Oneworld Classic Flight Reward Discussion - The Definitive Thread

[Easy Tiger]

HI all, inital leg of OWA 318 booked, however, I believe I have been double charged the fees and taxes....story goes:
Initially booked SYD - FRA in Business for 2 pax and was charged approx $600 in fees & taxes (which seems right), then i added the MEL -SYD to this booking over the phone and was charged another $630 or so rather than just the MEL-SYD taxes?? SPoke to 2 FIJI operators this morning but they were absolutely no use whatsoever and HU in frustration (nice to them though). Any ideas? Thanks in advance.

 

[Captain Halliday]

HI all, inital leg of OWA 318 booked, however, I believe I have been double charged the fees and taxes....story goes:
Initially booked SYD - FRA in Business for 2 pax and was charged approx $600 in fees & taxes (which seems right), then i added the MEL -SYD to this booking over the phone and was charged another $630 or so rather than just the MEL-SYD taxes?? SPoke to 2 FIJI operators this morning but they were absolutely no use whatsoever and HU in frustration (nice to them though). Any ideas? Thanks in advance.

When you make changes to an OWA, all the fees, taxes and carrier charges are recalculated.

So, if since your initial booking, any of those have gone up, you will be paying more.

Additionally, QF is at the higher end of the spectrum in terms of carrier charges.

You could check the breakdown of charges by putting your same routing into ITA matrix. It won’t be extact but should give you some indication.

Edit: if this is the same enquiry you have made in the fees/taxes check thread then you need to be aware it’s not an OWA with MU on the itinerary as MU is not a oneworld airline.

 

[Rach1616]

do I just wait now to see if they reschedule the connecting flight? Or do I need to contact Qantas to arrange this myself?

Thanks for all the advice. Outcome is I have a new connecting flight ticketed after taking the following actions:
1. Emailed the new rewards booking escalating email twice, first time was 5 days ago - no response at all.
2. Contacting Qantas by messenger - got an unhelpful reply after one day, then they emailed me my current itinerary to all use it was correct which it isn't, then messaged back and forward over a couple of days with no outcome except they said they'd send my request to the right department as they couldn't help me.
3. Took the leap and called the call centre right on 8am. First person (Fiji) checked each of the four different flight options I had found with available rewards seats online, and told me there was no reward availability on any of them and I'd have to book the connection myself as a separate booking. HUCA - Fiji again and got lucky. This person found the available seats for my first option right away. Booked that flight, removed the other flights no longer needed, told me how much tax refund I would get and said the booking had been sent for ticketing.
I sent a follow up email to the rewards email and messager requesting they progress the booking for ticketing urgently so the MH flights didn't drop off. I was going to call again today to chase up the e ticket but lo and behold the e ticket came through this morning just over 48 hours since the booking was made on the phone.
I hate to think how many hours I've spent keeping this OWA ticket alive over the last 11 months but one month until take off now so we're almost there!

 

[PaulyB]

Congratulations on the initiative and perseverance.

Emailed the new rewards booking escalating email twice, first time was 5 days ago - no response at all.

This is a bit of a concern, though…

 

[Easy Tiger]

When you make changes to an OWA, all the fees, taxes and carrier charges are recalculated.

So, if since your initial booking, any of those have gone up, you will be paying more.

Additionally, QF is at the higher end of the spectrum in terms of carrier charges.

You could check the breakdown of charges by putting your same routing into ITA matrix. It won’t be extact but should give you some indication.

Edit: if this is the same enquiry you have made in the fees/taxes check thread then you need to be aware it’s not an OWA with MU on the itinerary as MU is not a oneworld airline.

So it isnt, thanks for pointing that out correctly, (& sorry I'm in the wrong thread then), still it doesnt account for an extra $637 in taxes and fees for an additional J class rewards points flight MEL-SYD....

