Oneworld Classic Flight Reward Discussion - The Definitive Thread

[Saintza]

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

Has anyone had any trouble with JL availability not appearing for Qantas staff? JL Y flights from NRT to YVR are showing up for a bunch of dates around May 10 - May 12 on the BA site and also the JL site (using Award Nexus) but when I phoned up Qantas to book they said they didn't see any of those awards available. Is there a way to find out which system is incorrect?

Scrap that, got an operator who knew what the hell they were doing and the flights are available.

 

[Henk]

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

Thanks Vetrade. Have just booked my first flight SYD-SFO on 1/7/16. Have also played a little with the QF booking website and am perhaps a little wiser:mrgreen:. I think, I now can be more accurate about my plans.

There seems to be a possibility to book a SFA-YVR in J and YVR-ORD. So I am now looking at the following dates:

SYD-SFO - 1/7/16 (booked!)
SFO-YVR - 5/7/16 (+- 1 day)
YVR-ORD - 8/7/16 (+1 day)
ORD-DUS - 13/7/16 (+- 1 day)
DUS-SYD - 3/10/16 (+-3 days)
In was looking at the flights DUS-WAW but the QF showed only flights on BA. Isn't Air Berlin part of OW? They seem to be unavailable on the QF website.

How realistic is the above itinerary? Thanks!

 

[Ken1]

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

Would not even contemplate the 12:55 flight - not enough margin for hold ups and you are relying on everything going smoothly. What if there's bad weather and the boat can't dock on time? Murphy's Law has a habit of biting people on the backside in such circumstances. As a general comment I think an allowance of around 12 hours for ship to flight (or, even better, an over-nighter) is a good rule-of-thumb. I would expect that there will be customs formalities after you disembark, travel time to the airport and don't forget the checkin time at the airport.

You won't be cut any slack if you notify the airline - they will accommodate you if they change/cancel a flight but if you miss the flight for any reason you're "history". The OW RTW rules state "no changes to your itinerary allowed after the first flight departs" - and that would apply to you. The reality is that there is no guarantee that a seat will be available on the next flight at the last minute........and they will not want to find an alternative for you if it's your fault you're not on the flight you have booked.

It sounds like you intend having quite a long trip anyway so I'd eliminate all the risk as far as is possible by spending a night in London and flying to ZRH the next day.

Thanks for your advice Vetrade. I'll discuss it with my wife but we'll either book the 15:50 or stay overnight in London as you suggested and fly out early the next morning. If we decide to book the 15:50 flight it may be worth using the extra points and not making it part of the 280K award PNR so if there was a problem with making that flight it would not affect the later flights in our itinerary.

 

[vetrade]

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

Thanks Vetrade. Have just booked my first flight SYD-SFO on 1/7/16. Have also played a little with the QF booking website and am perhaps a little wiser:mrgreen:. I think, I now can be more accurate about my plans.

There seems to be a possibility to book a SFA-YVR in J and YVR-ORD. So I am now looking at the following dates:

SYD-SFO - 1/7/16 (booked!)
SFO-YVR - 5/7/16 (+- 1 day)
YVR-ORD - 8/7/16 (+1 day)
ORD-DUS - 13/7/16 (+- 1 day)
DUS-SYD - 3/10/16 (+-3 days)
In was looking at the flights DUS-WAW but the QF showed only flights on BA. Isn't Air Berlin part of OW? They seem to be unavailable on the QF website.

How realistic is the above itinerary? Thanks!

Henk,
That itinerary is going to cause you problems. YVR is a bit tricky to get to (and out of) flying OW. I just did a RTW 280K 2 months ago which included YVR so my experience is recent. I flew from NY to YVR with CX (easy to get J) but the options to get to SFO or LAX (i.e. anywhere on the west coast) from YVR are very limited. I eventually gave up and paid for flights with Westjet. You will face the same problem but in the reverse direction.

Firstly there’s no direct flight from SFO – YVR; you’d need to fly via LAX or PHX but good luck getting even Y seats on any of those flights. Sometimes you will find that AA only has (very) few award Y seats on particular routes on 2 or 3 days a week. A lot of main routes are near impossible to get awards on nowadays. To get awards on many routes now they force people to fly long detours and often with long transit times. I think they have set out to make it as difficult as possible unless you have top tier status with them. To give you an idea of how difficult AA have made it, I have used AA a lot in the past but I couldn’t get a single AA flight to work on our last trip.

You might have luck if you’re prepared to fly to YVR via DFW – but this is the long way around.

YVR – ORD will be another problem for you – there’s no direct OW flights on that route and indirect options are very indirect.

Now the good news: there are direct flights on AA from ORD to DUS.

For DUS – WAW the only option is to fly via TXL with Air Berlin – there are no direct flights. The same would apply to CGN – WAW (but CGN is hard to get to from the US). I don’t know what award availability would be like for Air Berlin. Never flown with them. Maybe ring QF and get them to check availability for a random date next year - that won't cost you anything.

