Oneworld Classic Flight Reward Discussion - The Definitive Thread

[Mattg]

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

Hi, calling experienced travelers for advice and help.

After much research for our 280000 trip, we came to the following plan for traveling from Mid July to early Sept.

PER-DOH-TXL-KRK
KRK-TLS land sector
TLS-MAD-JFK-YVR
YVR-NRT
NRT-KIX land sector
KIX-HKG-BKK
BKK-KUL-PER

Total of 34,200 miles, 5 stopovers and 8 transits, some o/n but within the 24 hrs limit.

Problem is with some of the latter sectors on AA and JL with window of 330 days, I cannot book till end of Sept. Is that leaving it too late?

Should I book earlier with "moved forward dates" and then pay the extra points to change over?

Or any other strategy that might help?

Any help will be appreciated.

I would suggest booking as you said with "moved forward dates" then pay the fee to change the dates when the award seats become available. Then at least you can lock in the rest of the flights. The change fee is relatively reasonable, as long as it's a simple date change.

You might want to check exactly how the change fees are applied though. If you need to change more than one flight, I don't know if the fee is per person, per sector. If so it might be rather expensive.

 

[vetrade]

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

Ozflier, you should be aware that, if travelling as a couple, you can't book mixed class seats on the one ticket. That means that the only way to book one pax into J and the other into Y is for each of you to book your entire award on separate tickets with separate PNRs.

 

[Danger]

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

Hi, calling experienced travelers for advice and help.

After much research for our 280000 trip, we came to the following plan for traveling from Mid July to early Sept.

PER-DOH-TXL-KRK
KRK-TLS land sector
TLS-MAD-JFK-YVR
YVR-NRT
NRT-KIX land sector
KIX-HKG-BKK
BKK-KUL-PER

Total of 34,200 miles, 5 stopovers and 8 transits, some o/n but within the 24 hrs limit.

Problem is with some of the latter sectors on AA and JL with window of 330 days, I cannot book till end of Sept. Is that leaving it too late?

Should I book earlier with "moved forward dates" and then pay the extra points to change over?

Or any other strategy that might help?

Any help will be appreciated.

I would book each flight as it becomes available. This is more proactive but more costly than booking dummy dates to be changed later. In the case of dummy dates, you still need to wait until 11 months out for some flight to become available, whereas others will be available almost 12 months out.

You might want to check exactly how the change fees are applied though. If you need to change more than one flight, I don't know if the fee is per person, per sector. If so it might be rather expensive.

In my experience you can make as many changes as wish for the 3.5k change fee.

 

[Mattg]

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

I would book each flight as it becomes available. This is more proactive but more costly than booking dummy dates to be changed later. In the case of dummy dates, you still need to wait until 11 months out for some flight to become available, whereas others will be available almost 12 months out.

To be eligible for a oneworld award, doesn't it all need to be booked together? I imagine that book separate award flights would be WAY more expensive.

 

[ablecookie]

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

That is a very good idea, thank you .

Does anyone know the seat release days of JJ and IB for South American flights?

 

[ablecookie]

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

To be eligible for a oneworld award, doesn't it all need to be booked together? I imagine that book separate award flights would be WAY more expensive.

BTW, to follow up with Danger's idea, I will book as a oneworld 280k trip returning to base, but missing out the shorter release days sectors. So the changes later on as seats are released is within the rules of 280k booking.

 

[ozflier]

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

Ozflier, you should be aware that, if travelling as a couple, you can't book mixed class seats on the one ticket. That means that the only way to book one pax into J and the other into Y is for each of you to book your entire award on separate tickets with separate PNRs.

Ouch ,

I guess that means that each change made after the original booking would cost 2 x 3500 pts eg if i added extra flights.

 

[ozflier]

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

To be eligible for a oneworld award, doesn't it all need to be booked together? I imagine that book separate award flights would be WAY more expensive.

Sorry to seem ignorant but i thought that

You make the original bookings and then add later as the seats become available - for the cost, of course, of the online booking fee each time.

 

[ablecookie]

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

Sorry to seem ignorant but i thought that

You make the original bookings and then add later as the seats become available - for the cost, of course, of the online booking fee each time.

