QFF Award booking availability

[genji]

Hi, I'm a new member to this forum and have been a member of QFF for a year and a half. My wife and I have been accumulating points for a trip to Europe in May and June. We thought it best to book early for award bookings. I tried booking in Dec 07, but could not find a seat for the May and June period. So we booked with Emirates instead.

Now, just tonight i thought i would try an award booking to see if there was any seats. I was surprised to fined the number of days that were available for departure in May and returning in June! And this was with departing for rome and returning from Paris.

Oh well, live and learn!

 

[littl_flier]

Hi genji. Welcome to AFF.

This is the wonders of Yield Management at play. Quite often, new seats are released and retracted based on what the airline thinks they can actually sell on the flight. For some reason, QF might think there are more seats available now that they'll give them away as Award seats.

I was wondering, were the seats with Qantas or BA? There as a technical glitch before Xmas where we didn't see BA award seats. The other thing with BA is that they tend to release seats later in the piece and sometimes they'll even release seats a couple of days before the flight if they think they'll fly empty. I know of one person on FT who managed to pick up some First Class seats on the morning of his departure.

Hope this helps. It must be frustrating but Emirates is quite a good airline by all reports.

Cheers,
littl_flier

 

[genji]

I was wondering, were the seats with Qantas or BA? There as a technical glitch before Xmas where we didn't see BA award seats.
littl_flier

The Award booking now showed BA on the return from Paris to Singapore. And QF from Singapore to Melbourne. But in Dec it didn't show anything for the return journey.

I always had the impression it was best to book as early as possible, now with the quirky narture of award seats its best to try often.

 

[acampbel]

... I always had the impression it was best to book as early as possible, now with the quirky narture of award seats its best to try often.

I would amend that statement slightly to say it is always best to book early if you can get a routing/schedule that you can live with .... but check back often to see if something better turns up.

The previous SYD/EDI awards seats I booked (2006) were originally on the standard Kangaroo route, but then we decided to return via Hong Kong so that we could take the kids to Disneyland. For about 2 months solid I checked many times a day (tried FFF but it returned too many undesirable results), and once the flights I wanted appeared at 1am only to disappear by the time I called Qantas. Finally at 2am one night I successfully re-routed (without charge!) and enjoyed getting to bed a bit earlier after that.

The upcoming trip has a few bugs in it (e.g. - not a very good schedule back through Hong Kong) so I am keeping my eye on things. The problem I have is coordinated 2 Y awards with 2 Qantas Holiday fares, so simultaneous availability is the key.



Cheers,

Andrew

 

[dajop]

I would amend that statement slightly to say it is always best to book early if you can get a routing/schedule that you can live with .... but check back often to see if something better turns up.

I'd amend to say book as early as possible, or be prepared to go at the last minute (at least for international travel). My best award bookings have been either made >9 months out or <2 weeks out. With you on the try often as well.

 

[drron]

Those that check out Flyer Talk as well have probably all read about AA people complaining about award availability on QF.Today I learnt it goes both ways.Wanted to book my wife a J return to NYC from BNE.Just for the heck of it I looked at direct QF flights but as school holidays begin at the end of June so I was not surprised at there being nothing.
I therefore looked via NRT.I want to use my QF points because I do not like the talk of enhancements.Surprised to find good availability in J to NRT on the QF website on the dates I wanted.But they were showing no J availability on my dates and very limited J availability in June.Decide to book different dates but when flights selected either way NRT-JFK it came up as only F and Y on AA,there was no business column.
Checked on AA and wide availability of Milesaaver awards in J.On my dates the J cabin had no occupied seats showing.So rang QF and they could get no Award availability in J on AA on any day whether to JFK,DFW.ORD,LAX all of which were available according to AA.
So booked BNE-NRT on QF-120000 points +$A436.67 fines.
And NRT-JFK on AA-90000 points + $US39.10 in fines for a sector that is 50%longer.
It does appear though that there is not much cooperation in the OW alliance.