Oneworld Classic Flight Reward Discussion - The Definitive Thread

[SydneySwan]

Further wisdom needed!

It has just occurred to me that my itinerary of WAW - DOH - MNL - SYD - HND - HEL - LHR can be extended to add LHR - SYD on at the end and still stay within the 35k. However I want a date around Sep 1 2023 and that is not open for booking yet. Chances of getting a J seat not very high on that leg although might be in luck if I can do LHR-HND-SYD. The first flight of my itinerary WAW - DOH is on 20 Sep 2022

What is the best way to approach this? I presume I book my itinerary up to LHR online and then try to add the last leg on by phone paying relevant change fees and the additional taxes. If I have to take a Y or PE seat can I later change it to J if one appears? And what if the routing changes, e.g. LHR - SYD to LHR - HND - SYD to take that seat? Am I right in thinking that no changes are allowed after the first flight of the itinerary has been flown on Sep 20 2022?

 

[djkelly69]

I can't seem to find any JFK-MAD business class flights between Apr-May 2023. In fact there doesn't seem to be any business class seats available from US to Europe from Apr23 other than to London.

Has anyone else had any luck?

Scroll down further when you are on the above page. You can get a J seat on that exact date for JFK-MAD (via LHR), with a whole range of times.

If you mean there are no seats on direct flights, it is probably because you are booking too late and they are gone already.

 

[Mr H]

Further wisdom needed!

It has just occurred to me that my itinerary of WAW - DOH - MNL - SYD - HND - HEL - LHR can be extended to add LHR - SYD on at the end and still stay within the 35k. However I want a date around Sep 1 2023 and that is not open for booking yet. Chances of getting a J seat not very high on that leg although might be in luck if I can do LHR-HND-SYD. The first flight of my itinerary WAW - DOH is on 20 Sep 2022

What is the best way to approach this? I presume I book my itinerary up to LHR online and then try to add the last leg on by phone paying relevant change fees and the additional taxes. If I have to take a Y or PE seat can I later change it to J if one appears? And what if the routing changes, e.g. LHR - SYD to LHR - HND - SYD to take that seat? Am I right in thinking that no changes are allowed after the first flight of the itinerary has been flown on Sep 20 2022?

That would be a second stopover in SYD. You would need to book a connecting flight to another city within 24 hours.

 

[DC3]

That would be a second stopover in SYD. You would need to book a connecting flight to another city within 24 hours.

I read it as the itinerary terminating in SYD, so not a stop. Just the end of the trip.

 

[SydneySwan]

That would be a second stopover in SYD. You would need to book a connecting flight to another city within 24 hours.

Why? It would be the final destination - not a stopover.

 

[DC3]

…. I presume I book my itinerary up to LHR online and then try to add the last leg on by phone paying relevant change fees and the additional taxes. If I have to take a Y or PE seat can I later change it to J if one appears? And what if the routing changes, e.g. LHR - SYD to LHR - HND - SYD to take that seat? Am I right in thinking that no changes are allowed after the first flight of the itinerary has been flown on Sep 20 2022?

I book what I can, and then if better seats open up, then change.

No changes to the routing once the trip has commenced.

 

[Mr H]

I read it as the itinerary terminating in SYD, so not a stop. Just the end of the trip.

I read it as the itinerary terminating in SYD, so not a stop. Just the end of the trip.

I had thought terminating at a different place to the origin counted as a stop. Are we sure it doesn’t count? If so, that would be great news for my own plans.

 

[DC3]

I had thought terminating at a different place to the origin counted as a stop. Are we sure it doesn’t count? If so, that would be great news for my own plans.

Keeping in mind that the itinerary may terminate in any city, not necessarily the city of origin.

Although, I seem to recall that the system will calculate the miles back to the point of origin, so there may be limited options in order to keep the miles within 35,000.

 

[levelnine]

It has just occurred to me that my itinerary of WAW - DOH - MNL - SYD - HND - HEL - LHR can be extended to add LHR - SYD on at the end and still stay within the 35k.

