QFF Platinum requesting release of extra Classic Reward seats?

[DC3]

I have OWA flights back from Europe june and september this year.
Currently coming back via complicated connections via HND and HKG respectively .
I rang unsuccessfully friday to request freeing up of seats LHR - SIN or LHR-SYD to get to BNE. All options had 9 x "i" seats available and the agent tried unsuccessfully.
The agent told me that you need a "J" seat to be available for conversion to be on the cards .
Has anyone heard of this ?
I was under the impression that it was the "i" class seats that gave you the best chance - I accept there are many other variables as well .

Call Centre laziness/incompetence?

 

[Matt_01]

The agent told me that you need a "J" seat to be available for conversion to be on the cards .
Has anyone heard of this ?
I was under the impression that it was the "i" class seats that gave you the best chance - I accept there are many other variables as well .

The agent is not correct about the J seat comment, in general WP can request based on I buckets. P1 can get seats from D and I and if the bot 'says no' the VIP Team can request a manual assessment. There is a post up thread from @Princess Fiona which would indicate that in some cases QF may release from C or J to P1s

 

[justinbrett]

J is full fare business - it's the last class to sell.

If that's the benchmark, hold them to it!

 

[danzel]

Has anyone ever seen QF Gold have business reward seats released for a domestic flight? QF have cancelled a series of BNE-PER flights for our dates and have us flying at 16:15 instead of 07:00 as originally booked which means we miss an event. I would be happy for them to re-book us to PER via SYD but still flying in J. There's no business award availability for that date on SYD-PER. Do I have any chances?

 

[encryptededdy]

Has anyone ever seen QF Gold have business reward seats released for a domestic flight? QF have cancelled a series of BNE-PER flights for our dates and have us flying at 16:15 instead of 07:00 as originally booked which means we miss an event. I would be happy for them to re-book us to PER via SYD but still flying in J. There's no business award availability for that date on SYD-PER. Do I have any chances?

As QF Gold, they will not release new seats for you for no reason. However, if they cancelled your flight, in my experience they're usually happy to rebook you with no problem, even if there's no award space.

I called up Qantas earlier today when my J Award PER to SYD via. MEL got cancelled and rebooked onto an earlier flight. I told them I would prefer to fly the next day as opposed to earlier on that day, and the agent accommodated that for me, which included creating Award Space for me. I didn't even have to ask for it, they just put me onto a flight which I knew had no award space. This is as a Silver. With that said, I don't know if I just had a more competent than usual agent, or if this is standard practice.

I think just call up and say the new flight times don't work for you. Hopefully they can put you onto a flight that works.

 

[ozflier]

The agent is not correct about the J seat comment, in general WP can request based on I buckets. P1 can get seats from D and I and if the bot 'says no' the VIP Team can request a manual assessment. There is a post up thread from @Princess Fiona which would indicate that in some cases QF may release from C or J to P1s

I rang about a revenue booking today and believe it or not , I came across the same agent who told me about J needed for release to higher tier members . She was good enough to check with her supervisor and she admitted she was wrong .
Instead , she told me that the first thing they check on is the availability of "business saver" fares and that this should correlate with potential for release.
I'll check in future when i make the call and see if there is a greater chance of release business saver availability vs I class . The agent told me that the 2 are not always connected !!!!
I am just getting more confused .
Of course , QFF could just release more reward seats and be done with it!

 

[fifo]

WP, denied just now for x 3 J seats to/from north america for july/aug. all flights have 9 seats avail in all biz class fare buckets. was told there is no manual review. insisting on supervisor to intervene - WP for a decade, only asked for x 2 seats in that entire time.

Bit of a joke, I and my partner have ~1mil qff points and apparently the only way to use them is in y or y+ if you are lucky.
this is after being on hold for most of the day and hung up on x3 times by the system.
I tell ya, i'm like 85% of the way to LTG...once I hit LTG qantas can go jump after a succesion of really bad experiences.

 

[levelnine]

apparently the only way to use them is in y or y+ if you are lucky.

