Oneworld Classic Flight Reward Discussion - The Definitive Thread

[MEL_Traveller]

Yes you're absolutely right. I've lodged an online complaint for what it's worth as well.

Playing phone roulette has only ever gotten me. Cape Town, Manila, or Fiji. Is there a chance that Hobart picks up for non plat members?

there were reports that non-status members can actually get routed to Hobart if they call often enough! Don’t know whether that is still the case but it certainly was a few weeks ago.

I think the agents are partly right. The system will cap at 318,000 points provided you are within the rules. I don’t think there is any flag that needs to get added to the booking at the outset because plenty of people just book one or two sectors, come back later, and complete the booking. It caps out at that stage at 318.

generally speaking agents will come up with all sorts of reasons to try and figure out why the system is throwing up an error. There is a known error that New Zealand for example is considered part of Australia and so you can’t transit through Australia and back as it considers your award has already finished. But that’s about the only error that I’m aware of.

There must be something perhaps it’s based or the number of transits in Helsinki… Something is causing the error. It’s just finding that.

 

[djkelly69]

Just spitballing some ideas:
- have you had any schedule changes affecting the existing itinerary?
- if you go into Manage My Booking (not just the Bookings page you posted earlier in the thread), what flights are showing and are they all showing as Confirmed?
- similarly if you email a copy of the itinerary/tax invoice to yourself from MMB, is it up to date and shows all existing flights?
- have you tried looking up the PNR on other Oneworld airline's websites and looked for any issues/errors?

 

[kenjicult]

I think the agents are partly right. The system will cap at 318,000 points provided you are within the rules. I don’t think there is any flag that needs to get added to the booking at the outset because plenty of people just book one or two sectors, come back later, and complete the booking. It caps out at that stage at 318.

Yes totally agree - a valid booking would automatically cap at 318k. And I guess that's their entire basis for saying that it mustn't be valid. They can't identify what the issue is however. When someone else in this thread said they had an issue with the initial PNR not being issued correctly, it made me wonder whether that was the case with me. Since this person had to get the initial itinerary reissued and then no longer had issues adding the segment.

- have you had any schedule changes affecting the existing itinerary?
- if you go into Manage My Booking (not just the Bookings page you posted earlier in the thread), what flights are showing and are they all showing as Confirmed?
- similarly if you email a copy of the itinerary/tax invoice to yourself from MMB, is it up to date and shows all existing flights?
- have you tried looking up the PNR on other Oneworld airline's websites and looked for any issues/errors?

Thanks for this
No schedule changes, have checked (transits still <24 hrs, no city changes)

HKG-ICN-HEL, HEL-LHR-JFK, SIN-HEL-LHR are showing confirmed
The segment I wanted to add is still in my bookings and reads confirmed but is not e-ticketed (since we haven't yet sorted out how much it is I'm supposed to pay in points)

Via Qantas MMB, the e-ticket with 081 numbers for both passengers shows the HKG-ICN-HEL, HEL-LHR-JFK, SIN-HEL-LHR flights (all of them except the segment I want to add)

However, interestingly, when I go onto partner airlines to manage the booking

Finnair - no errors
AA - havent tried yet
Cathay Pacific (Only flying with them from HKG-ICN) - it says Our records indicate that your e-ticket(s) has not been issued yet. Please contact Customer Care to issue ticket(s).

I will get in touch with Cathay to sort this out, although a little confused how it could be ticketed in my Qantas itinerary but not via Cathay's system?

ADDIT: got in touch with Cathay via their Whatsapp support and they told me that if its a QF ticketed flight, it'll read ticket not issued. Indeed upon checking, it says ticket not issued for all the flights not just the HKG-ICN leg.

 

[termx]

And 1 minute later ticketing has been completed. Victory!

Happy to report that I was able to add 4 new legs to complete an existing OWA booking without incident, with a new ticket being reissued within 8 hours. Only having JAL and Finnair for the entire itinerary might have made things more straightforward.

