Qantas Round the World with FF points - how do I do it?

[gmask1]

Long time poster, first time listener. *sheesh*, even that's an old gag nowadays.

I need help. Around Feb-Mar next year, I'm planning on using my vast collection of 140K ff points (yup, vassst) to go to London. Thing is, I'd like to also go to Los Angeles, if I can stretch the points. I have a pile of points on Amex that can be transferred over if need be, but I can't work out how many points it will take, since the Qantas FF Point-user-planner-widget can't factor in the BA or AA flight from LA to London.

So, can one of you kind souls help me figure out:
- can I do Melbourne-LA-London-Melbourne using Qantas FF points?
- do I need to ring Q, or can I figure it all out and book it online?
- how many points will it cost me?
- will it be more point-effective to go for a round-the-world ticket, or just book for the actual stops on each leg?

Thanks kindly in advance

gmask1

 

[coyote25]

Qantas Round the World with FF points

Hi gmask1,

While I'm not an expert like some around here you could go for a Oneworld Award ticket. The drawbacks are you need to use two non-QANTAS but Oneworld partners.

You didn't say what home port you are located in so I used Sydney for the following real example using online bookings:
Sydney-Hong Kong (Cathay) 7/2/06 CX110
Hong Kong - London (British) 13/02/06 BA28
London - LA (British) 24/03/06 BA283
LA - Sydney 31/03/06 QF8

I just picked these dates at random, so not much problems booking. Spending a few days in Hong Kong actually makes it easier to travel to London which can be hard to book at times.

All this is for a 140k award, cheapest option I believe. SYD-LDN is 64k pts, LDN-LA 36k pts & LA-SYD 48k pts total 148k (remembering you can add in other dest. with RTW ticket without adding FF cost).

Now not doing it with a side visit to Hong Kong makes it a little harder to book however you could do the following bookings as at 8.25 pm today:
Syd-HKG-London (Cathay - CX100 & BA26) 8/2/06
LDN-LA BA283 22/3/06
LA - Sydney 31/03/06 QF8

As long as you use 2 Oneworld partners you shouldn't have a problem. It's worth noting you can have 5 destinations on this ticket, so in the first one you could add to more stops (say Rome, Henski or NYC etc). You can book this ticket online but not with you need to use AA.

Good luck. Let us know how you went getting seats.

Coyote

 

[QF WP]

You didn't say what home port you are located in

Hmm, I thought it was pretty obvious from my first read of the OP's story:

can I do Melbourne-LA-London-Melbourne

Certainly, you want to work out your itinerary and see what possible availability there is before you transfer over your points (although points only expire in the QFF after 3 years of absolutely no transactions, so that wouldn't be a problem for you).

I'm not a noted FF award points user guru, so can't really help with yoru question. But others here are a wealth of knowledge on this area.

 

[NM]

The Qantas OneWorld Award is a little different to the regular Qantas FF award offerings. The standard awards are now calculated as a group of one-way trips, while the OneWorld Award remains a full trip calculation.

Your suggested minimum trip routing (MEL-LAX-LRH-MEL) is 23,880 miles so fits into the zone 10 range for OneWorld awards, costing 142,500 QF FF points in economy (282,500 in business class). This is up from 130,000 under the old points system before May 25th.

So for no more points cost, you can travel up to 35,000 miles, which may give you a chance to see some other interesting places or to be creative with the rounting to find availability.

A few points to remember with the OneWorld Award:

• You need to use two OneWorld carriers other than QF, so look for AA, BA, CX etc.
• You can have up to 5 stopovers. A stopover is a stay of more than 24 hours in a port or between ports when including a surface sector. Careful use of surface sectors can be make a very interesting itinerary.
• Once you take the first flight, you cannot make any changes to the itinerary, so make sure you have suitable travel insurance to cover any missed flights etc.
• Note that taxes, levies and surcharges can be high for a OneWorld award due to the possible number of sectors.