Not possible. Need to include distance back to point of origin. You're way, way, way over. A map from Great Circle Mapper

 

[DC3]

I suspect that the penny has recently dropped.

 

[Phoenix-1]

Cancel on the website, if points don't come back in an hour or two, call up and request for the points refund to be expedited, they can usually do it on the spot.

Booking by phone is slow, but not necessarily painful. The main risk is the agent can't calculate the taxes properly and seats drop off the booking because it isn't ticketed within 24 hours.

Also, if you intend on cancelling and booking the same flights, remember that not all airlines will put award seats back into award inventory.

Thanks for the info. Cancelled the ticket, it's disappeared from my bookings and seats have been released. Now just patiently waiting for the points to re-appear.

 

[acinod]

Scroll down further when you are on the above page. You can get a J seat on that exact date for JFK-MAD (via LHR), with a whole range of times.

If you mean there are no seats on direct flights, it is probably because you are booking too late and they are gone already.

Surprised there's no direct flights at all. I've tried a number of routes JFK-MAD, JFK-AMM, MIA-MAD, etc. and no luck. Plenty of availability flying Royal Air Maroc to Casablanca though.

What's the general consensus on Royal Air Maroc vs Iberia vs Royal Jordanian vs American Airlines? All these airlines seem to have fairly poor reviews online

Are these airlines really the best and worst for business class travel? - The Points Guy

From the ergonomics of tray tables to the types of cheese one can devour in an airport lounge, the small details matter when flying business class.

thepointsguy.com

 

[SydneySwan]

Not possible. Need to include distance back to point of origin. You're way, way, way over. A map from Great Circle Mapper

You are probably correct BUT the website has a funny way of advising you. Because of the 6 flights restriction on the website I entered WAW-DOH-MNL-SYD-HND-LHR-SYD. It priced at 318,000 points + 1875 pounds. I went through several steps of the booking process and believe the final payment step was just about to be displayed when I received this message;

• An error has occurred in our central database. Please contact us for further information. (4002 [7597])

A google search could find no definitive explanation of what this message means but if it means ''this booking exceeds 35k miles'' it is a very unprofessional way of notifying the reader. When I first started programming in the 1980s this is the sort of rubbish messages that systems used to display and you often had to read the program code to find out what the message meant.

 

[DC3]

I received this message;

• An error has occurred in our central database. Please contact us for further information. (4002 [7597])

For me, the site crashes when it seems to not handle the number of segments. But it probably crashes for all sorts of reasons. I have no idea what the error codes mean either.

 

[levelnine]

You are probably correct BUT the website has a funny way of advising you.

If you're hoping for the website to give you an accurate description of what's wrong with your booking, you're flying the wrong airline!

 

[encryptededdy]

• An error has occurred in our central database. Please contact us for further information. (4002 [7597])

This would be good to add to this article Qantas Website Error Codes (And How to Avoid Them)

 

[Phoenix-1]

I called up and got my points refunded instantly. Not sure what happened but I was transferred to a team that is apparently not customer facing and they were able to help me.

Now I have another issue, how can I get from JFK (or NY) to London/Europe (preferable London/Paris) while avoiding BA? Or will I have to call up to add a JFK-HEL-CDG/LHR segment? Any other tricks?

 

[SimonR32]

Just booked our first post pandemic award in business (2 pax), have done several times in the past but it's obviously much harder these days with flights coming back slowly and without Qatar availability...

1 night in Tokyo
3 nights in Helsinki
11 nights in eastern Europe
4 nights in New York

Can probably stretch another Eastern States trip (based in Perth) at some stage within the rules but have plenty of time to work that out.

Need to book a New York to Boston connection as well next month when AA release some availability

 

[SimonR32]

Previous wins



and

 

[encryptededdy]

Very nice. I'm sure Tokyo will be open for tourists by July '23... (although I said that last year about 2022...). Is this in J?