In my case I suspect having Points Club helped with priority phone access to the Hobart call centre (I think).

I made sure I had the full details for each leg before calling. The agent had no problem adding each new leg to the booking. I did mention to the agent that I had checked that the entire itinerary was a valid OWA but to double check just in case.

After recalculating taxes, the new itinerary came to an extra 6500 points, plus 5000 points booking fee. Total taxes / fees came to $1071.54 / 132,400 QFF points.

Itinerary is

MEL-ITM via NRT
ITM-JFK via HND
JFK-VIE via HEL
VIE-ICN via HEL
GMP-HND
NRT-MEL

Miss 18 is very pleased that I discovered Finnair fly HEL-ICN I reckon that won me dad of the year right then.

 

[kenjicult]

Happy to report that I was able to add 4 new legs to complete an existing OWA booking without incident, with a new ticket being reissued within 8 hours. Only having JAL and Finnair for the entire itinerary might have made things more straightforward.

In my case I suspect having Points Club helped with priority phone access to the Hobart call centre (I think).

I made sure I had the full details for each leg before calling. The agent had no problem adding each new leg to the booking. I did mention to the agent that I had checked that the entire itinerary was a valid OWA but to double check just in case.

After recalculating taxes, the new itinerary came to an extra 6500 points, plus 5000 points booking fee. Total taxes / fees came to $1071.54 / 132,400 QFF points.

Itinerary is

MEL-ITM via NRT
ITM-JFK via HND
JFK-VIE via HEL
VIE-ICN via HEL
GMP-HND
NRT-MEL

Miss 18 is very pleased that I discovered Finnair fly HEL-ICN I reckon that won me dad of the year right then.

Well done - this is the outcome I am hoping for myself..
I do have points club but have called maybe a dozen times on phone roulette in the last 2 hours to try and get Hobart to add a segment to my existing booking. Anyone know a specific time window to trial as non-status to maximise chances of getting Hobart?

 

[MEL_Traveller]

Well done - this is the outcome I am hoping for myself..
I do have points club but have called maybe a dozen times on phone roulette in the last 2 hours to try and get Hobart to add a segment to my existing booking. Anyone know a specific time window to trial as non-status to maximise chances of getting Hobart?

I don’t believe points club has any priority to reach Hobart. There is anecdotal evidence that non-status members may get escalated to Hobart after they have previously attempted to reach the regular call centre. Not sure if there is a confirmed algorithm for that.

 

[kenjicult]

I don’t believe points club has any priority to reach Hobart. There is anecdotal evidence that non-status members may get escalated to Hobart after they have previously attempted to reach the regular call centre. Not sure if there is a confirmed algorithm for that.

This is what I'm feeling as well.. they pick up very fast but it's not the centre I'm looking for. I've been told that Hobart are a 7am-5pm centre but I see others successfully making contact as late as 10pm. Will keep trying I guess!

 

[zeruassiul]

Does Iberia ever release reward seats to QFF? On the rare occasion I see some availability to South America but never on their Asia and NA routes. Only over get Iberia in my searches for internal Europe connections.

 

[WilsonM]

Does Iberia ever release reward seats to QFF? On the rare occasion I see some availability to South America but never on their Asia and NA routes. Only over get Iberia in my searches for internal Europe connections.

I don't know what Asia routes you're referring to, but they have a 3x weekly service to Japan and that's it - pretty slim chance that they'll release many seats, even less chance it'll line up for you tbh. But I have seen releases to/from the Americans occasionally, more often to DFW, Miami and LAX:

 

[zeruassiul]

I don't know what Asia routes you're referring to, but they have a 3x weekly service to Japan and that's it - pretty slim chance that they'll release many seats, even less chance it'll line up for you tbh. But I have seen releases to/from the Americans occasionally, more often to DFW, Miami and LAX:
View attachment 406907

Thank you, yes upon inspection it's just Tokyo they're flying to and only resuming that service on 27-Oct. Absolutely 0 award availability from what I've seen to Tokyo. Thanks for the Miami DFW tips.

