Qantas' Idiotic Award Booking Engine (Or How to Book Classic Awards Whenever, Wherever)

[turnipapple]

How did you get Taipei to Sydney to show? When I search it, I get this error "Taipei is not available on the Classic Flight Rewards. Select 'Use money, points or both' to continue."

 

[RooFlyer]

One of the challenges with QF is they have a lot of mistresses (i.e. partners that don't fall under the usual OneWorld alliance

You'd know better than me the high number of non-alliance partners Air Canada has - 20+ I think. Yet their miles booking engine is a doddle to use for partners.

Even before the revamp and re-build a couple of years ago, it was great and straightforward for redeeming on Star alliance network. When I was shuttling back and forth Hobart to Calgary, I got to 100K Super Elite for a few years and was swimming in miles and upgrades. Just too easy to spend the miles.

Now I don't fly with them, but am buying miles with the bonus offers, and planning trips to Mauritius, Serbia etc with ease on their partners.

The Qantas web site has been bug-ridden and clunky for years and years. If their management really wanted people to be able to spend their points freely, wouldn't they have gotten around to doing something about it by now? (New) Air Canada managed it.

PS I get that those who can manage the web site are quite content with the status quo. But there is so much BS in the process - like the QR non availability that for me its not worth it, for international at least.

I would have thought that Virgin would be a better fit for you, given its partner suite?

 

[SYD]

The Qantas web site has been bug-ridden and clunky for years and years. If their management really wanted people to be able to spend their points freely, wouldn't they have gotten around to doing something about it by now? (New) Air Canada managed it.

There seems to have been a focus on integrating revenue and reward bookings into a single search/booking engine - which has its positives - including you can now mix and match QF + partner revenue / rewards online but the negative is those silly any seat reward options are desensitising punters on what to expect to spend on reward redemptions.

The gripes in the OP are not new and the short answer is to use the multi-sector booking tool (yes, you might need to consult AA, BA, EF to help find flight options - which is not ideal).

There are some excellent redemption booking engines out there but some have worse quirks than QF. eg SQ has great availability, but try and book multi-sector / open jaw online!

 

[kangarooflyer88]

none of this is really "news" to most of us on forums like this. Multi-city tool is one's friend, as is having an idea of partner hubs, flights and options (and even knowing things like EK flies to LHR and LGW). Some enjoy the game as much as the reward.

You are quite right. Someone who frequents AFF and has been a loyal QFF members for many years now is well aware not only of the shortcomings listed but the "tricks" revealed here. I suppose the purpose of the post was to familiarize those less aware, who may haven't been on the forums for a long time. At the same time, for those of us experienced QFF members, I use this as an opportunity to rant and vent about the frustrating in finding classic awards through their brain dead award search engine.

I suspect though that the "problems" with not providing ALL possible routes for reward seats is less one of intent, but more technology. I mean the clunky multi-city tool is our friend, but the whole point that that even needs to be a thing is that it needs to be. That tool is one that used to be the main booking engine more or less and that should be all anyone need know to draw at least some reasonable conclusions - or at least assumptions.

It's certainly not a technical limitation as Air Canada's Aeroplan has proven time and time again. Since forever I have been able to make one award booking with multiple partners (including non-Star Alliance partners) on a single booking with them and it was more or less seamless. Everything from search to booking has been smooth. Sure, sometimes I was issued separate PNRs for complex itineraries but overall it has been wonderful for years with Aeroplan. Case in point, my most recent booking with them had flights with Virgin Australia (non Star Alliance), Etihad (non Star Alliance) and TAP Air Portugal (Star Alliance).

Whether QF wants to make the investment in IT is certainly open for debate but what I will point out is that it makes the experience seamless for the customer meaning I don't need to pick up the phone and call AC when schedule changes occur or I have a tricky booking. Given the horror stories we've heard in recent time with award bookings auto-cancelling and QF having to intervene (often at great expense for them), this might be a investment worth making.

How did you get Taipei to Sydney to show? When I search it, I get this error "Taipei is not available on the Classic Flight Rewards. Select 'Use money, points or both' to continue."

Just a normal award search be it directly from the QF website (selecting the use points option) or via the multi-city search tool. One thing to keep a look out for when entering the IATA code for Taipei (TPE) is to ensure you select Taipei and not Montpellier (which search seems to rank as top candidate):

You'd know better than me the high number of non-alliance partners Air Canada has - 20+ I think. Yet their miles booking engine is a doddle to use for partners.

The key thing for me is that I know when booking an Aeroplan award I'm not wasting my time. I know I can get from anywhere to anywhere given the extensive partner network AC has built out. The same cannot be said for QF.

Even before the revamp and re-build a couple of years ago, it was great and straightforward for redeeming on Star alliance network. When I was shuttling back and forth Hobart to Calgary, I got to 100K Super Elite for a few years and was swimming in miles and upgrades. Just too easy to spend the miles.

Indeed, I made an award booking back in 2017 which was a multi city itinerary: Toronto to Dubai, Dubai to Cairo, Cairo to Zurich then Zurich back to Toronto. In total there were 4 airlines on the itinerary (MS, LX, AC,UA) all in economy for 80,000 points by the way.

Now I don't fly with them, but am buying miles with the bonus offers, and planning trips to Mauritius, Serbia etc with ease on their partners.

If you have a specific itinerary in mind, buying miles is a surefire way to get excellent value on international J long haul tickets. I spent $2800 CAD in 2020 to buy sufficient points to fly me from SYD to YYZ in J return then this year I spent around the same to buy 160,000 miles (and transferred over 60,000 miles from AmEx) to book my epic round the world ticket SYD > MEL > AUH > ZRH > LIS > YYZ and LAX > YVR > ICN > SYD all in J.

The Qantas web site has been bug-ridden and clunky for years and years. If their management really wanted people to be able to spend their points freely, wouldn't they have gotten around to doing something about it by now? (New) Air Canada managed it.

One has to wonder how much sales QF lost due to flights not ticketing due to their arcane ticketing policy (i.e. tickets stuck in the queue).

PS I get that those who can manage the web site are quite content with the status quo. But there is so much BS in the process - like the QR non availability that for me its not worth it, for international at least.

I used to be one of those people who thought it was a great idea to hide the sweet spots from the plebs. This was certainly the case with the old Aeroplan where you need to be a master of routing rules to trick Aeroplan into giving you those J seats. However, now that I've had an opportunity to use the new system, I'd say I'm better off as a user. Could it be the additional partners they added like EY and EK? Perhaps! But I also think that making the rules simpler and making the search more powerful meant I didn't need to spend so much mental horsepower brainstorming how to twist myself into a pretzel to get that coveted J award.

I would have thought that Virgin would be a better fit for you, given its partner suite?

Virgins mistresses are varied, I will grant you although I find them to be a subset of Aeroplan. Better to lose your virginity to a program that provides you with more options

 

[encryptededdy]

How did you get Taipei to Sydney to show? When I search it, I get this error "Taipei is not available on the Classic Flight Rewards. Select 'Use money, points or both' to continue."

You have to either have it as not the first leg when using the multi-city tool, or use the regular booking tool and then set it to Classic Rewards Only after searching. You cannot do a multi-city search with just TPE-SYD as the first and only leg.

Just Qantas IT things

 

[kangarooflyer88]

You have to either have it as not the first leg when using the multi-city tool, or use the regular booking tool and then set it to Classic Rewards Only after searching. You cannot do a multi-city search with just TPE-SYD as the first and only leg.

Just Qantas IT things

Yep and this bug only occurs when the originating city is TPE. However, a normal award search should show you China Airlines award availability. And if I may be so bold, I would go so far as to say that the multi-city tool isn't even relevant with China Airlines in the sense that business availability is wide open, particularly if you are booking several months in advance.

-RooFlyer88

 

[encryptededdy]

If you're after CI though, beware they seem to have added a second daily flight over the new years period operated by an A330-300. Their A330s are old 2-2-2 business products, not the new Collins Super Diamond seat seen on their 777/A350s. Make sure you check if your flight is A330 or A350.

 

[kangarooflyer88]

If you're after CI though, beware they seem to have added a second daily flight over the new years period operated by an A330-300. Their A330s are old 2-2-2 business products, not the new Collins Super Diamond seat seen on their 777/A350s. Make sure you check if your flight is A330 or A350.

Thanks for pointing that out - there's a big difference between having your own window "pod" seat versus having a neighbour, particularly in this age of COVID. That being said I reckon some wouldn't mind having any business class seat up to Asia over none.

Looking at the calendar view of July 2023 for SYD to TPE I see plenty of J availability for the whole month, which I reckon might change things for those hoping to enjoy a European summer:

 

[RichardMEL]

Yes, I am well aware that other programs' search engines and platforms are far superior to QF's - it's a major issue as this thread demonstrates. UA too provides reasonable access to partner awards, even if some results I get can be wild at times.

