Oneworld Classic Flight Reward Discussion - The Definitive Thread

[fairbasa]

Interesting, haven't heard of this before. If true, I wonder how they control this. If carriers start bringing in new rules like this it's going to severely limit the usefulness of the OWA.

 

[Norris]

Experienced this issued sooner than i imagined….


QR F seat shown on BA and QF sites available


Phoned QF Premium - denied the seat on the basis - QR seats was for new awards only, no changed awards applicable. (trying to adjust my 280k award)


When i inquired if this "was a new QFF requirement" the CSR advised this practice had always been around.


Maybe just noticed more people are stretching the system ??

On another topic.
QR use F marketed flights (instead of J) within the middle east for short (sub 3hr hops). essentially a J hard product with Soft of F. (and access to the lovely QR F lounge)

Has anybody had luck convincing QF to book a QR F as a J (considering the planes are a 2 cabin arrangement similar to AA in USA)?

 

[Doctore1003]

Wow so both CX and QR are restricting seats to new bookings only? How often is this restriction happening?

 

[Norris]

....This was only for this particular seat. Others seats were available for change

 

[ozflier]

I may have had a similar problem recently.
I am not sure but it was interesting at the time.
I made a OWA booking WAW-DOH-Tokyo with a connection time of 6.5 hours at Doha.
I checked some weeks later and found on QFF and BA a better connection available ( 2 hours conx only)
I rang QFF and the system would not let them exchange the later flight out of DOH for the earlier one despite the agent seeing that sector was available.
She explained that if she looked for a WAW-DOH-Tokyo flight , the system would allow the flights with the shorter connection but would not let her exchange just the flight out of Doha.
She actually rang QR and they suggested this work round.
Cancel the original WAW-DOH-Tokyo flights and just replace them with the ones I wanted . It worked.
I was happy with the outcome and grateful to the lady but I wonder how risky the manouvre was ( ie if I ended up losing both sectors and replacements not being available).
Anyway,it worked for me.

Experienced this issued sooner than i imagined….


QR F seat shown on BA and QF sites available


Phoned QF Premium - denied the seat on the basis - QR seats was for new awards only, no changed awards applicable. (trying to adjust my 280k award)


When i inquired if this "was a new QFF requirement" the CSR advised this practice had always been around.


Maybe just noticed more people are stretching the system ??

On another topic.
QR use F marketed flights (instead of J) within the middle east for short (sub 3hr hops). essentially a J hard product with Soft of F. (and access to the lovely QR F lounge)

Has anybody had luck convincing QF to book a QR F as a J (considering the planes are a 2 cabin arrangement similar to AA in USA)?

 

[madrooster]

Does this sound right or should I try another agent?

Send me the flights that you're looking at changing to and the booking reference and I'll have a look.

 

[exceladdict]

Starting to dabble in one of these (read up to post 400) but needed to post an initial whinge: I wanted to 'just try' to include a QF leg, and the taxes came out to be ridiculous:

I appreciate ex-LHR is probably the worst possible example, but come on QF, make it easier for me to redeem my points with you!

 

[snabbu]

You'll have many more reasons to complain before you get a full itin booked. It can be a painful process for sure however the end result is worth the effort.

 

[fairbasa]

Booked a J award for a friend yesterday. QF seem to be getting more and more resistant to waiving the booking fee.

I can reluctantly understand the change fee, but not an initial booking fee when there's no way of completing a >6 segment booking via any other means.

I argued it's drip pricing and that the award should be advertised as 285k if they are always charging the fee. They acknowledged I couldn't book this particular itinerary online but still argued to charge the fee based on "effort involved". I said it's not my fault there's limitations on bookings the website can handle. Waived eventually.

 

[flychrisfly]

On another topic.
QR use F marketed flights (instead of J) within the middle east for short (sub 3hr hops). essentially a J hard product with Soft of F. (and access to the lovely QR F lounge)

Has anybody had luck convincing QF to book a QR F as a J (considering the planes are a 2 cabin arrangement similar to AA in USA)?

No is the short answer. Qantas have access only to other airline's inventory as determined by that airline. They can't magically change QR's inventory because they want to. This would be similar to an AA customer booking a J seat on QF as an F seat so they could access the F lounge.

 

[exceladdict]

Booked a J award for a friend yesterday. .... but not an initial booking fee when there's no way of completing a >6 segment booking via any other means..... Waived eventually.

Would you mind sharing your itinerary, or in particular, which carriers. I'm also having error issues when >6 segments but otherwise within the rules.

 

[Captain Halliday]

Would you mind sharing your itinerary, or in particular, which carriers. I'm also having error issues when >6 segments but otherwise within the rules.

If you're willing to share your preferred routing then brain trust may be able to assist. They were very helpful with mine!

 

[landl]

Would you mind sharing your itinerary, or in particular, which carriers. I'm also having error issues when >6 segments but otherwise within the rules.

