Qantas award bookings LAX- BNE Jan 2013 Business or Premium Economy How it works

[luckyjohn888]

I have a classic award booking for 2 seats to fly BNE- LAX in Dec 2012 in Business class but am now trying to get the same in return ie LAX-BNE for Jan 2013 in either Bussiness or premium economy, but the Qantas site only seems to have flights via Hong Kong using Cathay which are both a lot more expensive in points and a lot longer flight times. Does anyone know how this usually works. I know Qantas opens up availability on their award bookings approx 350 days out but do they hold back on putting the Qantas direct flight availability until some time later. What is the best approach to snare these flights. Thanks for any advice. John.

 

[Limewood]

Re: Qantas award bookings from LAX- BNE Jan 2013 Buiness or Premium Economy How it w

Many use Expert Flyer to find seats, if you join up they will also notify you once they become availble, they recently found 2 for me LAX/CNS in J for next Aug. Your also travelling in holiday season.

 

[VHOEJ]

Re: Qantas award bookings from LAX- BNE Jan 2013 Buiness or Premium Economy How it w

You answered your own question - January, coming back to Australia. All the flights back to Aus from the 1st to the end of the month are extremely busy with holiday traffic.

 

[cove]

Look at flights to SYD and MEL immediately. Also consider one at a time rather than two and do that straight away!

 

[Paddy55]

Scored 3 x JASA LAX-SYD for travel on 7th Jan next year

Seats are there, however are very scarce.

Seemed that Mon flights had best availability, followed by Sun & Tue.

Suspect, as others have suggested, that you may find more availability coming back via SYD.

Good luck!

Paddy

 

[Ken1]

Re: Qantas award bookings from LAX- BNE Jan 2013 Buiness or Premium Economy How it w

Many use Expert Flyer to find seats, if you join up they will also notify you once they become availble, they recently found 2 for me LAX/CNS in J for next Aug. Your also travelling in holiday season.

I tried an Expert Flyer 5 day trial when checking seat selection availability last year but didn't try the notification of award flights section since when I had a quick look I had the impression it may only notify QF flights. If I select Qantas Frequent Flyer will it only show QF flights or also BA as well? I am currently booked on SYD - LHR in J later in the year, SYD-NRT on QF and NRT-LHR on BA but would like to go a few days earlier or return a few days later if any J seats become available and I don't mind if they're QF or BA or if they're via SIN, BKK or NRT. BA seem to release extra SYD-LHR J seats 2 days before each flight but I know it's not likely that extra J seats will be released before then, unless someone cancels a booking, but if Expert Flyer can notify any availability I'll join straight away.

 

[straitman]

Remember that if you sign up as a Gold AFF member you get a 15% discount on EF.

 

[elbarr]

My advice is to be flexible with the day you want to fly and access the website as much as you can. I have in the past persisted for 2 weeks of checking up to 50 times per day. I accessed the site twice in a 2 minute period and the flight appeared the 2nd time. Jumped on them straight away. You snooze you lose. Good luck