Oneworld Classic Flight Reward Discussion - The Definitive Thread

[vetrade]

MH flies between KUL and DOH and has Y classic rewards available for multiple dates. Does anyone know if they ever release J rewards on this route?
Thanks

 

[MelbFlyer]

agents being able/not able to see availability for ‘new’ vs ‘existing’ bookings.

This x100.

Back last year before my Business OWA, I called many, many times in an attempt to change some flights to ones that had availability online.

I got the above quote 95% of the time in that, seats showing online are for "new" bookings only.

 

[N860CR]

This x100.

Back last year before my Business OWA, I called many, many times in an attempt to change some flights to ones that had availability online.

I got the above quote 95% of the time in that, seats showing online are for "new" bookings only.

Do we have any clarification as to the validity of this claim?

I had a similar issue with a HND-JFK which had J showing but wasn’t bookable as part of a OWA. Tried after the fact to “change” to the J seat (that was still showing available) and given the “only for new bookings” like. Did escalate it to the rewards email but they got their back up and sent some pretty rude emails that started to claim it was “a market based seat” and “some seats are only available from some markets” (ie: gotta book ex Japan which I know is a lie).

 

[DC3]

I got the above quote 95% of the time in that, seats showing online are for "new" bookings only.

So, was the other 5% successful, or did they just offer another reason, or no reason at all?

 

[MelbFlyer]

So, was the other 5% successful, or did they just offer another reason, or no reason at all?

The other 5% was successful in which I had already HUACA multiple times and luckily got through to Hobart or a consultant who knew what they were doing / what kind of booking I had.

It was incredibly frustrating calling up and being told that the reward seats I was looking at online at the time of calling was either :

- Not available on their end / they had no visibility on it / there were no reward seats on the dates I was looking at
or
- Was only available for new bookings and can't be used towards existing bookings

 

[MEL_Traveller]

Once we get a solution to the above, can we post it on a wiki? (I thought someone has posted an explanation or workaround previously, but I can’t find it now)

 

[ChrisMars]

Once we get a solution to the above, can we post it on a wiki? (I thought someone has posted an explanation or workaround previously, but I can’t find it now)

Yea I remember seeing someone posting some rough guidelines. Ideally someone should just ask to a qualified agent what did they do to find the seat where most agent fails, and how to help them find the seats in the future. I feel that those "only available for new bookings" excuse hard to believe.

 

[WilsonM]

While I'm certainly not convinced that the agents are saying the correct things the vast majority of the time (I highly doubt most flights are 'only available to new bookings'), I believe there are POS restrictions applied to some reward flights, which make them not available if you're attempting to book from a different POS i.e. I was looking at a reward booking for HEL-NRT-CGK-SYD, but CGK-SYD was only available with a POS in Indonesia or Australia, and wouldn't appear if I searched as a multi-city from Helsinki. Not sure if JL applies the same logic though.

Again, I don't believe for a second that the agents are correct in what they're saying the vast majority of time. But always worth checking if you're adding on flights, that the flights do appear when searching from your ticket's POS - adding on a SYD-MEL leg departing prior to the search you're actually doing (if your first flight is exAUS) will do the trick.

It's also why adding flights on which depart prior to the first flight can create issues - changing POS = changed taxes, but also in theory it can change award availability.