Oneworld Classic Flight Reward Discussion - The Definitive Thread

[flapper]

Looks like an awesome trip. Can you share how much taxes were?

Also I will be (sadly) cancelling a J reward MEL-LAX flight (QF93) on the 8th of May which was booked as part of a OWCA. If anyone is interested in it let me know and I'll PM you when it's cancelled.

So if you cancel a rewards booking with QF flights, the flights go back into inventory. Any idea how long that takes?

 

[SydneySwan]

Great post @madrooster - I learnt a lot.

 

[Captain Halliday]

Great post @madrooster - I learnt a lot.

Contender for post of the year and it’s only April.

 

[Danger]

We're well off topic and I think we should start a new thread ( <redacted> ).

What is the point in me typing up a long post on how to do it when the majority will struggle to do it, then ask a load of questions or post that they're struggling to achieve it?

So why post it to begin with? Why do the equivalent of telling everyone you have a secret, <redacted>?

There are various reasons where I am selective about what I will share publicly - I know for fact that airline staff read AFF, Point Hacks and others. In fact AFF has featured in some trade-only documents that some airlines have sent out to the trade.

I'd love to see some of these references. I think they'd be quite interesting.<redacted>

Drawing attention to loopholes, too good to be true fares (the recent NH Vietnam debacle anyone?), fares that allow things that they probably shouldn't, etc., is a sure fire way to ruin it for everyone.

As an example of this, QR had a stuff up in their ADL-NZ fares that lasted from Feb 2022 until about Aug 2022. $3.3k AUD for ADL-DOH, DOH-SYD/MEL, SYD/MEL-NZ, NZ-SYD/MEL, MEL/SYD-DOH, DOH-ADL in J. That's 4 long hauls on QR and two trans tasman on QF.

What's the value in this post now to anyone but you?

I don't see either of you stepping up to the plate to offer anything close out of your own generosity out of your own free time. When you do, you're welcome to grizzle about it.

I'm borderline offended, but fortunately <redacted>.

In the past several months I doubt you'd find another member who's contributed more advice and guidance to this thread than Mr H. I'm no TA so I don't have all the bells and whistles and the secret passwords to fly high above everyone else. What I don't believe I've ever done - nor will do - is throw some enticing crumbs and call it a day.

As I said above, I could stop posting anything along those lines and just go back to answering the odd question here and there...

I don't believe anyone's suggesting that. I appreciate your contribution over many years and I admire your knowledge. What I personally don't appreciate is the opaque information. Perhaps if it was something like, 'I'm aware of a trick to do x; PM if you'd like some help,' then I for one could probably live with it (assuming there was no charge for it).

To give you a view of the types of things I do for pax:

...

There's much more... I could go on for ages but I digress...

Who needs ads in the daily newspaper when you've got AFF? <redacted>

I'll finish by reiterating that I very much appreciate your contribution and hope you continue to do so, but perhaps (at least from my perspective) a little differently at some points. No doubt I've burnt any bridge I may have had with you and that's certainly my loss and not yours. But I think there's too much here to ignore.

 

[Phoenix-1]

So if you cancel a rewards booking with QF flights, the flights go back into inventory. Any idea how long that takes?

In my experience they have gone back in, but not everyone finds the same. When I've cancelled on the phone and requested an immediate points refund (to redo an itinerary) they've appeared immediately.

In the past several months I doubt you'd find another member who's contributed more advice and guidance to this thread than Mr H. I'm no TA so I don't have all the bells and whistles and the secret passwords to fly high above everyone else. What I don't believe I've ever done - nor will do - is throw some enticing crumbs and call it a day.

Have to agree with this. Mr. H has helped many people on this forum.

 

[serfty]

So if you cancel a rewards booking with QF flights, the flights go back into inventory. Any idea how long that takes?

Sometime they go back in to award inventory, sometimes they don't. It really depends on whether the Qantas yield management 'bot decides how the now available seats could be best sold.

This depends on various factors such as how many seats have now been sold and how many actual awards have been claimed for the segment.

In a general sense, the less time it is before the scheduled flight, the less likely such seats are to go back into award inventory.

In my experience they have gone back in, but not everyone finds the same. When I've cancelled on the phone and requested an immediate points refund (to redo an itinerary) they've appeared immediately.

When they do it over the 'phone a good agent will normally 'hold' the award seat(s) within the booking, not letting them go back into the grasp of Yield Management.

 

[zoom&boom]

Still trying to wrap my head around Married Sector Logic......

