Oneworld Classic Flight Reward Discussion - The Definitive Thread

[hutch]

Fair enough fair enough. I'd probably would have routed through Madrid on Iberia and taken a Y domestic AA flight... but that's just probably showing my prejuidice for BA's J product and my desire to avoid their fees (if their product was world class, then it be a different story... just can't quite get over an airline charging to choose J seats).

 

[SOPOOR]

Your statement is exactly spot. Who you fly, what class you fly and where you depart will impact on your tax/fees.

There is no way to pay nothing. Flying Cathay, AA, IB will minimize tax...not departing the UK after a stop-over (transits -less than 24hrs aren't slugged the higher charge) will also keep in down.

However, for me, part of flying J is the experience. So paying slightly higher taxes to fly QR and use the lounge at DOH is worth it. The high charges by BA are stupid as their J class is pretty average from all accounts.

ok thanks so Cathay, AA and IB will redue tax, not departing UK, sounds good,

so realistically if I were to get the cheapest fees for say AUS to EU TO USA and back what would you guys recommend

what do you guys do for getting best deals out of Business class for 280k

 

[hutch]

I recommend flying to a destination you wish to visit on an airline you think you'll enjoy flying! Off the above suggestion, you could do AUS-HKG (cathay), HKG-EU (cathay), EU-USA (Iberia) and USA-AUS (AA) or (via HKG, Cathay), (via Tokyo, JAL)... the process will be a lot easier if you post an itinerary. Members can then provide suggestions to help.

 

[roomer]

I recommend flying to a destination you wish to visit on an airline you think you'll enjoy flying! Off the above suggestion, you could do AUS-HKG (cathay), HKG-EU (cathay), EU-USA (Iberia) and USA-AUS (AA) or (via HKG, Cathay), (via Tokyo, JAL)... the process will be a lot easier if you post an itinerary. Members can then provide suggestions to help.

Ive not flown business before let alone with BA, but you now have me worried regarding my CDG-LHR-IAH booking with BA that I added to my award trip this morning. Try as might, I couldn't see any viable trips flying AA unless I wanted to increase my journey time by 50%. You mentioned flying economy to Madrid from Paris and thence to the USA. I looked at departing from Barcelona but it still routed me via LHR. ( by the way , I am getting to EU in the manner you have described). In the same vein, getting home ADL seems to be only to be by flying Qatar via Doha - a big trip. Again, I could not see any other way to get from IAH to ADL other than thus route . ( I'm going to book that next week). Appreciate any tips you might have on any alternate trips flying business 280k

PS I thought you had to go in the one direction ie in your example you are going to HKG, I didn't think you could go to the same place twice?

 

[hutch]

A common misconception. This is not a RTW award, rather a one world award which allows 35000miles of travel. Travel where you wish.

You can only stop in a city once, you can also transit it though (twice if I recall correctly)

They way you are getting to IAH is going to be the most direct. AA will route you through a hub and don't have domestic J to IAH. If you wanted to save money, you could do CDG-MAD-MIA in J and tack on AA to IAH in Y...but if being in business is worth the extra BA fees for you, then you have the only option I'm aware of. I mean, at the end of the day, it's a business seat... it's going to be good.

If your mileage allows it, I'd be tempted to take the Qatar option. Particulary if you get a decent layover so you can enjoy the Doha lounge. That may be just me though.

Cathay is probably the option back to Adelaide. Otherwise JAL via NRT/SYD and a Qantas flight (if you can get one)... again Qantas charge some solid fees/taxes

 

[roomer]

A common misconception. This is not a RTW award, rather a one world award which allows 35000miles of travel. Travel where you wish.

You can only stop in a city once, you can also transit it though (twice if I recall correctly)

They way you are getting to IAH is going to be the most direct. AA will route you through a hub and don't have domestic J to IAH. If you wanted to save money, you could do CDG-MAD-MIA in J and tack on AA to IAH in Y...but if being in business is worth the extra BA fees for you, then you have the only option I'm aware of. I mean, at the end of the day, it's a business seat... it's going to be good.