A few years back I redeemed 7 x OneWorld awards routing BNE-AKL-LAX//LAS-DFW-MCO//YYZ-LHR-KBP//KPB-LHR-NCL//TXL-HEL//HEL-FRA-HKG-SYD-BNE.

DFW and HKG were not stopovers, but we did stay overnight at DFW and had a whole day in HKG by selecting the right flights.

I doubt you will be able to book a complex OneWorld award routing on-line. Mine took at least 5 phone calls and probably over 3 hours in the phone with the QF reps, but finding 7 seats on the same flights added to the difficulty.

 

[gmask1]

Hi folks,

Thank you for your responses, they will all be extremely helpful in the coming weeks when I go through the process of booking flights/tours/blah. I wasn't sure if I had made my original post clear, but yes, my home base is sunny (today at least) Melbourne. The LA leg was a late addition to the trip, and if it is possible to add a another stop or two without additonal, then it's all a bonus.

Many thanks,

gmask1(Greg)

 

[drron]

I booked 2 one world awards just before devaluation day on may 25th.It was a lot easier to phone.It took less than an hour.Flying Brisbane-bangkok-hong kong-dubai-london-paris-new york-brisbane.London just a transit.Your itinerary should be no problem.

 

[dajop]

Yes the world is yours for the taking 35,000 miles is a long way - I managed to get in a booking before May 25 to go from MEL-Europe-South America(with numerous internal flights)-LAX-MEL. (Although must admit version 1 of the trip came out at 35,012 miles which was not allowed!)

But if you want to keep things simple the One World RTW itinerary is still the best option - and even without using Cathay via Hong Kong, it's fairly simple to include an extra one world carrier (assuming you'll use BA for the transatlantic crossing) ... by doing a short side trip from London on Aer Lingus or Iberian, or even by flying BA from London to San Francisco and then AA from San Francisco to LAX.

 

[danielh]

Does it cost more points to use a phone operator to book the award RTW flight?

Regards
Daniel

 

[drron]

Does it cost more points to use a phone operator to book the award RTW flight?

Regards
Daniel

Yes,it now costs 2500 points.However until they make the online bookings more user friendly it is worth it IMHO.

 

[dajop]

Note though for One World bookings, the points table already includes the 2,500 pts for phone booking, eg. the 35,000 mile OW redemption is 142,500 in economy which includes 140,000 for the redemption and 2,500 for the phone booking. I believe if you book it online (if you can) it will add up the separate one way bookings which is rather expensive.

 

[danielh]

Now you have all piqued my interest in getting a RTW FF ticket.

Thanks to a bit of judicious (and a bit cough) credit card management, I've managed to scrounge up about 150k points since last April. I hope to get to about 280k by the end of this year but that will be dependent on my work in Sydney and if I can convince Diners Club to give me 2x bonus for another 3 months (not looking likely as I would of had it for 15 months straight).

Now my question is this, if I call up Qantas to book my OW trip, will I run into a wall of lack of available award seats or do they just calculate it on a total distance thing and pretty much give me leeway on any flight and destination I want whether or not an award seat is available?

A post above seemed to imply that a OW ticket is based on distance (which it is if you pay cash for it) but I cannot seem to find sich a deal on the Qantas site.

Regards
Daniel

 

[Kiwi Flyer]

Mileage adds up - see OW award table

You still need to have award availability on each leg, same as any other award.

 

[danielh]

Well if that is the case I'd probably be lucky to get a RTW trip with the prefered itinery.

I'm actually thinking I'll need to use the FF points for my Wife and buy a separate ticket with $$ for me. Not 100% sure I'll be ably to scrounge up the additional 130k in points and with the award availablity issue it might be hard to get 2 tickets on each flight.

Regards
Daniel

 

[serfty]

Well if that is the case I'd probably be lucky to get a RTW trip with the prefered itinery.