Getting back to Oz you have several options. CX has a direct flight from DUS to HKG – you might find that to get a CX flight to SYD from HKG you might need to stay at least one night in HKG – plenty of CX flights will show J availability but if you try to book 2 connecting flights transiting through HKG they often block the combination unless you have a stopover there. QF is the other option from HKG – SYD.

Then there’s the option of transiting through LHR and DXB from DUS.

 

[Saintza]

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

Just booked a couple of economy RTW awards over the weekend - had to phone up because I was getting multiple errors on the site (the kind lady on the phone waived the booking fee because of this) and also because we ended up using JL for a flight.


2 people in Y, taxes were only $687 each.


QF - BNE-NRT (Stop)
JL - NRT-YVR (Stop)
AA - YYC-DFW-YUL (Stop)
AA/AB - YYZ-JFK-DUS (Stop)
AB - DUS-SZG (Stop)
QR/QF - VIE-DOH-PER-BNE


A bunch of open jaws with some fun train trips included in the mix and a bit of driving from DUS to Belgium. Thanks to everyone who's helped and posted in the thread - lots of great info which made it all possible!

 

[jveevers]

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

Does QF still do the RTW using FF points? I researched last year and it was 140000 for Economy PER-DXB-LHR-YFK-HNL-PER
I cannot see now where this can be booked and no info as to what points required now are, if indeed, you can still do this type of reward booking.

 

[snabbu]

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

Does QF still do the RTW using FF points? I researched last year and it was 140000 for Economy PER-DXB-LHR-YFK-HNL-PER
I cannot see now where this can be booked and no info as to what points required now are, if indeed, you can still do this type of reward booking.

That is exactly what this thread is about. Start by building a multi city on the QF website and once you reach 140,000 points the rest of your segments will not increase the point requirement, as long as you meet the other rules.

Have a good read through it and most of your questions will be answered.

 

[jveevers]

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

That is exactly what this thread is about. Start by building a multi city on the QF website and once you reach 140,000 points the rest of your segments will not increase the point requirement, as long as you meet the other rules.

Have a good read through it and most of your questions will be answered.

Thanks snabbu.... That is what I did, I logged into my FF and then starting building an itinerary on the oneworld but at the end it just came up with a $ total, over $6000- and no mention of points. That is why I was asking if QF still had RTW as a points redemption.

 

[snabbu]

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

Thanks snabbu.... That is what I did, I logged into my FF and then starting building an itinerary on the oneworld but at the end it just came up with a $ total, over $6000- and no mention of points. That is why I was asking if QF still had RTW as a points redemption.

Login to your QF account.
Click Multi City (Not round the world)


Start building your itin, making sure "Search Classic Awards" at the bottom left is ticked.

 

[Youfah Mizzum]

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

Thanks snabbu.... That is what I did, I logged into my FF and then starting building an itinerary on the oneworld but at the end it just came up with a $ total, over $6000- and no mention of points. That is why I was asking if QF still had RTW as a points redemption.

I have the same question in reverse.

Whilst this thread is immense help in thrashing out the various options for RTW on points, I thought there was also an equivalent fixed figure in dollars for a OneWorld Explorer or other RTW package, so long as all the rules are complied with. For some reason I thought it was $3,500 (Y). I have spent several hours searching for the answer but it always depends on the itinerary. As an example is jveevers itin totalling around $6,000. I just thought there was a cap once you have reached the rule compliance - in the same way there is a 140K cap when sussing out the same using points.

Am I wrong? It would mean that using points on RTW can be variably valuable depending on the itin - it doesn't seem to make sense to me.

 

[snabbu]

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

I have the same question in reverse.

Whilst this thread is immense help in thrashing out the various options for RTW on points, I thought there was also an equivalent fixed figure in dollars for a OneWorld Explorer or other RTW package, so long as all the rules are complied with. For some reason I thought it was $3,500 (Y). I have spent several hours searching for the answer but it always depends on the itinerary. As an example is jveevers itin totalling around $6,000. I just thought there was a cap once you have reached the rule compliance - in the same way there is a 140K cap when sussing out the same using points.

Am I wrong? It would mean that using points on RTW can be variably valuable depending on the itin - it doesn't seem to make sense to me.

You might be thinking of the xONEx fares.

serfty explains it quite well in this post.

http://www.australianfrequentflyer....t-donex-done4-done3-how-12713.html#post165097

 

[Danger]

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

I have the same question in reverse.

Whilst this thread is immense help in thrashing out the various options for RTW on points, I thought there was also an equivalent fixed figure in dollars for a OneWorld Explorer or other RTW package, so long as all the rules are complied with. For some reason I thought it was $3,500 (Y). I have spent several hours searching for the answer but it always depends on the itinerary. As an example is jveevers itin totalling around $6,000. I just thought there was a cap once you have reached the rule compliance - in the same way there is a 140K cap when sussing out the same using points.

Am I wrong? It would mean that using points on RTW can be variably valuable depending on the itin - it doesn't seem to make sense to me.

