Rewards calendar shows seats which aren’t actually available

[MikeNoob]

Hi everyone, I’m new here, hoping to get a bit of advice from the experts.
I’m planning to use my FF points to book business class reward seats from Amsterdam to Perth in mid-2024.
I can access the reward seat calendar with the little coloured ribbon icons which indicate which class of seats are available on each day
But 99% of the time when I click on a day with a “business class” ribbon, I find there are not actually any BC seats available.
Very frustrating! Am I doing something wrong?

 

[Lynda2475]

How many seats are you searching for?

The symbol shows if there are 1 or more seats; but if you go in looking for 2 and there aren't 2 you wont see any.

Also what is your status? There may be availability for gold and above but be too early for Silver and below at this stage.

That said there is also phantom availability sometimes.

 

[MikeNoob]

How many seats are you searching for?

The symbol shows if there are 1 or more seats; but if you go in looking for 2 and there aren't 2 you wont see any.

That said there is also phantom availability sometimes.

I guess that could be it. I’m looking for 2 seats. But it seems odd that so far I’ve only been able to identify availability on only one specific day (which has now gone). Unusual that every other day shown as available on the calendar would be a single seat

Post automatically merged: Jul 10, 2023

I guess that could be it. I’m looking for 2 seats. But it seems odd that so far I’ve only been able to identify availability on only one specific day (which has now gone). Unusual that every other day shown as available on the calendar would be a single seat

 

[levelnine]

Unusual that every other day shown as available on the calendar would be a single seat

Use the Multi-City search and click classic awards. That will give you an accurate calendar of award availability.

Eg for 2x pax in May 2024:

 

[jpp42]

But it seems odd that so far I’ve only been able to identify availability on only one specific day (which has now gone).

This isn't necessarily odd. Many award seats are taken by other frequent flyers on the same day they are released, within hours. This day is a certain number of days before the flight (i.e. for Qantas flights, platinum and gold frequent flyers can typically access award seats 353 days in advance). Not all seats are released on this schedule however, each partner has their own schedule (or lack thereof), and Qantas itself has been less consistent in recent times. Here's a short article that may be useful: When does Qantas release reward seats? [2023]

 

[Lynda2475]

And sometimes Qantas only release 1 J seat depending on the route and aircraft

 

[VPS]

I've had the issue lately - only want one seat. It's showing it's available and when you click on it then the error message saying not available on this day

 

[MikeNoob]

Use the Multi-City search and click classic awards. That will give you an accurate calendar of award availability.

Eg for 2x pax in May 2024:
View attachment 335841

Thanks, yes I have done all that and I get exactly the same calendar availability as you. But if I click on 28, 29 or 30 and press “continue” then I find there are not actually any BC seats available on those days, in spite of the fact that the calendar shows the BC icon. I’m wondering why

 

[VPS]

Thanks, yes I have done all that and I get exactly the same calendar availability as you. But if I click on 28, 29 or 30 and press “continue” then I find there are not actually any BC seats available on those days, in spite of the fact that the calendar shows the BC icon. I’m wondering why

can I refer you to this thread The definitive thread on Qantas IT gripes.

It's just Qantas IT

 

[MikeNoob]

can I refer you to this thread The definitive thread on Qantas IT gripes.

It's just Qantas IT

Cheers. So it sounds like I’m not doing anything wrong, it’s just the rubbish Qantas IT showing rewards seats available when they actually aren’t?

 

[levelnine]

Cheers. So it sounds like I’m not doing anything wrong, it’s just the rubbish Qantas IT showing rewards seats available when they actually aren’t?

It appears that, at least at the moment for that route, the regular front page search is showing accurate availability. Only one date around that time actually has availability:

 

[MikeNoob]

It appears that, at least at the moment for that route, the regular front page search is showing accurate availability. Only one date around that time actually has availability:
View attachment 335854

Yep quite right. Which makes the calendar pretty useless. I just wanted to make sure that I wasn’t missing out on rewards seats which were showing as available on the calendar. I guess the upshot is that the calendar is rubbish and don’t take any notice of it

 

[Seat0B]

Thanks, yes I have done all that and I get exactly the same calendar availability as you. But if I click on 28, 29 or 30 and press “continue” then I find there are not actually any BC seats available on those days, in spite of the fact that the calendar shows the BC icon. I’m wondering why

Sometimes, and this is really scummy, but has happened to me several times, when booking flights like CBR-SYD-SIN they put that business icon there when there are connecting flights in business but the overseas leg(s) is/are in economy - and they just have a tiny disclaimer that your flight SYD-SIN will be in economy. Most people would not regard getting CBR -SYD in business, and SYD-SIN in economy as a business flight, but Qantas sure do . This has only caught me out once, with a ticket booked thinking it was in J but it was only the connecting flights.

