QR withholding award seats from Qantas?

[Daver6]

Still one or two daily’s to KUL on MH or is their award availability poor on that route?

Good point. However, that's only to LHR. Elsewhere in Europe is another connection. Oh well. Is what it is.

 

[V1V2]

Another blunder by Alan Joyce and his brains trust. Qatar would have been the logical partner choice with added bonus of both in same alliance.

 

[ETW]

This really impacts one's ability to fly on a OWA out of Perth to Europe. CX is now a basket case with two or three flights a week. Leaves just QF who have so few award spots on the PER-LHR flight. Only hope is QF via SIN now.

I'm trying to get PER-MIA in early Feb and just had to book PER-KUL-BKK-AMM-MAD-MIA
What a delight that will be. But i will say that ex PER availability with MH was amazing

 

[Spizz]

But it is no longer possible to redeem Qantas points for any Qatar Airways Business or First Class seats. All premium cabin reward seats have simply disappeared from the Qantas website.

Not quite accurate to say *Any*. There is still a Business class seat or 2 there on Qatar via Qantas.

 

[OldGuy]

So does offering up pitiful SC earn rates for daring to choose to fly with a so called alliance partner.
QF has been the bully for years but now they have come up against a kid in the schoolyard who is bigger and tougher

Why the arrogant silence from Qantas and Qatar, leaving FFs and media alike speculating? And will Qantas now replace Qatar on the RTW classic reward with Emirates and change the 'has to be OW airlines' requirement?

 

[Princess Fiona]

Why the arrogant silence from Qantas and Qatar, leaving FFs and media alike speculating? And will Qantas now replace Qatar on the RTW classic reward with Emirates and change the 'has to be OW airlines' requirement?

No because a OW Award isn’t a QFF thing at all.
It’s actually offered on other OW FF programs eg BA

 

[jase05]

Why the arrogant silence from Qantas and Qatar, leaving FFs and media alike speculating? And will Qantas now replace Qatar on the RTW classic reward with Emirates and change the 'has to be OW airlines' requirement?

Why would they as there is no such reward in existence. It’s a OWA with no requirement to fly RTW and is offered by other OW airlines. There are plenty of options still under the OW banner to organise a decent itinerary

Post automatically merged: Feb 20, 2023

I'm trying to get PER-MIA in early Feb and just had to book PER-KUL-BKK-AMM-MAD-MIA
What a delight that will be. But i will say that ex PER availability with MH was amazing

Did you snare the A330 PER-KUL?

 

[OldGuy]

No because a OW Award isn’t a QFF thing at all.
It’s actually offered on other OW FF programs eg BA
View attachment 317075

Maybe I am confused? According to AFF, the Qantas RTW Oneworld Classic Flight Reward lets you fly around the world for 132,400 Qantas points in Economy, or 318,000 points in Business class! Without Qatar in the mix, options are reduced. Happy to be enlightened ...

 

[Lawrage]

Flying out of Perth at the moment on points is a nightmare. Once you get to asia it seems you can pretty much get awards flights to anywhere you need to go. Having to keep booking extra stopovers and multiple tickets to get anywhere is a real pain.

 

[Princess Fiona]

Maybe I am confused? According to AFF, the Qantas RTW Oneworld Classic Flight Reward lets you fly around the world for 132,400 Qantas points in Economy, or 318,000 points in Business class! Without Qatar in the mix, options are reduced. Happy to be enlightened ...

Ok I’ll enlighten you.

A One World Award is a distance based award that must include at least two OW carriers other than QF.
There are many other OneWorld airlines which offer this as an option eg the BA example I posted.
QF cannot have EK in a OW Award as it isn’t a OneWorld airline.

Obviously if QR is missing then that reduces the flights.
I never stated that it didn’t.

But QF can’t replace QR with another airline like EK in a One World Award.
Hope that makes things clearer.

 

[OldGuy]

Ok I’ll enlighten you.

A One World Award is a distance based award that must include at least two OW carriers other than QF.
There are many other OneWorld airlines which offer this as an option eg the BA example I posted.
QF cannot have EK in a OW Award as it isn’t a OneWorld airline.

Obviously if QR is missing then that reduces the flights.
I never stated that it didn’t.

But QF can’t replace QR with another airline like EK in a One World Award.
Hope that makes things clearer.

Thanks. I do understand the basics - and that Emirates is not OW. My point is .. that without Qatar seats, a decent Qantas RTW classic reward ticket is much more difficult to piece together. Just another negative for Qantas FFs.