 

[Jacques Vert]

Thank you, yes upon inspection it's just Tokyo they're flying to and only resuming that service on 27-Oct. Absolutely 0 award availability from what I've seen to Tokyo. Thanks for the Miami DFW tips.

IB used to have some availability to/from Tokyo before Covid; once they get the route up and running again and (hopefully) add more days per week, availability may improve.

 

[yaziyo]

Does Iberia ever release reward seats to QFF? On the rare occasion I see some availability to South America but never on their Asia and NA routes. Only over get Iberia in my searches for internal Europe connections.

I've definitely seen some transatlantic availability before from Europe to USA, but not always. They have a fair few routes into USA from Madrid and Barcelona so it can definitely take some trial and error to find. It's worth seeking out because other than Finn Air, other Qantas partners can have very high fees for transatlantic flights, before you even consider the points you're still paying.

https://www.flightconnections.com/route-map-iberia-ib

 

[Mr H]

IB used to have some availability to/from Tokyo before Covid; once they get the route up and running again and (hopefully) add more days per week, availability may improve.

IB is the same group as BA, and BA has almost completely cut off long haul award availability to other OW airlines. IB may have done something similar.

 

[WilsonM]

IB is the same group as BA, and BA has almost completely cut off long haul award availability to other OW airlines. IB may have done something similar.

BA definitely haven't almost completely cut off LH award availability - it's reduced yeah, but there's still good TATL availability and also to India. Even some availability on SYD-SIN, more usefully for Australians (mostly off-peak periods).

 

[cambriamarsh]

BA definitely haven't almost completely cut off LH award availability - it's reduced yeah, but there's still good TATL availability and also to India. Even some availability on SYD-SIN, more usefully for Australians (mostly off-peak periods).

And HKG-LHR tomorrow morning!

 

[MelbFlyer]

And HKG-LHR tomorrow morning!

Doesn't really help for people wanting to book OWAs, nor would want to take the risk of changing existing bookings (even if able to), the day prior to the flight.

 

[cambriamarsh]

Doesn't really help for people wanting to book OWAs, nor would want to take the risk of changing existing bookings (even if able to), the day prior to the flight.

Fair comment. My response was re lack of LH availability

 

[05flyer]

Fair comment. My response was re lack of LH availability

Finnair have pretty solid availability into LHR… but that of course depends on availability (and willingness) to fly via HEL from somewhere in Asia.

 

[MelbFlyer]

My response was re lack of LH availability

I think overall BA doesn't have really great LH availability. For my flown OWA, I looked 9-10 months in advance and even then there was very little.

Had to settle for PE on BA from LHR to SIN. Still paid 318k in points as all other legs were in business.

Would have been nice to nab a business seat, but alas, nothing was available. An upgrade at the desk was available but it was £2k/pp (almost AUD$4k/pp) - no thanks.

BA has great business availability over the Atlantic (UK to the US) though, but that didn't help in my case as I was going from Europe to Asia on the way back home.

Finnair have pretty solid availability into LHR… but that of course depends on availability (and willingness) to fly via HEL from somewhere in Asia.

On my way to Europe, I flew AY from HKG to CDG via HEL, wasn't too bad - tried a new airline / business product and the transfer in HEL was easy.

Lounge in the Schengen area was average though.

Despite a transfer and longer overall trip time, it was / would have been better than CX economy direct!

2 days out from leaving home though (and 4 days from the flight from HKG to CDG), CX must have released some unsold business seats as I saw some direct flights to CDG - but I didn't want to risk it knowing Qantas' known issues of not ticketing in time (if I could have even got my flights changed in the first place! My experience is well documented in this thread pages back).

In the end we just settled for Finnair.

 

[Jacques Vert]

Finnair have pretty solid availability into LHR… but that of course depends on availability (and willingness) to fly via HEL from somewhere in Asia.

Taxes on Finnair are very much lower than BA and transfers at HEL are very efficient; AY would be my first choice.