QF's setup has been a series of apparent "kludges" (an IT term) on top of Amadeus over the years - from the dodgy implementation of flight credits/GV's to award functionality. I often wonder if QF just won't put the bucks in to the probably better off the shelf solutions, or the issues are more one of integration with other GDS providers to integrate access to reward inventory (and provide appropriate visibility of same). There's also an issue of what some "partners" will offer to others vs what they offer to themselves (but this is by no means just a QFF thing - for example SQ's selective blocking of reward seats on certain aircraft in certain cabins to UA).

I think we all agree that QF's priority is not to make this stuff "simpler and fairer" for customers which is frustrating.

This is but one reason why I divest to other programs to not be tied to just the one with its limitations, but also to provide multiple avenues to a desired outcome (for example being able to mix and match Star Alliance and OW rewards to make a whole trip).

I'm certainly not one who is "happy with the status quo" even if I am fairly familiar with the, shall we say, quirks of the QF system (and having high status providing extra ability to get some choice seats released is a bloody great benefit for sure, but it's not the only thing).... I'm certainly one who would love all of these issues, or at least the big ticket items, to be resolved.

 

[stoney]

Apologies in advance for the rant, but thought I'd post this both to do a bit of venting, but most importantly to make AFF members aware of a crucial shortcoming of the Qantas award booking engine. Put simply, Qantas does not list all available award routings to QFF members. Consequently, when we search for those coveted business classic awards to major destinations like Europe and occasionally North America, we are often left disappointed (see the numerous threads on AFF discussing this).

I don't know how Qantas' award booking engine works, but will speculate that they likely look for Qantas, Emirates and OneWorld partners when booking flights which necessitate a connection (i.e. SYD to FRA). However, for flights where nonstops are possible (i.e. SYD to TPE) they will also search for other partners they have a stitch up with (i.e. China Airlines). In addition, I think that Qantas considers the mileage each routing takes and purposely excludes routings that are a certain percentage over the hypothetical non-stop routing from point A to point B (called maximum permitted mileage in Aeroplan terms). Hence, in some instances it might be possible to "stitch" together a classic award itinerary that involves a combination of Qantas' core partners like JL and other award partners like China Airlines. Or alternatively, take a routing that goes in the opposite direction of where you are intending to go.

To provide a concrete example, for you, the reader, let's consider a popular destination people on here love to go to: London. In particular, consider someone travelling from London back to Sydney as far in advance as possible (i.e. November 2023). Well if I check the award calendar feature on QFF I see all we've got are economic classic awards despite me being a Gold (and having access to advance QF inventory) and booking many months in advance:
View attachment 310998

Now let's consider some routings using the multi-city tool of Qantas, this time going segment by segment. Out of London there are really two ways we can reach Sydney, out East across Europe and Asia or out West to the US and across the Pacific.

Let's consider the first option for a moment, travelling across Europe. Well there are a number of potential hubs that come to mind: Dubai (for Emirates), Amsterdam and Paris (for KLM/Air France), Columbo (for Sri Lankan), Tokyo (for JAL), Kuala Lumpur (for Malaysia), Singapore (for BA/QF), Taipei (for China Airlines), Hong Kong (for Cathay), Doha (for Qatar), Amman (for Royal Jordanian), Madrid (for Iberia), Helsinki (for FinnAir). Checking around, I notice a couple of interesting routings. In particular, China Airlines has a ton of available business classic awards between Taipei and Sydney for 75,000 points + $159 AUD in taxes & fees. At the same time I notice there's an EK flight that will bring me into TPE a couple hours earlier:
View attachment 311004
View attachment 311005


So there's one way to get from London Heathrow to Sydney via Europe. How about via North America? In this case we've got a couple of obvious options for hubs: LAX, DFW and SFO are the main hubs for QF and AA. In addition, we also need to add JFK to our list now that QF has introduced their JFK to SYD direct service. Taking a look at the most obvious option, LHR to LAX we see BA has a ton of business classic availability to get us there. And now checking the award calendar we see it's possible to fly Fiji from LAX to SYD (via Nadi) again as a business classic award, yielding this itinerary:

View attachment 311013
View attachment 311014

So there's a way back to Sydney via North America. Now granted, both of these itineraries are off the beaten path of something obvious like LHR to SYD via SIN. Nevertheless, they are valid routing options which in my mind should be shown to QF travellers interested in a routing to get them home, even if it is circuitous and may use slightly more points to get the job done. By contrast, I should point out that Air Canada's Aeroplan does a better job of showing all options, even if those options are circuitous. Using Sydney to Toronto as an example for November the 2nd, we get the following:

View attachment 311023

I suppose my rant is Qantas that if Qantas wants to provide real value to their frequent flyers, they need to show these circuitous routings to their members. They are available to members anyways, and it would enable Qantas to provide more options to travellers at virtually no cost of their own. No need to announce points planes or anything else. Simply make your booking engine more clever to highlight these routings.

I would be curious what the community thinks about the Qantas award booking engine and if there are other tips n' tricks to force classic award availability to appear, particularly on long haul routes like these.

-RooFlyer88

Totally agree. I am trying to get to Spain then Cuba, Japan and Taiwan in that order. The Qantas multi city on points keeps on throwing up errors. I can get to KUL from ADL but then trying to fine a Royal Jordanian to DOH or AMM out of Subang SZB is just too difficult. Can I get some advice please?

 

[craven morehead]

One of the challenges with QF is they have a lot of mistresses (i.e. partners that don't fall under the usual OneWorld alliance) like KLM/Air France or China Airlines that are hidden for most folks. Is there a comprehensive list anywhere that shows all of these mistresses so one could piece together an itinerary that works? In the interim, here's a list of Qantas' mistresses that I'm aware of:

Mistress	Hub
Air France	Paris (CDG)
KLM	Amsterdam (AMS)
China Airlines	Taipei (TPE)
WestJet	Vancouver (YVR), Calgary (YYC), Toronto (YYZ)
LATAM	Santiago (SCL)
EL Al	Tel Aviv (TLV)
Asiana	Seoul (ICN)
China Eastern	Shanghai (PVG), Beijing (PEK)
China Southern	Guangzhou (CAN), Shanghai (PVG), Beijing (PEK)
Indigo	Delhi (DEL), Bombay (BOM), Bangalore (BLR)
Solomon Airlines	Honiara (HIR)
Bangkok Airlines	Bangkok (BKK)
Air Vanuatu	Port Vila (VLI)

Following.

 

[stoney]

Respectfully disagree. They need those points to have perceived value to travellers to satisfy their main customers: banks, supermarkets and other frequent shopping programs that buy Qantas Points as a way to reward customers. If people think all they can get are simple flights between Melbourne and Sydney, then quite frankly the aspirational value of the points are gone. People accrue those hundreds of thousands of points in the hope that someday they can redeem it on a J flight to London with their spouse and themselves.

Even with Aeroplan, which allows these circuitous routings, it can also be a mugs game for the simple fact that there may not be J availability all the way to your final destination. Hence, when I saw that there wasn't SYD to YYZ in J when I wanted to fly in April, I decided to make it a flight with a stopover in ZRH which also enabled me to hit another bird with one stone.

It really depends on the routing. Certainly SYD to LDH booked as an economy classic is hardly a fool's errand. In addition, those points can be quite useful for domestic upgrades which confirm instantly. That way you spend fewer points to fly J, earn status credits and end up paying only a bit more in cash than had you booked the economy award (i.e. paying for the base fare which for things like SYD > MEL is very minimal).

To each their own. There's certainly a number of programs out there that offer guidance for booking award travel including Points.me, ExpertFlyer and the aforementioned AwardAssist. For me, though, I sort of enjoy the challenge of twisting myself into a pretzel to find those sweet spots!

-RooFlyer88

I see doing my own thing a challenge but I must admit I am getting close to abandoning my Classic Flight Award in J.

 

[kangarooflyer88]

I see doing my own thing a challenge but I must admit I am getting close to abandoning my Classic Flight Award in J.

There still is value to be had with classic flight awards as demonstrated above. Will you be able to do something dead simple as say SYD to LHR and find a classic award in J on QF? No! But with enough time and ingenuity you can certainly engineer a routing to get you there that isn't too much of a burden for those travelling (i.e. flying SYD to LHR via TPE and DXB).

I'm not sure on the reason, but card payment surcharges don't really seem to exist outside of Australia and NZ. It seems to be the norm in Australia now with almost every shop and business tacking it on, even places that only accept card payments so there's no way to avoid the surcharge!

It's frankly anti-consumer what is happening here. And look, I'm not gonna argue that credit card companies don't take 1 to 2% off the transaction amount. But the assumption being made here is it costs businesses nothing to handle cash. Nothing can be further from the truth! What is the shoe leather cost of businesses who have to constantly go to the bank to deposit cash? What about the cost of handling fraudulent cash (I know it's less of a deal in Australia since you can try ripping the note and if it tears it's counterfeit)? How much time is wasted having people go through their wallet/purse to find the cash to pay for something versus the half second it takes to tap my Apple Watch against the terminal?

-RooFlyer88

 

[kangarooflyer88]

In Berlin a few months ago five of us had a meal at a restaurant. The waiter didn't blink an eyelid at splitting the bill three ways.

