Feel like I had a similar issue finalising my 3rd OWA itinerary a few weeks ago. Had booked the first leg and called to add flights.This happened to me when I added flights onto an existing booking which would change the existing booking into a OWA and thus the points would be capped at 318K.
The agent was told this when he checked to see that the flights were available and confirmed that the total points would be 318K .
He added the flights then came back to me to say that the system said I didn't have enough points and asked if I had I just added some that hadn't cleared or something. I said I had sufficient points to cover the 318K cap - could he please check again bearing in mind the points cost of the individual sectors was irrelevant when I was constructing a OWA which this booking would, when completed, be.
He went away again and came back to say it had been booked successfully - I'm not sure if he spoke to a manager, but he managed to work it out. So it sounded to me like their systems aren't that great (as well as possibly their training - but we've all already established previous that they they do not have adequate training).
Managed to successfully add multiple flights to the PNR (including adding two long haul WP seat release flights) .....and was told the total booking cost was only going to be 280,000 points per person. I actually said that cannot be right, given the amount of flights, but the agent in Fiji insisted and so I proceeded, thinking in the end I'd just be deducted the 318K.
Got a call back from the same agent about 3 hours later saying, of course, she had been wrong about the 280K total, but that actually the total points was going to be something like 430,000 points per person. She aruged the point but I stood my ground and insisted she check again with her supervisors. We ended the call and an hour later, another call back to say I'd been right and that it was only 318K per person. Ticketed within 10 minutes of that call. She got me stressed for a while but it all worked out in the end!
Last edited: