QFF Platinum requesting release of extra Classic Reward seats?

[ozflier]

You cannot make the booking when there are no Award seats in the class requested being offerred, so you need to call first.

One caveat is that if you already have an award booking for the flight in a lower class then your chances may slightly increase. If so it would be due to some dialog I have come across that the total number of award seats redeemed for a flight may be capped and with this that figure would not increase.

Thank you Sertfly.
My wife has a conference to attend in Gaspe Peninsula Canada next June - a bad time for reward bookings I know .
I have enough points to fly in business for both of us.
Just to clarify my question as I did not explain my question well enough.
Lets say that I thought 28 May 2024 was the best date to fly MEL-SYD-Vancouver and there were business reward seats on the domestic and economy only on the international.
Do I need to make this booking and have it ticketed prior to making the call to QFF and requesting a seat be created ( assuming there are I class available and there are ( though no "business sale" in revenue booking page )
or
can I once seeing the available economy rewards seats on SYD-YVR sector , could I, without actually making the booking , ring and request for business seats to be released ?
If not the latter, if I could only ring once ticketed, then once rejected for one date , I may have to forget that date , lose 10,000 points and change onto an adjacent date with the potential of losing further 10K points.
(I could not even consider travelling long distance Y in Qantas !)
Happy to send you a PM to explain better - my brain not the best after 3 cases of Covid over the last 3 years

 

[Kangol]

Thank you Sertfly.
My wife has a conference to attend in Gaspe Peninsula Canada next June - a bad time for reward bookings I know .
I have enough points to fly in business for both of us.
Just to clarify my question as I did not explain my question well enough.
Lets say that I thought 28 May 2024 was the best date to fly MEL-SYD-Vancouver and there were business reward seats on the domestic and economy only on the international.
Do I need to make this booking and have it ticketed prior to making the call to QFF and requesting a seat be created ( assuming there are I class available and there are ( though no "business sale" in revenue booking page )
or
can I once seeing the available economy rewards seats on SYD-YVR sector , could I, without actually making the booking , ring and request for business seats to be released ?
If not the latter, if I could only ring once ticketed, then once rejected for one date , I may have to forget that date , lose 10,000 points and change onto an adjacent date with the potential of losing further 10K points.
(I could not even consider travelling long distance Y in Qantas !)
Happy to send you a PM to explain better - my brain not the best after 3 cases of Covid over the last 3 years

All you need to do is ring and request for the flights and date/s you want.
If approved, then you go through to payment/ticketing.
If rejected, that's it. Consider other alternatives.

 

[ozflier]

All you need to do is ring and request for the flights and date/s you want.
If approved, then you go through to payment/ticketing.
If rejected, that's it. Consider other alternatives.

Good .
Does the agent do the booking then and there or do I myself ?

 

[Kangol]

Good .
Does the agent do the booking then and there or do I myself ?

If it is approved on the spot, you pay there and then.
If there is no decision, they will tell you to call back in 24-48 hours for a decision.
If it's rejected on the spot, you will be told then.
Only P1 can ask for manual review after a rejection.

 

[kreuky]

SFO-SYD in Aug 2023, just wanted 1 seat..denied...even though I4.
Other nearby dates all I3-6 and all denied.

 

[diesel canberra]

Declined 2J QF11 on 7 Aug. Aghhhh never mond

 

[ozflier]

Thank you for the advice .
Well , I cannot remember when I last got a flight via Plat award release in business class but today was the day.
I made some suggestions to the agent and eventually one came thru for 2 people .
I mentioned the presence of "I" fare basis seats but she said she could not check unless there were revenue seats on sale as "Business savers".
All the 2,3 and 4 june dates had "I"9 .
I checked both the SYD and MEL flights to LAX as more likely to have availability because the aircraft were A 380s.
The third date 3 June came thru with 2 seats direct from MEL.
Interesting, this date had no economy reward seats available when I looked but this did not seem to faze the agent!
Now just to find some American Airlines or Alaskan reward seats to get us across to the East Coast.

 

[Lynda2475]

Now just to find some American Airlines or Alaskan reward seats to get us across to the East Coast.

These have proved rarer than QF award seats in recent months

 

[LadyC]

Anyone had any success in getting SYD-JNB/JNB-SYD in J released? Seems like a dearth of award seats available and wondering about success rates if anyone had requested a release of J seats?

 

[funnybrus]

Does anyone know if it's possible to request flights and have them added to an existing booking? (ie for a OWA)

 

[Lynda2475]

Does anyone know if it's possible to request flights and have them added to an existing booking? (ie for a OWA)

Yes

 

[Kangol]

Does anyone know if it's possible to request flights and have them added to an existing booking? (ie for a OWA)

Yes, totally possible. Just make sure you tell them to change the existing booking by adding flights, like you would for any other OWA changes.

 

[BriarFlyer]

Anyone had any success in getting SYD-JNB/JNB-SYD in J released? Seems like a dearth of award seats available and wondering about success rates if anyone had requested a release of J seats?

I've requested several times with I9 available but always a (polite) no.

There have been random releases of J awards. We scored both ways at separate times for travel in July/August this year, months after being denied the release request. The outbound, for late July, was booked only a month ago. I had EF alerts set up, thankfully.

 

[bPeteb]

I've requested several times with I9 available but always a (polite) no.

There have been random releases of J awards. We scored both ways at separate times for travel in July/August this year, months after being denied the release request. The outbound, for late July, was booked only a month ago. I had EF alerts set up, thankfully.

How does EF work in this regard? I know that I have to get a paid subscription. I'll be looking for a single reward seat in each direction Jul 31 and Aug 24 2024. Outbound PE or Y, inbound J or PE. These will be for my partner and I will book revenue seats in the same class.

There's the jumping on to the QF website at 355 (353?) days out at 10am BNE time. I'll give this a go first. Will EF somehow show this release as well and I register for an alert telling me of reward availability?

I've only ever successfully requested release of domestic Y seats. International is a whole new thing.

 

[sudoer]

Will EF somehow show this release as well and I register for an alert telling me of reward availability?

No it won't. Seat releases at 353 days for Gold and above won't show in EF inventory.

I think the EF alert @BriarFlyer set up would have been for U class availability, which would have been open to any QFF member and partner program members for EF to see it.

 

[smckay]

Now just to find some American Airlines or Alaskan reward seats to get us across to the East Coast.

I asked and was given economy seats DFW-CLT on AA as an award seat by the phone person. Nothing better was available then or today.

 

[ozflier]

I asked and was given economy seats DFW-CLT on AA as an award seat by the phone person. Nothing better was available then or today.

If Charlotte was your destination , I would probably be happy to suck it up for a 2hr 30 minute flight .
BTW, has anyone had any success requesting business reward release on the new QF flights JFK -AKL and vv . I am looking anytime mid next year but it would be interested if there have been any wins by our posters.

 

[QF029]

Declined multiple days in early June 2023 1*J seat LHR to MEL via SIN.

The helpful agent told me she would try alternate routing and came back that the computer approved LHR-MEL-PER on my preferred date so very happy.

 

[ozflier]

Great news!

 

[Danger]

Declined multiple days in early June 2023 1*J seat LHR to MEL via SIN.

The helpful agent told me she would try alternate routing and came back that the computer approved LHR-MEL-PER on my preferred date so very happy.

Do you mean LHR-xPER-MEL? If so, do you know what the I load was on LHR-PER?