Bringing this thread back on topic but related to the point raised, I wonder how tricky it would be to find business classic awards to the non-hub European cities like BER, BSL, OSL, etc.

-RooFlyer88

 

[kangarooflyer88]

I see that CI is increasing capacity from BNE to TPE including increasing the schedule to a 5 times weekly flight between the two cities. In addition, (and unbeknownst to me) is the service from TPE to BNE continues onwards to AKL. This of course could be a potential boon for those trying to find business classic awards across the Tasman, although I couldn't find any CI classic awards between the two cities. Could this be due to a routing rule imposed by Qantas? In any event, supposing this is bookable it could be potentially valuable considering you've got a lie flat to AKL as opposed to the usual ho-hum Qantas narrowbody experience across the ditch.

-RooFlyer88

 

[encryptededdy]

this be due to a routing rule imposed by Qantas?

I believe you can only book between Australia and Taiwan as Classic Rewards.

 

[jpp42]

One of the challenges with QF is they have a lot of mistresses (i.e. partners that don't fall under the usual OneWorld alliance) like KLM/Air France or China Airlines that are hidden for most folks. Is there a comprehensive list anywhere that shows all of these mistresses so one could piece together an itinerary that works? In the interim, here's a list of Qantas' mistresses that I'm aware of:

Mistress	Hub
Air France	Paris (CDG)
KLM	Amsterdam (AMS)
China Airlines	Taipei (TPE)
WestJet	Vancouver (YVR), Calgary (YYC), Toronto (YYZ)
LATAM	Santiago (SCL)
EL Al	Tel Aviv (TLV)
Asiana	Seoul (ICN)
China Eastern	Shanghai (PVG), Beijing (PEK)
China Southern	Guangzhou (CAN), Shanghai (PVG), Beijing (PEK)
Indigo	Delhi (DEL), Bombay (BOM), Bangalore (BLR)
Solomon Airlines	Honiara (HIR)
Bangkok Airlines	Bangkok (BKK)
Air Vanuatu	Port Vila (VLI)

Are you absolutely certain that you can book Awards on all of those airlines? China Southern? Asiana? I don't think so! Don't get mixed up between codeshare partners (of which there are significantly more besides the ones you list), and partners for which award seats are available.

If you just want a list of partner airlines, there's a clear and comprehensive list on the Qantas web site here, and you can drill down on each airline to find the benefits:

https://www.qantas.com/au/en/qantas-experience/network-and-partner-airlines.html#partner-airlines

Whether or not Classic Flight Rewards are available is indicated on the last section of each drill-down page . If you wanted, you could go through these and provide an actually correct list of non-OW airlines with Qantas Classic Rewards available, but I know you have a penchant for stating things as fact without actually checking them, so I can only hope you'd bother. If you do, please don't use the term "mistress" - that's just totally cringe and doesn't explain what you're meaning.

Also, note that Qatar Airways is not a partner of Qantas at all, and Classic Rewards are not available through them (any more), so you might add to your "insider list" a category of Oneworld airlines where Classic Rewards are not available. MH is not listed as a partner but does have awards available*, so this "category" isn't immediately obvious from the Qantas web site.

* sort of, if they ever ticket on time

 

[jpp42]

On a related note, I spied that Indigo is shown as a codeshare partner with classic awards bookable on a QF code. This seems to be similar to the setup for Jetstar, in that Indigo is a ticketless airline and doesn't participate in the standard GDS, but Qantas apparently has come up with some kind of workaround thus allowing such bookings as a codeshare. Has anyone successfully booked a classic reward with Indigo? I suspect these are only available with a connection to a QF flight from Australia?

 

[dajop]

But the assumption being made here is it costs businesses nothing to handle cash. Nothing can be further from the truth!

For some businesses it costs a lot more to handle payments via any electronic systems than via cash. And nothing to do with the merchant fees vs cash handling costs.

A good reason why the rules allowing merchant fees to be passed onwas stupid to begin with. At least they changed it only allow actual fees to be passed on. Prior to that it wasn't uncommon to see surcharges of 5-10% and we all know exactly why they such businesses want to charge such high surcharges, and it wasn't to profit from the surcharges.

 

[RooFlyer]

If you just want a list of partner airlines, there's a clear and comprehensive list on the Qantas web site here, and you can drill down on each airline to find the benefits:
https://www.qantas.com/au/en/qantas-experience/network-and-partner-airlines.html#partner-airlines

Thanks for that link!! I'd forgotten about many of those code-shares.