I'm definitely finding this at the moment — almost no international J availability on Qantas (and partner airline seats are few and far between at the moment too).

 

[fifo]

I'm definitely finding this at the moment — almost no international J availability on Qantas (and partner airline seats are few and far between at the moment too).

I'm angry for you. Once you get a y+ reward, you are locked into it. They clearly want people paying for y+ and gambling on a reward.

 

[Daver6]

I realise most people are wanting J seats released but I just requested some Y seats be released given the fares were ridiculously high. This was the loading and computer said yes to both.

 

[MrJetset]

I believe there's a blanket ban on award releases for certain routes and months.

We've previously seen that QFF agents had a PDF stating school holidays, weekends and even certain days of the week would all be denied. Even if they put in a request, it was programmed to deny.

It seems this has been extended to mirror the lack of awards when searching.

 

[fifo]

I basically got to a team leader in hobart and said 'this is horseshit' explaining the above. He relented and did a manual review request, stating the above. He said he didn't like my chances. He then booked me x 3 y+ seats so I wouldnt loose them. I feel like i've been 'managed'. Not sure what else I can do really.

Also nice to note is if you use a qantas travel pass for flights fromo USA canada to aus, they slog you a hefty 50 buck currency conversion charge or so, or give you a coughpy rate. I used a travel pass for coming him, as i dont want to waste 2800 bucks expiring by the end of this yr!

 

[RichardMEL]

July/Aug is a peak travel period. Getting 3J would probably be an ask for a P1 imo. I mean I totally understand and you feel your loyalty should be rewarded more but I also don' entirely blame them if they don't want to release those seats specially as things are opening up and more demand they want to sell them!

Did you ask if maybe 2J and 1F or some other mix (I think F would be back on LAX by then?). I am sure you would all like to sit together, but perhaps a mix might be more do-able?

 

[fifo]

July/Aug is a peak travel period. Getting 3J would probably be an ask for a P1 imo. I mean I totally understand and you feel your loyalty should be rewarded more but I also don' entirely blame them if they don't want to release those seats specially as things are opening up and more demand they want to sell them!

Did you ask if maybe 2J and 1F or some other mix (I think F would be back on LAX by then?). I am sure you would all like to sit together, but perhaps a mix might be more do-able?

There is no F to usa as there is no a380 as yet on those routes. I was happy to take 2x J and 1 y+ if need be, there is nothing he can do, its revenue management. Their strat now is to make you push for an upgrade so it costs you more points overall. which I had not realised was possible on an original award booking, until today.

 

[mviy]

There is no F to usa as there is no a380 as yet on those routes. I was happy to take 2x J and 1 y+ if need be, there is nothing he can do, its revenue management. Their strat now is to make you push for an upgrade so it costs you more points overall. which I had not realised was possible on an original award booking, until today.

I think that was a change in recent years. It used to be the case that you couldn’t upgrade an award booking.

 

[fifo]

I think that was a change in recent years. It used to be the case that you couldn’t upgrade an award booking.

Yes. It's a joke. So they don't let you get a j award booking for 126k points. BUT you can get y+, then put in upgrade request for upgrade (81k) at a total cost of 176k points. Total screw.

 

[justinbrett]

There is no F to usa as there is no a380 as yet on those routes.

There will be in 10 days.

 

[fifo]

There will be in 10 days.

What's your source of info? No a380 showing up at all thru the rest of this yr on Syd DFW currently.

 

[justinbrett]

What's your source of info? No a380 showing up at all thru the rest of this yr on Syd DFW currently.

You didn't specify DFW, you said USA.

I was referring to LAX. Which of course you can connect through (and would probably have a much better chance of getting seats on)

 

[RichardMEL]

to be fair, I see QF11 as 388 with F in April, but it does seem to be 789 on dates in July I looked at. They may yet change depending on how things pan out. IIRC they had scheduled 380's and some had F awards downgraded to J when they switched back to 787

so I was right, but also wrong. story of my life