 

[flapper]

I had another terrible QF experience this week when JL cancelled my NRT to MEL flight (no longer a daily service). They put me on a flight the next day so I would miss my AY connection. I was able to get the flights sorted reather easily as there was J AY seats available the next day, though it now means a 36 hr layover in Tokyo. I was originally flying MEL to FRA via NRT that has no totally messed up the 1st part of my trip, a few days in Alsace now leaves me less than 24 hrs there if I bother. The problem was the ticketing. I got the usual it will be ticketed within 24 hrs. My insistance that it needs to be ticketed within 24 hrs fell on well trained OS CC deaf ears. I emailed the new rewards ticketing escalation straight away. I called later that night to chase ticketing - agent soent about 30 mins "fixing" the booking adding "TST" and wanted my credit card details, it was now set for ticketing.
Next morning, nothingOver the day I made 12 calls from 7:30am and emailed escaltions 6 times. The escalations don't send an aknowledgment email and don't respond at all I would trust them as much as I trust the OS CC. Not one agent could/would tell me when the ticketing deadline was, previously they told me to the minute. It took one guy 2 hours to get through to ticketing, I was made to pay extra taxes (On an involuntary change???) he promised the ticket within 1 hr and he promised to call back to see if it had issued. One hour came amd went no ticket. I was back on the phones, mostly I got drop outs after 30 mins, 45 mins, 1 hr no call backs of course. The 24 hr mark was looming so in desperation I emailed Markus Svennson. The 24 hr mark came and went luckily no flights dropped off. I was on my 12th call waiting 2.5 hrs when it finally dropped out. I decided to wait a while in case she called back. I checked CMT, lo and behold a new ticket nr on all flights. The email didn't arrive until 1hr later. So I don't know if it was the final agent or the email to Markus or even the rewards escalation emails that finally did it. I think the email to Markus.
So top marks to QF 11 hours on the the phone just to get a booking reticketed something you'd think would be automatic.

 

[k_sheep]

Can't imagine why the email isn't working when people are spamming them multiple times about the same issue

This is why we can't have nice things.

 

[flapper]

An unexpected update on my email to the new rewards ticketing escalations. Today I received an email from them advising that my booking had been reticketed (it was reticketed on Thursday) and they emailed the itinerary again. It looks like it took them 4 days to action my escalation. This may have been within the reticketing deadline but I'll never know as no one was able to tell me when the deadline was.

 

[Phoenix-1]

Can't imagine why the email isn't working when people are spamming them multiple times about the same issue

This is why we can't have nice things.

I mean really, this is ultimately due to a failure of QFs ticketing system. You can hardly blame people who are worried about their bookings given their track record.

 

[Danger]

I mean really, this is ultimately due to a failure of QFs ticketing system. You can hardly blame people who are worried about their bookings given their track record.

Well said.

 

[ozflier]

I'm still looking at options getting back to Australia from Europe in May and july this year .Most of the usual suspects are not available - nil direct out of HKG or HND to Brisbane and, of course, nil offerings from Qatar via Doha
I read today some press release from Mr Joyce today ( not the usual announcement re an even more tastless seed based J main meal course or a new kinds unrecognizable fibres in NP's "green things" salad) but in fact there was reference to QF offering direct service to Australia in the coming northern summer season.
This has happened before and my offer some reward seats if it comes to fruition.
Last year ,if I remember correctly , it started from Sydney.
Can anyone remember the months this service worked in past years ?
With a bit of luck this may offer some kind of alternative for international reward bookings to and from Europe!

 

[Mr H]

I'm still looking at options getting back to Australia from Europe in May and july this year .Most of the usual suspects are not available - nil direct out of HKG or HND to Brisbane and, of course, nil offerings from Qatar via Doha

I was able to find business class LHR-BNE via CMB on the first date I tried in May.

 

[Roundtheworld123]

Hi All. Well after learning a albiet difficult lesson around booking different classes under the one tick (econony and premium economy) I have now been able to work out what flights I need.
I am starting the flights from Bali, DPS as there are no flights to asia from Perth or from what I can tell anywhere for around Dec this year.
But when I went to do this on the Qantas multiflight website, I am able to put all the segments in that are available now (waiting for a few weeks for some AA flights when they come up and will ring again). I can select all flights and get to the summary page. It even gets to ask me for all passenger details and then it errors out at the end with the below error. searched for this error on the blogs and basically it says ring qantas


I ring qantas and as the flight is leaving from DPS they say they cannot deal in Indonesian Rupiah and I have to ring a local no in Jakarta. I have had this from Phillipines and Figi call centres.

I ring the Jakarta no for the last 5 hours and it rings a couple of times and has a constant message saying we are busy and then it just hangs up.

I have rang back Qantas again and got Fiji and the same lady as this morning. She suggests India as she thinks they can handle Indonesian Rupea. Not sure what else to do here. If I do amazingly get this booked if there are any further changes, (sounds likely) would I only be able to ring India to get things re-ticketed or could the normal qantas line help and the new escalation email?

Any ideas here?

