Oneworld Classic Flight Reward Discussion - The Definitive Thread

[vetrade]

re: "oneworld" award (140K/280K/420K) Planning - The Definitive Thread

One more thing... is there a mileage calculator that you recommend? The one I used is OK but I've had to enter city by city and it's a little laborious. cheers
Dave

Dave,
Happy to help - the futures markets are doing nothing lately so I'm in front of the 'puter with lots of spare time!
I don't think there's any alternative to working out the distances one by one. I use the OW interactive planner because I know their distances will be the same as what QF uses when doing their calculations. Any search you do for flights between 2 cities automatically shows up the OW airline/s flying that route and the distance. To minimise repetition I have progressively built up an Excel spreadsheet with lots of readily accessible info about distances, flight times etc. which saves me a lot of time.
If you experiment with your routes and maybe even the order in which you do your stop-overs I'm sure you will be able to find some distance savings to get an extra stopover in. As an example you could save about 600km by flying SYD - LAX - PHX - MEX instead of SYD - DFW - MEX - sure it's a bit longer trip but not significant in the overall context of the length of your intended time away. Also, flying direct from LIM - JFK with LAN rather than via DFW would save you about 1750km. So you can see it wouldn't be hard to find room to add a side trip to CUN between MEX and LIM. Another option worth looking at (dependent on your personal preferences) might be to go to BUD before CAI i.e. fly NY - LHR - BUD and then make your way to CAI and on to HKG. That might save some km too.

 

[serfty]

re: "oneworld" award (140K/280K/420K) Planning - The Definitive Thread

One more thing... is there a mileage calculator that you recommend? The one I used is OK but I've had to enter city by city and it's a little laborious.

cheers
Dave

I use Great Circle Mapper where you can just put in the route using airport codes.

e.g. MEL-SYD-DFW-MEX-LIM-DFW-NYC-LHR-CAI-BUD-HEL-HKG-MEL

Note that I put the land segments between MEX and LIM and CAI and BUS in as sectors as they do count toward the total distance.

 

[djmalc]

re: "oneworld" award (140K/280K/420K) Planning - The Definitive Thread

Brilliant! Looks like those 2 suggestions make a world of difference... allowing me that 5th Stop - also as mentioned by another forum member, since the miles are calculated even if you do it as a land segment it would make sense to fly to Mexico City to Lima anyway (or maybe surface to Cancun or Guatemala City and then onto Lima). For the Budapest stop-over what I haven't mentioned is that from Cairo I'm actually going to use separate low-cost flights (if I can get them) or surface travel to Turkey, Italy, England and then Budapest - I'm going to try a little re-jigging to see if I can mix that up a little! I've tried to use the Award flights for all the longest flights. Your spreadsheet sounds like a highly marketable item BTW ;-)
cheers, thanks again and... may the Futures market pick up for you!
Dave

 

[djmalc]

re: "oneworld" award (140K/280K/420K) Planning - The Definitive Thread

thanks serfty that looks like just what I need. I'll compare with vetrade's suggestion too - oneworld interactive planner

 

[JohnK]

re: "oneworld" award (140K/280K/420K) Planning - The Definitive Thread

Brilliant! Looks like those 2 suggestions make a world of difference... allowing me that 5th Stop - also as mentioned by another forum member, since the miles are calculated even if you do it as a land segment it would make sense to fly to Mexico City to Lima anyway (or maybe surface to Cancun or Guatemala City and then onto Lima). For the Budapest stop-over what I haven't mentioned is that from Cairo I'm actually going to use separate low-cost flights (if I can get them) or surface travel to Turkey, Italy, England and then Budapest - I'm going to try a little re-jigging to see if I can mix that up a little! I've tried to use the Award flights for all the longest flights. Your spreadsheet sounds like a highly marketable item BTW ;-)

Your original itinerary with MEX-LIM surface sector comes to ~34,700 miles.

A surface sector MEX-CUN and then a flight CUN-LIM gets you over 35,000 miles.

 

[djmalc]

re: "oneworld" award (140K/280K/420K) Planning - The Definitive Thread

vetrade... sadly my initial enthusiasm has faded because I can't seem to find a flight for SYD - LAX - PHX - MEX anytime in February. I also can't find a direct flight from mexico City to Lima - as johnk pointed out - surface travel to Cancun and then flight from Cancun to Lima puts me over the mileage limit. I also can't seem to find a direct LAN flight from LIM - JFK in my March time frame.

Ideally I'd actually prefer my first flight to be SYD (or MEL) to LIM (I only chose Mexico City as that was the only flight I could find as an Award) and then move up to Central America but can't seem to find any flights that do that. There is one to Santiago but no flight from there to Lima other than via Brazil (which uses even more miles).

I've read a few posts saying that if one calls the Qantas Booking line and pays the 3500 points that they have access to more flights - is that true? Now that I've done a lot of fiddling around withj the 5 stop multi-city award flight I have some idea what to ask the booking people. So maybe that's the best option?

thanks again vetrade or anyone else with advice - much appreciated.
cheers
Dave

 

[aikman]

re: "oneworld" award (140K/280K/420K) Planning - The Definitive Thread

vetrade... sadly my initial enthusiasm has faded because I can't seem to find a flight for SYD - LAX - PHX - MEX anytime in February. I also can't find a direct flight from mexico City to Lima - as johnk pointed out - surface travel to Cancun and then flight from Cancun to Lima puts me over the mileage limit. I also can't seem to find a direct LAN flight from LIM - JFK in my March time frame.

Ideally I'd actually prefer my first flight to be SYD (or MEL) to LIM (I only chose Mexico City as that was the only flight I could find as an Award) and then move up to Central America but can't seem to find any flights that do that. There is one to Santiago but no flight from there to Lima other than via Brazil (which uses even more miles).

I've read a few posts saying that if one calls the Qantas Booking line and pays the 3500 points that they have access to more flights - is that true? Now that I've done a lot of fiddling around withj the 5 stop multi-city award flight I have some idea what to ask the booking people. So maybe that's the best option?

thanks again vetrade or anyone else with advice - much appreciated.
cheers
Dave

There's award seats available on LAN for LAX-LIM on Feb 2,3,4,9,10,11 which connects nicely from QF's MEL-LAX flight. These LAN flights do not show up online so you will have to call to book at a cost of 6,000 points which is the award phone booking fee. A MEL-LAX-LIM routing only saves you around 500 miles compared to your current routing but it's another option for you to choose from.

 

[djmalc]

re: "oneworld" award (140K/280K/420K) Planning - The Definitive Thread

Thanks vetrade... since the lax lim flights don't show up online how can you see them? is there perhaps a syd - santiago flight and then santiago lima? cheers Dave

 

[nickfromeastryde]

re: "oneworld" award (140K/280K/420K) Planning - The Definitive Thread

Thanks vetrade... since the lax lim flights don't show up online how can you see them?  is there perhaps a syd - santiago flight and then santiago lima? cheers Dave

Seeing as you think you have your intinery right why don't you go ahead and phone up. The point charge is only applied when you actually make the booking but before then the operator should be able to see all the options that you cannot see online. If you don't proceed, then no charge

 

[djmalc]

re: "oneworld" award (140K/280K/420K) Planning - The Definitive Thread

yep i think you're right - still got to wait on one confirmation for a tour I'm booking (and official approval of my six month "career break"!) and then I'll be ready to book. I didn't realise that there was no charge if you don't proceed (that must be annoying for the booking people!) - that was one reason I was dragging my feet. cheers Dave

 

[burnt]

re: "oneworld" award (140K/280K/420K) Planning - The Definitive Thread

Requesting answer or valued opinion:If a O/W 280 trip was STARTED in AKL then to SCL, would QF 322 which is SCL to SYD (via AKL, with same flight all the way), violate the rule of returning to country of origin or be OK as it is a tech stop or transit ( ie not entering the country) and then continuing on from SYD to other destinations. From a rules point of view, this comes down to what the definition of returning to country of origin means?
This is a unique situation maybe,?

 

[ablecookie]

re: "oneworld" award (140K/280K/420K) Planning - The Definitive Thread

Have not posted for a long time.

Planning our last trip before old age catches up on us!

Have saved up 560,000 points over the years, not many from flights, so have not status credit, therefore realise need to book early.

Here is our plan:-

PER - HKG CX 3755 mile transit 10-08-15
HKG - KIX CX 1541 11-08-15
KIX - NRT land 305
NRT - YVR AA 4668 17-08-15
YVR - DFW AA 1754 transit 23-08-15
DFW - MIA AA 1121 transit 23-08-15
MIA - BSB JJ 3613 23-08-15
BSB - RIO JJ 569 transit 27-08-15
RIO - MAD IB 5069 transit 28-08-15
MAD - TLS IB 334 29-08-15
TLS - WAW land 1079
WAW - DOH QR 2453 transit 15-09-15
DOH - BKK QR 3287 16-09-15
BKK - HKG CX 1051 transit 21-09-15
HKG - PER CX 3755 21-09-15

Any advice?

