
Sure the service isn’t as polished as some other other airlines but the food has been good and the coffee excellent with the drinks options probably being the only thing that lets it down but it’s still enough options that I enjoyed. The A319 had J seats similar to what VA have, comfortable enough for a 4hr jaunt into Europe but obviously a lie flat seat would be better. No IFE but was able to get on to their network which had not a bad selection of movies or shows. I would absolutely fly with them again but if the price/points is the same then obviously QR is a better option. Amman is a pretty cool stop over city though and I’d definitely do it again

 

[MEL_Traveller]

RJ’s a319 business class is a 2-2 configuration, standard recliner, 46 inch pitch.Pretty similar to the old QF dreamtime seats in terms of space. They are a great alternative to European airlines flying euro business to many of the near east destinations.

 

[Wolf creek]

Yes a fist world problem of picking business class seats,I could have handled the less elegance,but the operator wanted to charge me an extra $600 in taxes and surcharge.In her defence she said if we reticketed the fare it would be much less(BNE-Syd-doh)but was not willing to risk losing my Syd-doha Qsuites.
What happens when you add flights to your booking for a OWA do they reticket each time and can you lose flights when this happens.?

 

[motef]

Yes a fist world problem of picking business class seats,I could have handled the less elegance,but the operator wanted to charge me an extra $600 in taxes and surcharge.In her defence she said if we reticketed the fare it would be much less(BNE-Syd-doh)but was not willing to risk losing my Syd-doha Qsuites.
What happens when you add flights to your booking for a OWA do they reticket each time and can you lose flights when this happens.?

Yes when you add flights the OWA will have the new taxes calculated and be reticketed. You must make sure the reticketing happens straight away, insist to stay on the phone while it’s done and don’t hang up until you get the new ticket numbers and email. Delays in reticketing can mean some carriers especially QR and CX will “think” you don’t want those flights anymore and their segments will be lost

 

[andye]

Just a data-point on call-centre times
I am Bronze making multiple date and one airport change on two Y awards (one 4 pax, one 1 pax) that needed to partially align
Called at 2125 AEST on Monday night. Told 1-2 hr wait
Got through to Cape Town at 56 minutes. Additional 1 hour on phone making the changes (with some unplanned due to website availability of 5xCGK-DOH-CAI seats not being replicated at their end)
Said would call back in 30 minutes-did so at 34 minutes
Said ticketing in 24-48h
Fingers crossed

Edit:showing correctly next morning in MMB but no ticket yet

 

[Guvner]

This morning I noticed some QR MEL/SYD>DOH (2 x Biz) awards available late Sept 2022 if anyone needs to kickstart an OWA.

 

[blu]

No option to Hold for ticketing for us. Like above got the 24hrs promise last week, now they just say we are in the queue. We asked to add a flight and agent said it needed to be ticketed first. Now the taxes & charges payment has dropped out of our bank account as QF hadn't taken payment within (the banks?) required days. Got cutoff after 4hrs on this. Probably will put us to back of queue if we can find someone to fix it. Making 10th call now.

 

[Fil-Ski]

Can someone let me know if this would be a valid award

ADL-DEL
HAM-LHR(transit)-JFK
JKF-LHR(transit)-WAW
WAW-LHR
LHR-PER

 

[cjd600]

Can someone let me know if this would be a valid award

ADL-DEL
HAM-LHR(transit)-JFK
JKF-LHR(transit)-WAW
WAW-LHR
LHR-PER

looks ok, depending on airlines

 

[vetrade]

No option to Hold for ticketing for us. Like above got the 24hrs promise last week, now they just say we are in the queue. We asked to add a flight and said it needed to be ticketed first. Now the taxes & charges payment has dropped out of our bank account as QF hadn't taken payment within (the banks?) required days. Got cutoff after 4hrs on this. Probably will put us to back of queue if we can find someone to fix it. Making 10th call now.

There are actually multiple automated queues and if you're unlucky, you may find yourself in one which is stalled. So, it pays to follow up.
We've had an instance where I was told "it hasn't been processed yet" by a couple of agents (implying I just needed to be more patient), but later a more observant one realised the queue we were in hadn't processed any bookings for days. He told me that if the booking at the front of a queue had some fault, meaning it couldn't be processed, then it doesn't just reject that booking and get on with the rest - the queue can sit there stagnant indefinitely until someone notices there is a problem. And the problem with that is no one routinely checks on those queues - once an agent places a booking in a queue they forget about it.

 

[vetrade]

Can someone let me know if this would be a valid award

ADL-DEL
HAM-LHR(transit)-JFK
JKF-LHR(transit)-WAW
WAW-LHR
LHR-PER

Presumably your ADL-DEL sector is on QF via MEL and you're having a stop in London at the end. If so, it looks fine.

 

[blu]

10th call - was surprised to hear, we don't have enough points for the booking. (That's because they were taken last week). Apparently back in the queue as was cutoff after 2hrs with Agent. Who knows what a a new day will bring. Thanks for explanation vetarde.

 

[Daver6]

Presumably your ADL-DEL sector is on QF via MEL and you're having a stop in London at the end. If so, it looks fine.

ADL - DEL is direct. The flight originates in MEL though.

 

[vetrade]

ADL - DEL is direct. The flight originates in MEL though.

Don't think that's right. Every ADL - DEL I've seen goes via MEL or SYD. Just did a random search for flights for one date each month from Sept to Apr 2023 and not one ADL - DEL direct flight showed up.

 

[aikman]

Last non-stop flight is on 13 August.

 

[FishFood]

Finally have my itinerary booked and ticketed, I wouldn't have thought I'd be so happy to see 318,000 points leave my account. Probably took a combined 10 hours on the phone though