Secondly when I went to do the flights in the multi tool where I could select all flights and enter details, the costs looked about right for what I calculated, but the frequent flyer points needed was way higher than the Economy 132K price. I am booking for 4 people so this should be around 528K. But it came to 686,400. I have followed the following rules:
- no more than 16 segments
- only book in one class - economy
- only do 36,000 miles - its 29,847 - and I have added the distance from DPS to PER at the end as I am starting in DPS finishing in Perth.
- maximum of two open jaw/ different start finish sections - one in Europe Munich to Paris and one in US/Canada from New York to Calgary (does changing countries stuff this?)
I think that is all of the main ones. Any thoughts as to why this is putting out a very high points total?
See itinerary below. Any thoughts as to why this is coming up with 158,400 points too many would be mighty helpful. Is that something you can easily challenge with the call centre? I doubt it, but thought I would ask...

 

[yaksha98]

Hi All. Well after learning a albiet difficult lesson around booking different classes under the one tick (econony and premium economy) I have now been able to work out what flights I need.
I am starting the flights from Bali, DPS as there are no flights to asia from Perth or from what I can tell anywhere for around Dec this year.
But when I went to do this on the Qantas multiflight website, I am able to put all the segments in that are available now (waiting for a few weeks for some AA flights when they come up and will ring again). I can select all flights and get to the summary page. It even gets to ask me for all passenger details and then it errors out at the end with the below error. searched for this error on the blogs and basically it says ring qantas
View attachment 315875

I ring qantas and as the flight is leaving from DPS they say they cannot deal in Indonesian Rupiah and I have to ring a local no in Jakarta. I have had this from Phillipines and Figi call centres.

I ring the Jakarta no for the last 5 hours and it rings a couple of times and has a constant message saying we are busy and then it just hangs up.

I have rang back Qantas again and got Fiji and the same lady as this morning. She suggests India as she thinks they can handle Indonesian Rupea. Not sure what else to do here. If I do amazingly get this booked if there are any further changes, (sounds likely) would I only be able to ring India to get things re-ticketed or could the normal qantas line help and the new escalation email?

Any ideas here?

Secondly when I went to do the flights in the multi tool where I could select all flights and enter details, the costs looked about right for what I calculated, but the frequent flyer points needed was way higher than the Economy 132K price. I am booking for 4 people so this should be around 528K. But it came to 686,400. I have followed the following rules:
- no more than 16 segments
- only book in one class - economy
- only do 36,000 miles - its 29,847 - and I have added the distance from DPS to PER at the end as I am starting in DPS finishing in Perth.
- maximum of two open jaw/ different start finish sections - one in Europe Munich to Paris and one in US/Canada from New York to Calgary (does changing countries stuff this?)
I think that is all of the main ones. Any thoughts as to why this is putting out a very high points total?
See itinerary below. Any thoughts as to why this is coming up with 158,400 points too many would be mighty helpful. Is that something you can easily challenge with the call centre? I doubt it, but thought I would ask...

View attachment 315876

I think I see you've used Air France (AF1022 / AF2??) which is not part of the OWA.

 

[Mr H]

Hi All. Well after learning a albiet difficult lesson around booking different classes under the one tick (econony and premium economy) I have now been able to work out what flights I need.
I am starting the flights from Bali, DPS as there are no flights to asia from Perth or from what I can tell anywhere for around Dec this year.
But when I went to do this on the Qantas multiflight website, I am able to put all the segments in that are available now (waiting for a few weeks for some AA flights when they come up and will ring again). I can select all flights and get to the summary page. It even gets to ask me for all passenger details and then it errors out at the end with the below error. searched for this error on the blogs and basically it says ring qantas
View attachment 315875

I ring qantas and as the flight is leaving from DPS they say they cannot deal in Indonesian Rupiah and I have to ring a local no in Jakarta. I have had this from Phillipines and Figi call centres.

I ring the Jakarta no for the last 5 hours and it rings a couple of times and has a constant message saying we are busy and then it just hangs up.

I have rang back Qantas again and got Fiji and the same lady as this morning. She suggests India as she thinks they can handle Indonesian Rupea. Not sure what else to do here. If I do amazingly get this booked if there are any further changes, (sounds likely) would I only be able to ring India to get things re-ticketed or could the normal qantas line help and the new escalation email?

Any ideas here?