What is my chance of getting the dates, I have some flexibility but not much as Tokyo and Bangkok are more or less locked it.

No issue of downgrading except for o/n legs to HKG, YVR, BSB & BKK.:?:

 

[burnt]

re: "oneworld" award (140K/280K/420K) Planning - The Definitive Thread

Just answered my own question, rang QF and posed the question, they loaded a sample itin. and presto, it was VALIDATED, then tested the booking system by changing the flight to SYD to another flight number, and it became an illegal booking, so no problem in "hitting" the country of departure but making sure you leave on the same flight number that you arrived on.

 

[vetrade]

re: "oneworld" award (140K/280K/420K) Planning - The Definitive Thread

Thanks vetrade... since the lax lim flights don't show up online how can you see them?  is there perhaps a syd - santiago flight and then santiago lima? cheers Dave

Actually that was aikman's excellent suggestion, Dave................but check out aa.com for "MileSAAver" Y fares (the usa site, not aa.com.au) - I just had a quick look and AA availability for LAX - LIM looks to be much better than is usually available for a lot of AA flights.

South American travel is notoriously hard to find award seats for and the QF website doesn’t show up availability on LAN flights. Suggest you use one of the methods of searching for availability like ba.com or ring the QF call centre and get someone to look up availability for you so you can try and put together an itinerary that works – info is free so it won’t cost you anything until you book with them. Initially maybe just ask if there’s availability on a direct LIM –JFK flight – if you can get that then you can forget about the LAX – PHX option to MEX and stick with your original DFW plan. Accept that you won’t be able to locate all the flights online and that you will have to book over the phone and pay the fee – no avoiding that I’m afraid, as others have said already.
Much better if you have a variety of game plans in mind so that you can demonstrate to the operator that you’ve made an effort yourself – there’s a limit to their patience (and degree of effort) if you ring up unprepared.

Of, course it may transpire that there is no award availability for some flights within your time constraints – if that’s the case you’ll just have to sort something else out. Personally I have long given up on getting to Sth America on a OW award – but I only ever travel J these days so I don’t really know what your chances are if trying to get a Y seat. Certainly I think your chances of getting into, and out of, Sth Am. via the US are far better than trying to get seats flying direct from Aus. where seats seem to be just non-existent.

 

[vetrade]

re: "oneworld" award (140K/280K/420K) Planning - The Definitive Thread

Have not posted for a long time.

Planning our last trip before old age catches up on us!

Have saved up 560,000 points over the years, not many from flights, so have not status credit, therefore realise need to book early.

Here is our plan:-

PER - HKG CX 3755 mile transit 10-08-15
HKG - KIX CX 1541 11-08-15
KIX - NRT land 305
NRT - YVR AA 4668 17-08-15
YVR - DFW AA 1754 transit 23-08-15
DFW - MIA AA 1121 transit 23-08-15
MIA - BSB JJ 3613 23-08-15
BSB - RIO JJ 569 transit 27-08-15
RIO - MAD IB 5069 transit 28-08-15
MAD - TLS IB 334 29-08-15
TLS - WAW land 1079
WAW - DOH QR 2453 transit 15-09-15
DOH - BKK QR 3287 16-09-15
BKK - HKG CX 1051 transit 21-09-15
HKG - PER CX 3755 21-09-15

Any advice?

What is my chance of getting the dates, I have some flexibility but not much as Tokyo and Bangkok are more or less locked it.

No issue of downgrading except for o/n legs to HKG, YVR, BSB & BKK.:?:

Hi ablecookie,

Generally CX, QR and IB are good for getting J seat availability so I’d anticipate all the legs flying with these airlines should be available if you book early enough with one qualification being that the MAD – TLS flight would be with IB affiliate, Air Nostrum, and I don’t know anything about what their availability is usually like. Also CX sometimes shows award availability for 2 of their connecting flights if you search for them individually, but when you try and book them as connecting flights it can be blocked. Would probably pay to ring QF to check if this might apply to your CX connections.

Since the start of this year AA availability has declined significantly (it seems to be a quite deliberate strategy to make award redemptions on their flights a lot harder except for people prepared to pay a premium for ASA seats) so it’s now much harder to get the equivalent of classic award seats. The changes they have made include only making one J seat available on flights such as YVR – DFW and only having award availability on one or two days a week on certain routes (which can play havoc with trying to sort out connections).