I booked a OW RTW last year and am in the middle of planning my next. I tested a number of different itineraries before deciding on the final but the Qantas booking engine always crashed so I rang a CSR who waived the booking fee. IMO if you can't physically complete it online, they should waive the fee. Even though it said there were errors, there weren't, it just wouldn't do it.

 

[snabbu]

Would you mind sharing your itinerary, or in particular, which carriers. I'm also having error issues when >6 segments but otherwise within the rules.

Post what you are having problems with and we might be able to assist.

 

[fairbasa]

Would you mind sharing your itinerary, or in particular, which carriers. I'm also having error issues when >6 segments but otherwise within the rules.

All i meant is the Multi-City tool on the QF site only accepts 6 flights, the itinerary I booked for a friend was 7, therefore no way to book it other than to ring. Not to mention his itinerary also included destinations not loaded on the QF site.

 

[exceladdict]

I booked a OW RTW last year and am in the middle of planning my next. I tested a number of different itineraries before deciding on the final but the Qantas booking engine always crashed so I rang a CSR who waived the booking fee. IMO if you can't physically complete it online, they should waive the fee. Even though it said there were errors, there weren't, it just wouldn't do it.

Post what you are having problems with and we might be able to assist.

Thanks everyone - admittedly I'm only up to post 104 of the thread so far so I realise I'm jumping ahead by asking for help without finishing my pre-reading first - but along with the limit of 6, I'm getting pricing errors.

Haven't completely finalised it yet but I'm looking at PER-xSYD-(1)HND/ss/KIX-xHKG-(2)LAX-xDFW-(3)IAH-xDFW-JFK-(4)HEL-xLHR-(5)BHD/ss/DUB-xDOH-PER. QF/QF/Surface/CX/CX/AA/AA/AA/AY/AY/BA/Surface/QR/QR.

GCM says 54,721km including surface segments.

I was hoping for JL but despite finding availability on both BA and JL websites, QF call centre couldn't see any of it (I called up just wanting to check the taxes).

All i meant is the Multi-City tool on the QF site only accepts 6 flights, the itinerary I booked for a friend was 7, therefore no way to book it other than to ring. Not to mention his itinerary also included destinations not loaded on the QF site.

Ah. Get you now. I swear I was able to trick it in to doing more segments than that previously but just tried and it didn't work. This might explain my errors...

Edit: Managed to break it again:

 

[fairbasa]

I was hoping for JL but despite finding availability on both BA and JL websites, QF call centre couldn't see any of it (I called up just wanting to check the taxes).

I don't know why, but for some reason that's a common story. I just HUCA until I get an agent who finds the seats. Apparently they have to look somewhere different for JL availability on their system?

 

[Sumnerned]

My next award route is:
LHR-MAD-LPA (Canaries)
LPA-MAD-SJP (Costa Rica)
SJO-MIA-GUA (Guatemala)
GUA-DFW-SYD-CHC (New Zealand)
CHC-SYD-HKG
HKG-LHR
We may change the route slightly to do a land sector from HKG

 

[snabbu]

Thanks everyone - admittedly I'm only up to post 104 of the thread so far so I realise I'm jumping ahead by asking for help without finishing my pre-reading first - but along with the limit of 6, I'm getting pricing errors.

Haven't completely finalised it yet but I'm looking at PER-xSYD-(1)HND/ss/KIX-xHKG-(2)LAX-xDFW-(3)IAH-xDFW-JFK-(4)HEL-xLHR-(5)BHD/ss/DUB-xDOH-PER. QF/QF/Surface/CX/CX/AA/AA/AA/AY/AY/BA/Surface/QR/QR.

GCM says 54,721km including surface segments.

I was hoping for JL but despite finding availability on both BA and JL websites, QF call centre couldn't see any of it (I called up just wanting to check the taxes).



Ah. Get you now. I swear I was able to trick it in to doing more segments than that previously but just tried and it didn't work. This might explain my errors...

Edit: Managed to break it again:
View attachment 87377

I'd be very surprised if you were able to book this online. If it includes any JL segments obviously it's not possible.

When I book these awards I'll start with the first 2 segments, make sure I can see availability, start piecing it together online. Once you have the first 2, move onto the next. Repeat. If you are looking for an airline that is not displayed on the QF engine, check the BA/JL availability. When you find a suitable flight note it down and continue on with the online tool. It is a painful process but the only way. Throwing a complex itin together first up online is never going to work.

Which segments were you trying to book on JL? There is a direct KIX-LAX service. If you see availability and the operator doesn't, he/she is more than likely is in the wrong screen.

If you can see availability on each segment you are after and there are 5 or less stopovers, then you should be bale to drip feed the QF operator each individual flight.

Good luck!

 

[hutch]

I don't think it's anything to do with MSC (I could be wrong) as the agent was happy to book it for me if it was a new booking and not a change. He said on the phone this was an issue he had seen with EK for a while but it seemed a new thing with CX.

I just changed a QF segment (LAX-SYD) from an existing booking to a Cathay segment (ORD-HKG) without any dramas.