Trying to nut out the first sector of a possible OWCR and am seeing...
Day 1 SYD-HND and Day 2 HND-LHR with the time between flights of less than 24hrs.
If I search SYD-LHR there are two flights available but not the ones I see on the initial seperate searches.

Does this mean that my initial search would not be able to be booked and only the SYD-LHR sectors could be?

 

[Captain Halliday]

Still trying to wrap my head around Married Sector Logic......

Trying to nut out the first sector of a possible OWCR and am seeing...
Day 1 SYD-HND and Day 2 HND-LHR with the time between flights of less than 24hrs.
If I search SYD-LHR there are two flights available but not the ones I see on the initial seperate searches.

Does this mean that my initial search would not be able to be booked and only the SYD-LHR sectors could be?

Most likely, yes.

If you want travel from SYD to LHR... you need to search SYD-LHR.

 

[zoom&boom]

Most likely, yes.

If you want travel from SYD to LHR... you need to search SYD-LHR.

Thought as much. Back to the drawing board for me....Thanks for the quick response.

 

[Steph123]

Still trying to wrap my head around Married Sector Logic......

Trying to nut out the first sector of a possible OWCR and am seeing...
Day 1 SYD-HND and Day 2 HND-LHR with the time between flights of less than 24hrs.
If I search SYD-LHR there are two flights available but not the ones I see on the initial seperate searches.

Does this mean that my initial search would not be able to be booked and only the SYD-LHR sectors could be?

If you can see SYD-HND and then HND-LHR there's no reason you can't book these two flights for your OWA booking. If there's less than 24hrs in between it will count as a transit in Tokyo.

I'd also be cautious about how long you have in between as you don't want to run into any issues with delays on your first flight causing you to miss your second.

But otherwise this is basically how I pieced together my OWA booking.

I was under the impression it's the opposite problem for married sectors. Ie if you can see SYD-HND-LHR but not SYD-HND or HND-LHR by themselves.

 

[levelnine]

Thought as much. Back to the drawing board for me....Thanks for the quick response.

I was under the impression it's the opposite problem for married sectors. Ie if you can see SYD-HND-LHR but not SYD-HND or HND-LHR by themselves.

It can be both.

zoom&boom, if you can book SYD-HND + HND-LHR online, it will be fine.

However, if you need to book it over the phone for any reason (eg you're adding SYD-HND-LHR to an existing booking), you will likely get an agent saying they cannot see the flights, giving you some reason like they are only for new flight bookings. Even Hobart agents have given me the 'married segment' line in these circumstances.

 

[zoom&boom]

Ah Ha. Thanks for all the responses. I didn’t want to book the individual sectors and then find out down the track that it would violate some obscure rule and not stop at 318K points when additional sectors were added.

If this can be booked then adding more European side trips should be relatively easy (what am I saying )

I accept the challenge of booking the return from Europe with new found optimism.

Thanks Team

 

[bigpete]

If this can be booked then adding more European side trips should be relatively easy (what am I saying )

You could save an OWA stopover by doing an open jaw in Europe and side-tripping via rail, Easyjet or Ryanair

 

[soarer]

I agree with this, I had an issue with a cancelled UL flight in a OWCA (see previous post). I emailed the new escalation team and also called qantas few times over the last 8 days nothing happened. Yesterday I sent a message via twitter and few hours later I was booked on the replacement UL flight (in J) and e-ticket generated for 3 pax. Everything is showing ok on CMT. Hope this will help others in a similar situation.

That's comforting to know. Has anyone tried the Twitter channel successfully for something like replacing 4 existing flights with 2 new ones in a 8 flight OWA booking?

 

[There'sOnlyOneJimmy]

That's comforting to know. Has anyone tried the Twitter channel successfully for something like replacing 4 existing flights with 2 new ones in a 8 flight OWA booking?

I haven’t tried the Twitter channel, but on a sample size of one today, I rang the regular plebeian 131313 number to replace 2 existing flights with 1 new one in a 4 flight OWCA itinerary (so exactly half of yours…).
The call was answered within a couple of minutes.
I think it was Fiji.
The csa was pleasant and helpful, but seemed to take a while to complete each step.
The call took about 40 minutes all up. At the end she said, completely unprompted, “I‘ve sent the itinerary off to get re-ticketed - this has got CX flights in it and they can get cancelled quickly if it’s not done soon”.
New tickets arrived about 2 hours later.