Secondly when I went to do the flights in the multi tool where I could select all flights and enter details, the costs looked about right for what I calculated, but the frequent flyer points needed was way higher than the Economy 132K price. I am booking for 4 people so this should be around 528K. But it came to 686,400. I have followed the following rules:
- no more than 16 segments
- only book in one class - economy
- only do 36,000 miles - its 29,847 - and I have added the distance from DPS to PER at the end as I am starting in DPS finishing in Perth.
- maximum of two open jaw/ different start finish sections - one in Europe Munich to Paris and one in US/Canada from New York to Calgary (does changing countries stuff this?)
I think that is all of the main ones. Any thoughts as to why this is putting out a very high points total?
See itinerary below. Any thoughts as to why this is coming up with 158,400 points too many would be mighty helpful. Is that something you can easily challenge with the call centre? I doubt it, but thought I would ask...

View attachment 315876

AF is not a One World airline - so this is not a valid OWA.

 

[Roundtheworld123]

AF is not a One World airline - so this is not a valid OWA.

Thanks @Mr H and @yaksha98 .
So the only other flight for that day on that segment is this. Its JL and BA. So that should work. Just not sure about the stopover time being short for Heathrow. Tried to find out where these land and take off to see if they are in the same airport terminal but the heathrow terminal website didn't seem to work.
1.5 hrs doesn't seem like a lot of time between two airlines so wasn't sure, but may be my only choice for that day - and the days around this seem to be the same flights....

 

[ozflier]

I was able to find business class LHR-BNE via CMB on the first date I tried in May.

Thank you for that .I should have indicated that I was looking at award travel .
QFF "routing" rules don't allow an award sector booking LHR-CMB-MEL-BNE!
I have tried.
Just to explain more , I am flying out of Milan late May 2023 ( a bit flexible with timings)
I have found that you can't just find individual "U" sectors and join them together and expect QFF to accept the routing. ( I am not talking about issues like inadequate connection times etc )
If I am requesting say Milan Malpensa to Brisbane as a business award, then the only allowable routing is what the QF computer says is OK . When I originally booked , MXP- HEL-SIN-BNE was available as separate segments in business but was not an allowed routing! It would have been allowed if I stopovered in HEL for over 24 hours and the same in Colombo.
When I checked last November that there were plenty of reward seats LHR-CMB and individual "U" class availability CMB-MEL-BNE but that was not allowed ! ( UL do not fly direct to BNE )
You would think Qantas would give its frequent fliers a break !

 

[Mr H]

Thanks @Mr H and @yaksha98 .
So the only other flight for that day on that segment is this. Its JL and BA. So that should work. Just not sure about the stopover time being short for Heathrow. Tried to find out where these land and take off to see if they are in the same airport terminal but the heathrow terminal website didn't seem to work.
1.5 hrs doesn't seem like a lot of time between two airlines so wasn't sure, but may be my only choice for that day - and the days around this seem to be the same flights....

View attachment 315877

These are likely to be different terminals - JL arriving into T3 and BA leaving T5. I don't know how feasible that would be, but if it is a legal connection then it is the airline's problem if you miss it.

Post automatically merged: Feb 6, 2023

Thank you for that .I should have indicated that I was looking at award travel .
QFF "routing" rules don't allow an award sector booking LHR-CMB-MEL-BNE!
I have tried.
Just to explain more , I am flying out of Milan late May 2023 ( a bit flexible with timings)
I have found that you can't just find individual "U" sectors and join them together and expect QFF to accept the routing. ( I am not talking about issues like inadequate connection times etc )
If I am requesting say Milan Malpensa to Brisbane as a business award, then the only allowable routing is what the QF computer says is OK . When I originally booked , MXP- HEL-SIN-BNE was available as separate segments in business but was not an allowed routing! It would have been allowed if I stopovered in HEL for over 24 hours and the same in Colombo.
When I checked last November that there were plenty of reward seats LHR-CMB and individual "U" class availability CMB-MEL-BNE but that was not allowed ! ( UL do not fly direct to BNE )
You would think Qantas would give its frequent fliers a break !

Sorry, I don't think I follow. I was able to find availability LHR-CMB and CMB-BNE on award tix via MEL and SYD.

 

[ozflier]

Maybe I am missing something but-
if you do a search on QFF for LHR-BNE , do your flights ( that appear individually ) come up ?
If not , the sectors are not allowable as far as I know .
Thank you for looking into this - If it comes up accepted , I will be in your debt.

 

[levelnine]

I'm still looking at options getting back to Australia from Europe in May and july this year .Most of the usual suspects are not available - nil direct out of HKG or HND to Brisbane and, of course, nil offerings from Qatar via Doha

Easy as pie.