Plus AA can be very erratic in when they release award seats, if at all, - i.e. you can’t rely on them releasing seats at 330 days as people expect them to. You can search for AA award availability at aa.com (watch you don’t get re-directed to their Australian site, aa.com.au – google “aa usa”) – tick the “redeem miles” box and look for Y or J “MileSAAver” awards.
Remember that AA doesn’t have any J class from DFW – MIA so Y seats will be the best you can get on that. Also AA doesn’t actually fly NRT – YVR – this would be a codeshare JAL flight – but J availability should still show up at aa.com

JJ haven’t been a OW airline for long so don’t know what their availability is like (or when they release their award seats) but generally South American awards can be difficult to find so it might be worth a call to get QF to check what availability is like for the routes you have in mind.

 

[hossein_au]

re: "oneworld" award (140K/280K/420K) Planning - The Definitive Thread

Since the start of this year AA availability has declined significantly (it seems to be a quite deliberate strategy to make award redemptions on their flights a lot harder except for people prepared to pay a premium for ASA seats) so it’s now much harder to get the equivalent of classic award seats.

Could some kind soul point me to some explanation of ASA versus Classic Awards on AA? I'm quite familiar with the concept on QF--bummer it has ended :-(

 

[vetrade]

re: "oneworld" award (140K/280K/420K) Planning - The Definitive Thread

Could some kind soul point me to some explanation of ASA versus Classic Awards on AA? I'm quite familiar with the concept on QF--bummer it has ended :-(

AA have MileSAAver awards which are equivalent to QF's classic awards. They also have AAnytime awards which equate to the ASA's. Both award types are available for Y, J and F classes (but most domestic flights only have Y and F though). AAnytime awards are available on more days and more flights each day than MileSAAvers. A more recent "enhancement" has been that now often the only MileSAAver awards available are for indirect flights i.e. you may want to fly LAS to LAX but the only MileSAAvers awards might be for LAS - PHX (or even DFW!!) - LAX.
All 6 AA award options (Y, J, F x MileSAAver or AAnytime) show up on the one screen if you do a "redeem miles" search at aa.com

 

[Danger]

re: "oneworld" award (140K/280K/420K) Planning - The Definitive Thread

Burnt, note you will need a fair wad more than 560k for two passengers in J for your itinerary. Each time you make a change QF kicks you in the guts and slugs you 3.5k per passenger. Perhaps the number one piece of advice when booking these awards is to book them as soon as you find them; that is, don't wait for other airlines to release their award space in latter days. As pointed out, not all airlines release their seats at the same time. In my most recent example, I booked A-B-E-F on on occasion when the seats became available but had to wait a couple of more weeks for AA to release the C-D flights. When they became available I added them in - at a cost of 3.5k per passenger.

AA have MileSAAver awards which are equivalent to QF's classic awards. They also have AAnytime awards which equate to the ASA's. Both award types are available for Y, J and F classes (but most domestic flights only have Y and F though). AAnytime awards are available on more days and more flights each day than MileSAAvers. A more recent "enhancement" has been that now often the only MileSAAver awards available are for indirect flights i.e. you may want to fly LAS to LAX but the only MileSAAvers awards might be for LAS - PHX (or even DFW!!) - LAX.
All 6 AA award options (Y, J, F x MileSAAver or AAnytime) show up on the one screen if you do a "redeem miles" search at aa.com

Further to this, note that only MileSAAver award seats are available for redemption on this QF oneworld award product.

 

[hossein_au]

re: "oneworld" award (140K/280K/420K) Planning - The Definitive Thread

AA have MileSAAver awards which are equivalent to QF's classic awards. They also have AAnytime awards which equate to the ASA's. Both award types are available for Y, J and F classes (but most domestic flights only have Y and F though). AAnytime awards are available on more days and more flights each day than MileSAAvers. A more recent "enhancement" has been that now often the only MileSAAver awards available are for indirect flights i.e. you may want to fly LAS to LAX but the only MileSAAvers awards might be for LAS - PHX (or even DFW!!) - LAX.
All 6 AA award options (Y, J, F x MileSAAver or AAnytime) show up on the one screen if you do a "redeem miles" search at aa.com

Cheers! (Am I correct in assuming AAnytime would earn both miles and EQM?)

 

[ablecookie]

re: "oneworld" award (140K/280K/420K) Planning - The Definitive Thread

Thanks Vetrade, much appreciated.

Your pointers are very helpful. Just had a look at aa.com and sure gives me some idea of availability, etc. Looks like generally midweek has more seats, so have somewhat flexible with dates. AA seems to fit the 330 release date quite well with 1-July seats showing up.

Will be jumping on board to book on 29-Sept!