Its sad to think that the when the system has just worked in the way that it always should, that we’re here opening up the ‘good’ red wine to celebrate our good fortune…

 

[soarer]

Hello all. I had a great trip booked in J for 2023 MEL-DOH-FCO then CDG-HEL then HEL-NRT-MEL. After QR segments droped off I spent hours and hours trying to reinstate the seats I gave up and changed trip to Japan only.

Interesting that I only got my points refund 292k and $1000 CC credit after posting on Twitter as my last resort when I was told I wasn't due anything by call centre in Fiji.

Anyway I am back trying to book a Europe trip for 2024 and preparing by doing some dummy bookings and searches and I have questions.

First thing I noticed was Finnair seats HEL-NRT do not come up ever. All their European reward seats show up on BA site not HEL-NRT
Have Finnair changed their availabilties?

Secondly, I have been looking at QR in that case to get to Europe and return home. Qantas site does not show QR availability at all but seats show up on BA so that is where I am looking.

However BA has 354 days our limit to their search. QR has 361. So there would be seats on QR free but the BA site cannot show. Is there a better site to look for QR seats?

Finally once I find QR seats do I then have to call Qantas to make the booking?

Hope someone can assist.

Good to know there are successfully completed trips.

 

[soarer]

I haven’t tried the Twitter channel, but on a sample size of one today, I rang the regular plebeian 131313 number to replace 2 existing flights with 1 new one in a 4 flight OWCA itinerary (so exactly half of yours…).
The call was answered within a couple of minutes.
I think it was Fiji.
The csa was pleasant and helpful, but seemed to take a while to complete each step.
The call took about 40 minutes all up. At the end she said, completely unprompted, “I‘ve sent the itinerary off to get re-ticketed - this has got CX flights in it and they can get cancelled quickly if it’s not done soon”.
New tickets arrived about 2 hours later.

Its sad to think that the when the system has just worked in the way that it always should, that we’re here opening up the ‘good’ red wine to celebrate our good fortune…

Thanks for sharing. Very happy to see you have been successful with minimum anger and frustration and worry. I booked my original OWA trip online Nov last year, then had to ring and made some changes. J flights were lost and each call seemed to have made it worse until I gave up and told them to cancel the whole trip. Then out of the blue, in January, a Sydney number rang me and normally I would ignore it (usually a scam call). Luckily, I took it and it was John from Hobart.
A BIG SHOUT to John from Hobart. I read elsewhere that John had also helped Steph123. I told him I had won the "lottery" and he said he could fix all my problems so far, mainly to do with re-ticketing.( created by the o/s call centres - my words). Told him I had already cancelled the trip. He said no, he could see the cancellation in the queue and one of the times, I was glad Qantas was slow to action something for once. He cancelled the cancellation, found me some better flights and re-ticketed within a few minutes.

The flights are later in the year and recently some flights became available which would mean I could return to QLD from S.E.Asia with 2 flights instead of 4 flights.
These changes are nice to have but not essential. So I am monitoring this forum to see if the situation has improved with the call centres to give me confidence to make more changes to my OWA booking(without having to win the "lottery").

 

[MEL_Traveller]

What is the point in me typing up a long post on how to do it when the majority will struggle to do it, then ask a load of questions or post that they're struggling to achieve it?

Thanks madrooster!

I guess it’s about giving enough information for those of us so we can go to a TA if we are interested. For example just saying ‘it’s possible for a TA to take advantage of routing rules to add domestic or other segments’ is enough to pique interest, and to follow up if we want to. Acknowledging this isn’t something a non-travel agent can do

Agree lengthy discussions around something we can’t do without access to a TA would be pointless.

 

[SeatBackForward]

To give you a view of the types of things I do for pax:

Can confirm, I am lucky enough to have had @madrooster take care of most of my recent bookings (and by coincidence caught up together in NYC) and the things done beggars belief!

I see it like this - sure you could hack together something yourself with the tools you have and can get from Bunnings compared to getting a professional involved. The professional will look at it from their knowledge, experience, and the superior tools they have at hand and come up with something that is far more effective, and the price paid (albeit not often much in this case) is well worth it.

 

[Daan]

Heya guys been lurking this thread for like half a year now reading everyone's experiences and we managed to book our trip!

It's not ideal and it's all locked in, however, does anyone have any experience with changing flights on the itinerary? We wanted to change one leg in our trip by removing it and adding our new flights but we were quoted 430k Qantas Points for the change (the cost of the classic reward tickets directly). It was still well within the rules of the Oneworld award.

Was there something I could have done to avoid that? Do I need to rebook the whole itinerary?