 

[MikeNoob]

Sometimes, and this is really scummy, but has happened to me several times, when booking flights like CBR-SYD-SIN they put that business icon there when there are connecting flights in business but the overseas leg(s) is/are in economy - and they just have a tiny disclaimer that your flight SYD-SIN will be in economy. Most people would not regard getting CBR -SYD in business, and SYD-SIN in economy as a business flight, but Qantas sure do . This has only caught me out once, with a ticket booked thinking it was in J but it was only the connecting flights.

Yep I’ve had that before many times, but this is different. The calendar shows business seat available, but when you click on it there is no business seats at all, not even for part of the itinerary as you describe

 

[Mickey Mouse]

The problem has existed to some degree for years. As described above, there are often a number of days with award seats for various classes, then upon clicking one, the error message comes up, the premium seat check-boxes are unselected, and only economy seats are shown.
It almost looks like two systems aren't talking to each other correctly, or, worse, there's a deliberate check inserted to limit availability to plebs!
Other delights of the system include the "you've had enough tries" counter that seems to kick in after various permutations have been attempted.

Coupled with deliberate removal of searching connections via DXB; the "you wont ever see EK flights now QF (finally) have international flights out of PER again (until we can be bypassed from Sunrise to Sunset)"; and the fact that Qantas is the National Airline of Sydney (with a look-in to Melb), its always fun trying anything to or from Perth!

 

[MikeNoob]

The problem has existed to some degree for years. As described above, there are often a number of days with award seats for various classes, then upon clicking one, the error message comes up, the premium seat check-boxes are unselected, and only economy seats are shown.
It almost looks like two systems aren't talking to each other correctly, or, worse, there's a deliberate check inserted to limit availability to plebs!
Other delights of the system include the "you've had enough tries" counter that seems to kick in after various permutations have been attempted.

Coupled with deliberate removal of searching connections via DXB; the "you wont ever see EK flights now QF (finally) have international flights out of PER again (until we can be bypassed from Sunrise to Sunset)"; and the fact that Qantas is the National Airline of Sydney (with a look-in to Melb), its always fun trying anything to or from Perth!

So true!!

 

[Mattg]

I regularly see this and find that it's often caused by one of two things:

1. The results are cached, and a seat that was available a short time ago is no longer there, or
2. There is actually something available using an indirect routing, but the Qantas website doesn't display it as an option on the following page. E.g. for AMS-PER there could be something like AMS-AMM-BKK-SIN-PER available, but it only appears if you use the multi-city tool to search AMS-AMM and AMM-PER individually.

The Japan Airlines website is better at showing multi-stop award flight combinations on Oneworld airlines, so when I see this kind of thing, I often repeat the search on the JAL website to see if it's picked up something.

 

[bussyboy]

Coupled with deliberate removal of searching connections via DXB; the "you wont ever see EK flights now QF (finally) have international flights out of PER again (until we can be bypassed from Sunrise to Sunset)"; and the fact that Qantas is the National Airline of Sydney (with a look-in to Melb), its always fun trying anything to or from Perth!

I want to holiday in DXB but can't book QF?!?! So terrible...

 

[MikeNoob]

I regularly see this and find that it's often caused by one of two things:

1. The results are cached, and a seat that was available a short time ago is no longer there, or
2. There is actually something available using an indirect routing, but the Qantas website doesn't display it as an option on the following page. E.g. for AMS-PER there could be something like AMS-AMM-BKK-SIN-PER available, but it only appears if you use the multi-city tool to search AMS-AMM and AMM-PER individually.

The Japan Airlines website is better at showing multi-stop award flight combinations on Oneworld airlines, so when I see this kind of thing, I often repeat the search on the JAL website to see if it's picked up something.

Thanks for that. I think option (2) is most likely. It’s as though the Qantas website is indicating there are some options on other airlines and routes but then not showing them when you actually click on and try to book.
I took your advice and tried to check on the JAL website but couldn’t work it out. Any tips?

 

[Lost Redditor]

I regularly see this and find that it's often caused by one of two things:

1. The results are cached, and a seat that was available a short time ago is no longer there, or
2. There is actually something available using an indirect routing, but the Qantas website doesn't display it as an option on the following page. E.g. for AMS-PER there could be something like AMS-AMM-BKK-SIN-PER available, but it only appears if you use the multi-city tool to search AMS-AMM and AMM-PER individually.

The Japan Airlines website is better at showing multi-stop award flight combinations on Oneworld airlines, so when I see this kind of thing, I often repeat the search on the JAL website to see if it's picked up something.

I just tried to use the JAL multi city search but I'm probably doing something wrong. I get the following message.


Perhaps i haven't specified that I want to search for rewards?