As snabbu notes, it sounds like you're referring to the oneworld Explorer fares.

The price is indeed capped (excluding taxes which are obviously variable). Right now a LONE4 (a four continent oneworld Explorer fare in Economy) is AUD3899, plus applicable taxes.

 

[Youfah Mizzum]

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

You might be thinking of the xONEx fares.

Yes, that'd be it.

There is much opinion on the best way to use points & the general consensus is that Classic Upgrade Awards are generally good value, so paying for Y and using points to get J.
Does that rule (I use that word in the loosest meaning) apply when doing RTW flights, so instead of 280,000 for J, can I buy a LONE* and use 140,000 points to upg to J?

As a side query only remotely relevant to this thread, I had assumed that J is generally 2 x Y whether it be for cash or points. So assuming SYD to LHR return in Y is around $1800 return (I just did a quick search on the Q site) and the points for same is 128,000 I thought I could upg with 128,000 to J. In actual fact it seems the classic upgrade award is 96,000 one way, so 192,000 total. Is my 2 x Y = J assumption completely false? It does seem to be wrong as I just modified my search to show Business, it went from $1800 to $9,000!! Heck! Now I see why the consensus on using points is to upg to J!

I guess I got that theory by this very thread. Seems that 280,000 is an excellent use of points. Just wish I had enough in the points bank for my family of 4!

 

[Youfah Mizzum]

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

The price is indeed capped (excluding taxes which are obviously variable). Right now a LONE4 (a four continent oneworld Explorer fare in Economy) is AUD3899, plus applicable taxes.

Man, that information is really hard to find, so really appreciate the answer. No joke I reckon I have wasted 4 hours of my life looking for that information. I am going to estimate around the $1400 mark for taxes based on my various trial itineraries on the OW site. $3899 - must remember that.
Thx so much Danger.

 

[FrankC]

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

... Seems that 280,000 is an excellent use of points. Just wish I had enough in the points bank for my family of 4!

Even if you have enough points, not sure you will ever find 4 J seats on the same plane for all the flights you want

 

[Danger]

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

Man, that information is really hard to find, so really appreciate the answer. No joke I reckon I have wasted 4 hours of my life looking for that information. I am going to estimate around the $1400 mark for taxes based on my various trial itineraries on the OW site. $3899 - must remember that.
Thx so much Danger.

I should've added that the information is from ExpertFlyer and that cost is based on an itinerary ex-Australia.

 

[prozac]

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

This is it on the Qantas site - Round the World Ticket | Student Flights and Trips | Qantas

 

[jveevers]

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

Login to your QF account.
Click Multi City (Not round the world)
View attachment 52510

Start building your itin, making sure "Search Classic Awards" at the bottom left is ticked.

View attachment 52511

Thanks snabbu, that is where I went wrong. I was working on "Round the World" instead of "Multi city".
When I was researching last year I had no trouble, maybe I lost a few brain cells in 12 months haha

 

[snabbu]

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

Yes, that'd be it.

There is much opinion on the best way to use points & the general consensus is that Classic Upgrade Awards are generally good value, so paying for Y and using points to get J.
Does that rule (I use that word in the loosest meaning) apply when doing RTW flights, so instead of 280,000 for J, can I buy a LONE* and use 140,000 points to upg to J?

It doesn't work like that.

As a side query only remotely relevant to this thread, I had assumed that J is generally 2 x Y whether it be for cash or points.

As a super generalization I'd say it's more like 3 times Y.

So assuming SYD to LHR return in Y is around $1800 return (I just did a quick search on the Q site) and the points for same is 128,000 I thought I could upg with 128,000 to J. In actual fact it seems the classic upgrade award is 96,000 one way, so 192,000 total. Is my 2 x Y = J assumption completely false?

Yep. The amount of points is costs to upgrade depends on many things, ie: the fare bucket your paid Y ticket sits in, the length of the flight, etc. Also many Y fares you might purchase are ineligible for points upgrades. Even if you purchase a fare that is illegible for a points upgrade there is then a pecking order as to who gets the upgrade based on status, fare bucket, etc.

It does seem to be wrong as I just modified my search to show Business, it went from $1800 to $9,000!! Heck! Now I see why the consensus on using points is to upg to J!

I guess I got that theory by this very thread. Seems that 280,000 is an excellent use of points. Just wish I had enough in the points bank for my family of 4!

Keep at it.

 

[Danger]

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

This is it on the Qantas site - Round the World Ticket | Student Flights and Trips | Qantas

That page isn't for the oneworld Explorer fare. Those fares quoted on the QF website are extortionate, even in comparison to an already pricey LONE4 departing Australia.

Thanks snabbu, that is where I went wrong. I was working on "Round the World" instead of "Multi city".
When I was researching last year I had no trouble, maybe I lost a few brain cells in 12 months haha

To book a oneworld Explorer fare I think you'd need to phone Qantas or book through the oneworld website; I don't think it can be done over the phone, even using the multi-city function.