My idea is to book the oneworld trip in the "354 days" window skipping the JL and AA legs, then add in the JL & AA legs 24 days later to book these "330 days" seats. (Adjusted for actual travel/stays days of course).

 

[vetrade]

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

Ouch ,

I guess that means that each change made after the original booking would cost 2 x 3500 pts eg if i added extra flights.

Yep, that's right.
AA has made J award travel a real PITA for a lot of the sectors they fly because of this frequent problem of only releasing one J award seat. IME it's a miracle if that second J seat becomes available and travelling on different PNRs can have other downsides. Clearly AA's intention seems to be to discourage / block couples travelling for leisure and only accommodate single (business?) travellers. Searching for alternate routes / flights where you can get 2 x J seats can take a lot of time with frustratingly poor success rates. I found it so bad that for a 280K award next year I stopped trying to put together award flights across Nth America (getting even Y seats on direct flights was also a big problem) - we bought those tickets and added a MUC stopover as an alternative so we could max out our OW award entitlement.

 

[sergeyvzn]

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

Yep, that's right.
AA has made J award travel a real PITA for a lot of the sectors they fly because of this frequent problem of only releasing one J award seat. IME it's a miracle if that second J seat becomes available and travelling on different PNRs can have other downsides. Clearly AA's intention seems to be to discourage / block couples travelling for leisure and only accommodate single (business?) travellers. Searching for alternate routes / flights where you can get 2 x J seats can take a lot of time with frustratingly poor success rates. I found it so bad that for a 280K award next year I stopped trying to put together award flights across Nth America (getting even Y seats on direct flights was also a big problem) - we bought those tickets and added a MUC stopover as an alternative so we could max out our OW award entitlement.

AA DO release more J seats down the track. My partner's and mine 280k itinerary (starting tonight, yay! ) included a SFO-JFK sector where only 1 J seat was available on each of their daily A321 transcontinental services so we had to split our booking into 2 separate ones and each were going to travel separately with a 3 hour delay from each other. However, 2 months later a second J seat was released on one of these flights and I quickly changed mine to be on the same flight with my partner. I was monitoring these seats almost daily and that seemed to be the pattern - first only one J seat released, a few months later a second batch would go out

 

[vetrade]

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

My idea is to book the oneworld trip in the "354 days" window skipping the JL and AA legs, then add in the JL & AA legs 24 days later to book these "330 days" seats. (Adjusted for actual travel/stays days of course).

That's a good plan, ablecookie........but be aware that AA awards don't automatically appear at 330 days - quite often they release them at around 300 days. Maybe do some dummy searches for AAdvantage awards for some random dates in the 250 - 330 day bracket to get a feel for when awards are released on the flights you have your eye on.

 

[vetrade]

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

AA DO release more J seats down the track. My partner's and mine 280k itinerary (starting tonight, yay! ) included a SFO-JFK sector where only 1 J seat was available on each of their daily A321 transcontinental services so we had to split our booking into 2 separate ones and each were going to travel separately with a 3 hour delay from each other. However, 2 months later a second J seat was released on one of these flights and I quickly changed mine to be on the same flight with my partner. I was monitoring these seats almost daily and that seemed to be the pattern - first only one J seat released, a few months later a second batch would go out

Good result for you sergeyvzn ..............might not suit couples who don't want to run the risk of not travelling on the same flights though.
Have a great trip.

 

[ablecookie]

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

AA DO release more J seats down the track. My partner's and mine 280k itinerary (starting tonight, yay! ) included a SFO-JFK sector where only 1 J seat was available on each of their daily A321 transcontinental services so we had to split our booking into 2 separate ones and each were going to travel separately with a 3 hour delay from each other. However, 2 months later a second J seat was released on one of these flights and I quickly changed mine to be on the same flight with my partner. I was monitoring these seats almost daily and that seemed to be the pattern - first only one J seat released, a few months later a second batch would go out

Sounds like quite a dazzle, to monitor the system every day!

Looks like AA is a trouble spot. My current plan has only one AA leg, JFK-MIA, quite a frequent flights route as well as a short internal flight. May be there's more availability and should not be a problem for me?

