I have been trying to repair one pre booked OWA booking and set up a new one.
I have noted that the “married Segment “rule seems to be being applied more strenuously than I remember in the past or is that just the impression of a jaded frequent flier? (I have found Qatar and Cathay particularly problematic in the past .)
The very competent QFF agents I spoke to told me that their requests for multiple flights (e.g., A-B-C) in one segment (i.e., between 2 stopovers or start or finish of trip) need to be requested as A – C not A-B-C. There needs to be specific award availability for the thru segment.
Maybe I have forgotten how much this happens with Qantas. Sure, I am used to flying say LHR-SYD and then not being able to get a connection to whatever other capital city I was based at on the same day even with award seats available for that individual sector.( I just paid a cheap economy far in that situation for the domestic flight .)
So, I needed PHX-LAX-SYD for next June. . Business class award seats were available both sectors individually but not available if the QFF agent put in PHX-SYD!!! To be fair , maybe AA is the problem rather than QF. In the past, some agents were able to overcome this issue with a few keyboard strokes but not now.
In the case of the most recent occasions, a request was made to the “droid” but refused.
Similarly, I wanted to travel MEL-JNB and found individual sector award seats available via Sydney , but the agent assured me that the computer would only search for the ADL-JNB combined flights – No seats were available for that flight!
Maybe in the past, if I booked up far enough ahead, there were alternatives on other airlines so that I just clicked on another option and was not concerned.
I guess it is positive that I was able find rare QF seat availability mid next year but sad not to be able to take advantage of them.
I am hoping that past alternatives for long distance trips to USA or Europe like Finnair, JAL, or Cathay start getting their acts together and relieve the situation .
Safe travel to all.