Plenty of points but hard to use them

[mhh]

I accumulate QFF points quickly by using Amex for my business purchases, but I don't buy much travel in my own name. I just got back from a family trip to LA (4 of us) using points in Qantas Business class. I booked it about 8 months in advance and had no trouble getting pretty close to my desired dates.

Now I'm trying to book London or New York on-line for next year and I'm finding it harder to get anything like suitable dates in Business. (I'm not interested in Economy for these long trips). Even trying for just 2 seats doesn't seem to help.

Are there any tips to getting 4 Business seats to London, Frankfurt or New York with Qantas? Is it better to do it by phone than on-line? If I buy Economy, is upgrading using points easy enough? ( I'm happy to pay for Economy tickets, but I'm too mean/poor to pay for Business).

Thanks in antipation if you have any thoughts.

mhh

 

[thadocta]

I've never had any problems getting seats, provided I book far enough out and am prepared to be flexible. I normally book my flights about 10 months or so out for J long-haul, about a week or two prior for Y short-haul.

Having said that though, I find it easier to phone up to book, rather than go online.

It takes all of about three seconds for the telephone sales agent to check an alternative date, hitting "Back" or "Start Again" constantly to check different dates is too coughbersome and time consuming for me.

The other thing with booking via phone is that you can get your seats allocated immediately - booking over the web means you have to phone in to change it if it isn't the seat you want.

Dave

 

[swissbignose]

Hmmmm...

It's a tough one.

My initial gut feel was to buy the economy tickets and waitlist to upgrade, but I assumed that you were not a highly-ranked QFF, which means that every man and his dog will be ahead of you in the list for an upgrade should tickets be available.

Have you considered alternatives? You haven't stated where you are flying from, but sometimes flying from BNE or PER is better award-wise than SYD/MEL (when flying to LHR - BNE when flying to JFK).

Alternatively, I've found that if you fly SYD-SIN, stay overnight and fly SIN-LHR the next day, there's a better chance than flying SYD-LHR in one hop (okay, one hop-one stop).

(As you can probably tell, I'm better versed heading to Europe than the U.S.)

 

[HardieBoys]

Travelling in school holidays is going to be harder than at other times, for obvious reasons. I'd consider travelling via Cathay, which will entail flying via HK, or investigate the possibility of two separate tickets (i.e. Australia - SIN/BKK/HKG, and then HKG/BKK/SIN - Europe). The new LHR-HKG flights (QF32?) don't start up until early November, so you may be able to get onto one of those.

Wouldn't bother with the website, as it only gives QF flights on QF metal, and won't indicate availability of other oneworld carriers.

Not sure if they're still available, but in September, I saw BA Business to London offered at under $AUD6000. Haven't seen them advertised for the past two weeks.

 

[mhh]

Thanks for the ideas, guys. I'm in Adelaide and I'm happy to use any port for my J departure and to buy Y seats to get there. I'll check it out that way for starters. Thanks again.

 

[Guest]

As a WP I've never had any trouble getting reward tickets to USA (Y,J & F)..even around christmas.. calling up and requesting specific flights has worked 95% of the time.

Would it work if a platinum member called up and did the booking (using your points & the platinum members name on 1 ticket)... then once they are confirmed.. changing the name on 1 ticket to the non-WP member..

just a thought

 

[straitman]

As a WP I've never had any trouble getting reward tickets to USA (Y,J & F)..even around christmas.. calling up and requesting specific flights has worked 95% of the time.

Would it work if a platinum member called up and did the booking (using your points & the platinum members name on 1 ticket)... then once they are confirmed.. changing the name on 1 ticket to the non-WP member..

just a thought

Good question :?:

If you'de like to try it some time, you could then lets us all know the answer.

:mrgreen: :wink: