Qantas Award Booking Question

[Nat]

Hi!

I am planning a trip to LHR this June and I was hoping to use the QFF Points I have been saving away! I am new here and have a few questions I thought you might know the answer to.

I would like to fly Business or First however I know this is a busy time of year and availability is very limited.

I have searched using the booking tool on the Qantas website and see that nothing in Business/First is really available at all. Could you tell me:

1) If there is a chance they will release more Business/First seats for June as the month approaches or is the release done a year before and then no more will ever appear? In which case I should just go ahead and book the cattle class seat now....

2) Does your QFF status affect what award flights are shown in the booking tool or does it only make a difference when requesting upgrades?

3) If nothing is available that month what are the other options, as a Bronze I am guessing an upgrade request would be unlikely - are there any tricks to route via different cities to get access to other awards rather than direct Syd->LHR?

Thanks!
Nat

 

[simongr]

Welcome Nat

First up Qantas release their award flights about 355 days before the date of travel and generally you find that the majority of the Business and First seats "sell out" very quickly - especially on the popular routes like LHR-SYD.

There have been problems with the online tool showing Cathay and BA availability so it might be worth a call to Qantas to check.

You might consider F for one segment and whY for the other - I find that there is often availability in BA First SYD-SIN so that might be an option.

At this short notice I would hold out much hope unfortunately

Status does impact availability for economy awards if you are Gold or Plat there are more economy seats available to you - nothing in the premium cabins.

Just checking there are some premium economy seats if you were interested in that...

 

[JohnK]

Hi Nat and welcome to AFF.

1) If there is a chance they will release more Business/First seats for June as the month approaches or is the release done a year before and then no more will ever appear? In which case I should just go ahead and book the cattle class seat now....

Award seats are released gradually and sometimes they are released closer to departure but that is no guarantee that any will be available for all flights.

2) Does your QFF status affect what award flights are shown in the booking tool or does it only make a difference when requesting upgrades?

Everybody gets to see the same award seat availability for business class and first class. Before premium economy was introduced QF Gold and Platinums had access to additional economy award seat availability. This was the T bucket but is now used for premium economy bookings.

If you are a QF Platinum you can always ring the QF premium desk and request if they can release some business class seats for your intended flights. There have been reports on AFF thst people have been successful with this request.

3) If nothing is available that month what are the other options, as a Bronze I am guessing an upgrade request would be unlikely - are there any tricks to route via different cities to get access to other awards rather than direct Syd->LHR?

There has been an issue where Cathay Pacific flights, and possibly BA flights, have not been appearing on the QF award booking engine for over a year now.

Have you tried contacting the QF service centre. They may be able to find a routing that does not show up on the award booking engine. An indirect routing may cost more FF points and they may also charge you the 2,500 FF point booking fee although some people have been successful in getting this fee waived.

Good luck....

 

[Nat]

thanks for the info guys

 

[serfty]

I really do not like your chances; I've been booking a oneworld round the world fare for June and it's been an issue with availability of paid discount economy class (L) for my LHR-SIN trip - let alone ANY award seating.

 

[sadlier]

There has been an issue where Cathay Pacific flights, and possibly BA flights, have not been appearing on the QF award booking engine for over a year now.

Why is this so? Or is it just me that thinks it is deliberate?

 

[Mal]

Why is this so? Or is it just me that thinks it is deliberate?

I presume it's an issue with the connectivity between the two different booking systems that they use - and something that is so low priority to fix that it just doesn't get fixed quickly.

My suggestion for checking flights is to sign up for a Cathay Pacific AsiaMiles membership and do searches from that. While I havn't properly verified that the same award flights are available on Qantas, I believe that any matches will be available.

 

[JohnK]

Why is this so? Or is it just me that thinks it is deliberate?

I think the way Mal has explained is probably the most logical.

Now me, I would say it was deliberate for any number of reasons including forcing people to use QF services to Asia instead of CX services. Not sure what they would be paying CX for the award ticket but it would cost QF a lot less if you were redeeming awards on QF metal instead.

Another consideration is that most people are not as well informed of issues as we are on AFF so they are more likely to accept zero availability on CX and BA and book QF flights instead without ringing the QFF service centre to check availability.