If your mileage allows it, I'd be tempted to take the Qatar option. Particulary if you get a decent layover so you can enjoy the Doha lounge. That may be just me though.

Cathay is probably the option back to Adelaide. Otherwise JAL via NRT/SYD and a Qantas flight (if you can get one)... again Qantas charge some solid fees/taxes

Cheers for that Hutch, I was just concerned from your comment that business in BA was not much chop. Regarding mileage, one of the AFF members kindly calculated my route and it scraped through if we went via Doha, not sure if weshould do a stopover there or not but I had heard the business class flight is very good. Btw, this is my very first time redeeming my points, and it's been a great eye opener, appreciate your comments. As Benny Hill's Fred Scuttle was wont to say "learning all the time sir"

 

[fairbasa]

QR have struck again.

I rang up to add a flight to my itinerary yesterday, discussed with the CSR how I already had QR in my booking so needed it ticketed ASAP. He was aware of the QR issues and promised to monitor it for me as it was processed. Sure enough, got a call back 20mins later from QF to advise that QR had taken my seats back that I booked about a month ago. He said QR had snatched them back within 4mins of them being released to have the new segment added!!!

Pretty frustrating. What more could the CSR or I have done? There's clearly an issue with the re-ticketing process between QF & QR. Now I wait whilst it's escalated with management.

At least I give full marks to the CSR, he was proactive about advising me of the issue and what steps he was taking to reinstate the seats for me.

 

[hutch]

It's getting to the point that it's only safe to add QR as your last leg.

 

[coles525]

Please explain why access is denied opening a link in the latest newsletter?

 

[siri]

One world Round The World Business booking using Qantas points.

Last friday I got two business class tickets from Qantas using points.. 280K each ticket with $120 booking fees for two and $3000 for fees for two.
Traveling in July 2017, Syd-Lon-NY-HK-Tok-Syd. 6 Weeks total travel time. Qantas FF help was very good and the guy spend lots of time to get this booking.

 

[ozflier]

I have read before in this thread where reward seats are not available from A to B but are available from C-A-B with the same flight from A-B.
I thought that was a mainly Cathay issue but I see BA does it as well.
You can get J award seats CPT-JNB-LHR but not JNB-LHR ( specifically on the 28-06-2016) despite the latter segment being the same same flight!
I will let you know if I can find a workaround.

 

[roomer]

I have read before in this thread where reward seats are not available from A to B but are available from C-A-B with the same flight from A-B.
I thought that was a mainly Cathay issue but I see BA does it as well.
You can get J award seats CPT-JNB-LHR but not JNB-LHR ( specifically on the 28-06-2016) despite the latter segment being the same same flight!
I will let you know if I can find a workaround.

But what intrigues me is that there was a suggestion to travel from IAH - HKG - ADL via Cathay as an alternate to a lengthy IAH -DOH-ADL flight ( ~30 hrs) via Qatar yet according to the Qantas website using multi- city, the proposed journey has it transiting in LHR via BA before getting to HKG ( ~27 hrs) with the last bit to ADL taking about 9 hrs via Cathay.
If the suggested route is do-able I guess this highlights the defiency of the Qantas website that people have been taking about?

 

[hutch]

Probably part of the issue is that Cathay don't fly to Houston... so the search engine is looking for possibilities from there (depending on how far out it is, AA may not be bookable yet).

If you're looking for Cathay flights, you may need to search from one of their departure cities through to Adelaide (LAX/SFO-ADL). Cathay use married award seats... so searching LAX-HKG, HKG-ADL separately may not actually be bookable without a stopover.

 

[roomer]

Probably part of the issue is that Cathay don't fly to Houston... so the search engine is looking for possibilities from there (depending on how far out it is, AA may not be bookable yet).

If you're looking for Cathay flights, you may need to search from one of their departure cities through to Adelaide (LAX/SFO-ADL). Cathay use married award seats... so searching LAX-HKG, HKG-ADL separately may not actually be bookable without a stopover.

Ah, ok, yes that would make sense, cheers for that, hutch. Unfortunately I can't seem to get the Qantas site to follow that logic because it says " we are unable to find the flight recommendations for requested segment on airlines that we search"

 

[fairbasa]

Spoke to a QF CSR today regarding Cuba travel:

They advised no single itinerary can involve the USA and Cuba until the trade embargo is lifted. Therefore, even adding flights from say MAD to HAV, then buying a separate one-way ticket to MIA before continuing MIA-JFK won't be accepted. You would need to have a totally separate itinerary with flights to/from Cuba separated from your main OneWorld Award itinerary.

The CSR also advised they're getting a lot of interest in travel to Cuba so there would be a big announcement should the situation change.

Hope this clarifies things.

 

[ramboflyer]

Well I managed to complete my first oneworld award booking in J today but not without drama. As usual very hard for a NB member to get through and took me 4 hours (2 waiting for call back and 2 waiting on phone). Told the CSR what I wanted which was the third leg from NY to MEL. I was seeing a couple of options on CX and was confident of getting the booking.

The CSR was adamant about not being able to do the booking and saying the 2nd leg booked from ROM to NY about a week ago should not have been done as it was a mistake but it would be honoured. She kept on telling me the policy said that once the initial booking was done (MEL to ROM) on 1/9 that that ticket was locked until the day of the flight could not be changed. She went away and confirmed this with a supervisor. I chatted to her and asked if this was the case it would be almost impossible to book a Oneworld award flight if you had to wait for the last leg to become available as the ist 2 would be gone? I must have struck a chord with her as she kept on reading the policy and checked again with the supervisor. This was a 13 year veteran at the call centre so I wasn't hopeful.

Luckily she came back and said something about the policy being interpreted a different way now so she went ahead and made the booking.

I was fortunate that this CSR went over and beyond by re-checking the policy with the supervisor. Others may have just read it and said that's it mate sorry.

As others have noted in this thread there is more availability booking on CX. Of the 3 legs CX out of MEL through HKG and the same returning from NY. BA from ROM to NY through LHR is not so good due to higher taxes and fees and expensive seat selection.

I would love to have booked QF but have to wait longer and too hard to get J seats and may miss out on the CX flights by waiting.

 

[fairbasa]

ramboflyer you're definitely talking about a OneWorld Award i.e. points + taxes and not a regular paid fare? If so, wow...you got unlucky with the CSR!!

I always just start the call with "Hi, I'm looking to add a flight to my existing OneWorld Award booking" and everyone I've spoken to has known what I mean straight away. Maybe I've just been lucky!

With regards to the QF flights, if you're prepared to spend the extra 3.5k pp change fee, you can book the CX flights now and change them to QF if/when they become available.

 

[ramboflyer]

ramboflyer you're definitely talking about a OneWorld Award i.e. points + taxes and not a regular paid fare? If so, wow...you got unlucky with the CSR!!

I always just start the call with "Hi, I'm looking to add a flight to my existing OneWorld Award booking" and everyone I've spoken to has known what I mean straight away. Maybe I've just been lucky!

With regards to the QF flights, if you're prepared to spend the extra 3.5k pp change fee, you can book the CX flights now and change them to QF if/when they become available.

Yes definitely a oneworld award booking. 280,000 points plus 2 x 3500 change fees have been taken. I used the same words you did when I got through and there was never any doubt we were talking about a oneworld award booking once she looked at what I had already booked.

That sounds like good advice about changing to QF when it comes available. I already have booked the CX flights and dont mind the 3500 points change fee but it so hard to speak to the call centre when you are on such lowly status and I suspect that while I twiddle my thumbs on hold some higher status person will swoop in and grab those J seats!

Given that I live in Hobart maybe I can go out to the call centre and do a booking face to face!!

 

[JohnM]

Yes definitely a oneworld booking. !

To avoid any ambiguity with a OneWorld Explorer (paid), it really is imperative that you say OneWorld Award​ booking.

 

[hankahanka]

Just a note, I had a great experience making changes with the online webchat feature. No wait, and took about 15 minutes. They deducted the 7,000 points through the webchat as well.

Needless to say I was gobsmacked that I managed a quick and painless transaction with QF.