 

[sergeyvzn]

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

Sounds like quite a dazzle, to monitor the system every day!

Looks like AA is a trouble spot. My current plan has only one AA leg, JFK-MIA, quite a frequent flights route as well as a short internal flight. May be there's more availability and should not be a problem for me?

That's all the fun - monitoring and looking at options
Does JFK-MIA even have J? I thought these were only F/Y aircraft doing the route, in this case you'd be booked into Y anyway as F is considered first class (even if it's not really) and this would push the whole itinerary into the 420k bracket

 

[vetrade]

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

That's all the fun - monitoring and looking at options
Does JFK-MIA even have J? I thought these were only F/Y aircraft doing the route, in this case you'd be booked into Y anyway as F is considered first class (even if it's not really) and this would push the whole itinerary into the 420k bracket

Yes, only a few AA domestic sectors have J and JFK - MIA isn't one of them, so it's Y or nothing as sergeyvzn says. The main service which has J (3 classes) is JFK - LAX. AA flights to YVR / YYC from DFW have Y and J but also suffer from the problem of not being able to get 2 J seats on the same flight.

 

[ablecookie]

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

Yes, only a few AA domestic sectors have J and JFK - MIA isn't one of them, so it's Y or nothing as sergeyvzn says. The main service which has J (3 classes) is JFK - LAX. AA flights to YVR / YYC from DFW have Y and J but also suffer from the problem of not being able to get 2 J seats on the same flight.

Not a problem with me for the short 3 hr leg of JFK-MIA in Y, particularly we are non-drinkers. Only going for J since there will be 6 o/night flights in our itinerary.

 

[ozflier]

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

Hi , your advice again please.

re the rule that "only two Transfers may be taken at any one cityin the Itinerary"

I would like my OW award itinerary to involve BNE-SCL, stay less than 24 hours fly onto Easter Island, return to SCL ( no more than 24 hour stay)
fly round South America and then fly back to BNE via SCL. ( the only way out from that continent)

I am guessing that this itinerary would not be legal because there were more than 2 transfers in SCL.

Great to be wrong!

If that itn is not legal , is an option to go to BNE-SCL-Easter Island - SCL ( only destination from Easter in SA) and then fly on another carrier ( ie not part of the OWA itinerary ) from SCL onwards to another port and then continue with the award.

Maybe QFF would not consider this a transfer because it was an open jaw.

I'm clutching at straws here - the alternative if i don't leave via SCL to get back home is to go thru the USA - a much longer route potentially.

Once again , I am very grateful for your consideration.

 

[vetrade]

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

Hi , your advice again please.

re the rule that "only two Transfers may be taken at any one cityin the Itinerary"

I would like my OW award itinerary to involve BNE-SCL, stay less than 24 hours fly onto Easter Island, return to SCL ( no more than 24 hour stay)
fly round South America and then fly back to BNE via SCL. ( the only way out from that continent)

I am guessing that this itinerary would not be legal because there were more than 2 transfers in SCL.

Great to be wrong!

If that itn is not legal , is an option to go to BNE-SCL-Easter Island - SCL ( only destination from Easter in SA) and then fly on another carrier ( ie not part of the OWA itinerary ) from SCL onwards to another port and then continue with the award.

Maybe QFF would not consider this a transfer because it was an open jaw.

I'm clutching at straws here - the alternative if i don't leave via SCL to get back home is to go thru the USA - a much longer route potentially.

Once again , I am very grateful for your consideration.

You are allowed a stopover as well as 2 transits in any one city so all you need to do is have one stop in SCL of more than 24 hrs and you're good. Awards in that neck of the woods are v. hard to come by though.

 

[ozflier]

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

I see what you are saying -thank you .

I can see how hard they are to come by.

I can see that I will have to call in many times to add to the itn and pay the points,

I do see it as a challenge as well.

My other query is if all the component LANs are regarded as individual entities when determining whether you flew on at least 2 OW carriers other than QF

Most of the flights I would use in SA are LAN Peru , LAN Chile, LAN Argentina etc .

May have to use AA ( rarely > 1 J award seat) and or TAM (but I cannot find any online way of checking if they have award seats available - maybe only available by calling QFF)

Ta for your prompt reply.