 

[jase05]

Thanks. I do understand the basics - and that Emirates is not OW. My point is .. that without Qatar seats, a decent Qantas RTW classic reward ticket is much more difficult to piece together. Just another negative for Qantas FFs.

There are plenty of absolutely brilliant examples over on the relevant thread that have no QR flights contained in their OWA.
Yes it’s a loss but where there’s a will there’s a way

 

[Princess Fiona]

Thanks. I do understand the basics - and that Emirates is not OW. My point is .. that without Qatar seats, a decent Qantas RTW classic reward ticket is much more difficult to piece together. Just another negative for Qantas FFs.

Yes it will be but definitely not impossible.
I booked one last month and will be departing in April.
It doesn’t contain a single QR flight and neither did any of the others I have booked and flown.
They have all been very decent itineraries fully optimized.

 

[Danger]

I have QR business (via QFF) end of may from Europe to Aus, lets hope there are no changes! Is there any website or app that will notify you if a schedule change occurs?

ExpertFlyer.

Another blunder by Alan Joyce and his brains trust. Qatar would have been the logical partner choice with added bonus of both in same alliance.

Qatar joined oneworld long after Qantas and Emirates partnered.

 

[ozflier]

This really impacts one's ability to fly on a OWA out of Perth to Europe. CX is now a basket case with two or three flights a week. Leaves just QF who have so few award spots on the PER-LHR flight. Only hope is QF via SIN now.

Not as bad but similar if you are flying from Brisbane or Adelaide.
Looks like Qantas is getting even more Sydney centric when it comes to flying home from Europe thru Asia. ( eg looks like no flights Japan to Brisbane and soon only HKG services on QF are thru Sydney!

 

[SydneySwan]

Yes it will be but definitely not impossible.
I booked one last month and will be departing in April.
It doesn’t contain a single QR flight and neither did any of the others I have booked and flown.
They have all been very decent itineraries fully optimized.

As a matter of risk policy I have avoided using QR in OWAs even when available - you can get to Europe and back just fine using AY and JAL.

 

[ozflier]

Matt, Thank you for your article - well said as always.
You mentioned
But at that point, Qantas Frequent Flyer members only had access to Qatar Airways Business and First Class reward seats up to 119 days in advance. Qatar Airways Economy seats became bookable through Qantas Frequent Flyer up to 249 days in advance.
I think QR availability has worsened since then.
I haven't seen them looking for flights in May
Has anyone seen QR J availability appear 119 days in advance?

 

[NM]

Note that there is no such thing as a "Round The World" Qantas Classic award ticket. The Qantas OWA (One World Award) has no requirement for the itinerary complete a "round the world" journey. The OWA is purely distance based and must include two One World carriers in addition to the the carrier whose program is used to redeem the flight (QF in the case of this discussion).

Before Qatar and Royal Jordanian joined OneWorld, the ability to use the Middle East as a transit between Europe and Asia/Australia was limited. Typically, if you wanted to visit the middle east it was as a side-trip from Europe (using BA) or linked between BA (London to ME) and CX, MH or JL (ME to Asia). Little has changed here, except for reduced schedules and destinations from many carriers.

If the Middle East is a real requirement for a OneWorld Award journey, see what can be achieved with BA/RJ/CX/MH flights. QR did offer some very good options, especially direct from ME to Australia. And we know that QF's premium cabin award capacity is still massively restricted as they (seemingly very slowly) ramp up Asia operations.

The biggest challenge seems to be finding premium cabin seats for awards (whether OneWorld Award or otherwise) using QFF points, and this is not limited to journeys through the Middle East. So while the unavailability of QR awards via QFF is certainly disappointing and limits the options available, the overall reduced award availability across all carriers, which seems to be due to the high load factors they are achieving from paid tickets, is of greater concern to me that a single carrier being out of the mix.

 

[jase05]

Not as bad but similar if you are flying from Brisbane or Adelaide.

Zero QFi out of ADL and only a daily to DPS on JQ.
Meanwhile we get 2x daily’s to DOH and 1x daily to AKL on QR.
Just who is supposed to be our national airline

 

[justinbrett]

Zero QFi out of ADL and only a daily to DPS on JQ.
Meanwhile we get 2x daily’s to DOH and 1x daily to AKL on QR.
Just who is supposed to be our national airline

It's pretty common for airlines to focus on their home countries biggest hubs whilst foreign airlines have routes to a higher number of airports.

Eg
UK - LHR/LGW are pretty much the only long haul international routes for BA, MAN, GLA, EDI etc all served by foreign long haul airlines.
USA - BA flies from LON to 26 US destinations, AA flies from 11 US airports to LHR.