I'm actually thinking I'll need to use the FF points for my Wife and buy a separate ticket with $$ for me. Not 100% sure I'll be ably to scrounge up the additional 130k in points and with the award availablity issue it might be hard to get 2 tickets on each flight.

Regards
Daniel

If you're looking at doing a oneWORLD RTW award and a QF Paid ($2,549-$3,129+ tax etc) "Global Explorer" in Economy; you may wish to look at a oneWORLD Explorer instead. This is not distance based; it is limited by continents and flight segments. Ex OZ they cost $2,939-$3,239 + tax etc. For a little extra you can go a lot further and vist more places. There is more information in the FlyerTalk oneWORLD forum under The oneworld explorer ticket FAQs.

 

[danielh]

Note though for One World bookings, the points table already includes the 2,500 pts for phone booking, eg. the 35,000 mile OW redemption is 142,500 in economy which includes 140,000 for the redemption and 2,500 for the phone booking. I believe if you book it online (if you can) it will add up the separate one way bookings which is rather expensive.

Spoke to a Qantas CSR today and she told me that I can use th einternet to book a RTW trip. Just select multi destination in the award flight option and then start selecting my destinations.

Once all the 1-way trips are added up, depending on the DISTANCE, the point cost will be calculated on the RTW banding table LESS 2,500 points.

IE. an operator assisted trip that would cost 142,500 points will only cost 140,000 on the internet.

Regards
Daniel

 

[Kiwi Flyer]

Given the current limitations on what destinations can be booked online, this is only of use for the very simplest of itins.

 

[Kiz]

Hi Everyone!

I just came across this post through a google search and it was exactly what I was after!! So I registered and here I am!!

I am about to FINALLY do my first OS trip in April/May 2006.

At this stage I'm thinking:
Sydney-London
London-Rome
(make own way to London)
London-New York
New York-Sydney

So does this fit the One World RTW thing for 142 500 points? Or do I have another leg I can add?

Probably a dumb question I know, but I have absolutely no idea what I'm doing!!!

All advice and ideas would be greatly appreciated!!

Thanks so much!

Cheers, Kiz.

 

[JohnK]

I am about to FINALLY do my first OS trip in April/May 2006.

At this stage I'm thinking:
Sydney-London
London-Rome
(make own way to London)
London-New York
New York-Sydney

So does this fit the One World RTW thing for 142 500 points? Or do I have another leg I can add?

Probably a dumb question I know, but I have absolutely no idea what I'm doing!!!

All advice and ideas would be greatly appreciated!!

Welcome, Kiz.

You will find a lot of useful information here

http://www.qantas.com.au/fflyer/dyn/program/usingPoints/flights

Basically with the One world RTW award you can fly up to 35,000 miles for 142,500 points but you must use 2 other 1world airlines other than Qantas.

SYD-LHR-FCO... LHR-JFK-SYD are ~25,000 miles so you can add more destinations along the way.

NM is the person to help you the most.

Hurry up and get that 1,000 posts Lindsay, there are people here that need NM's help.

 

[danielh]

Kiz,

I thought i'd also add in that you are planning your RTW trip a bit late. Many of your preferred award flights may no longer be available so i would start checking available seats ASAP but be prepared to move your time table a bit.

Regards
Daniel

 

[JohnK]

Kiz,

I thought i'd also add in that you are planning your RTW trip a bit late. Many of your preferred award flights may no longer be available so i would start checking available seats ASAP but be prepared to move your time table a bit.

Regards
Daniel

You are right Daniel it is a bit late but I did some dummy bookings between 26 April and May 30 2006 and you would be surprised what is still available although some weird routings. They really must have opened up more award seats.

SYD-LHR flying QF to NRT and BA to LHR. LHR-FCO flying BA. LHR-JFK flying AY to HEL and then JFK. JFK-SYD flying QF108 (available almost everyday although no AA availability). Fits in with at least 2 one world airlines other than QF and still more miles to play around with. :!: