The Qantas Newbie Questions Thread

[oz_boater]

I have a few questions if I may

1) I am planning a multi-city award trip in 3 parts
Syd -> Rome on Emirates
London -> Helsinki -> Bangkok on Finnair
Bangkok -> Syd, undetermined

For an award booking is it better to put all 3 legs on one ticket, or break them into 3?
Keeping in mind QANTAS has been loosing award bookings and every time you make a change the ticket needs to be reissued (so another chance to lose it)

2) There appears to be no way (online) to book a multi-city trip with a mix of Classic Reward and revenue legs. In the mutli-city above I can't find an acceptable classic reward ticket from BKK -> Syd.

Is the call centre able to book the above for me using classic rewards and to BKK and then a revenue leg back to Oz? (Though I am tempted to just fly Thai BKK -> Syd as it is a daytime flight)

3) I have been using the "where can I go" page in QANTAS to look for Classic Rewards and it will often pop up with a specific flight that it says is available, but when you click through the booking engine says the flight does not exist.

Is it simply wrong (the "where I can go" page)? Or are these flights I need to call QANTAS about?
More broadly - are there some Classic Rewards I need to call about? For particular routes or airlines?

The AA site for example often reward flights on Qatar Airlines are available (and they are in One World) but QANTAS simply won't give them as on option

Thanks for any help that can be provided!

Have been flying QANTAS for years and redeeming points for upgrades internationally for work trips, but I am fairly new to the world of navigating classic rewards on international flights.

 

[MELso]

Having put different awards on to the same PNR in the past, I'd say don't do it. If there are any changes you want to make, as you note, it jeopardises the whole booking if QF doesn't reticket the flights. (The flipside is of course that you pay two lots of cancellation or change fees if you need to cancel or change.)

With respect to AY, look at flying to SIN too (not just BKK).

QR and QF have had a little bit of a tiff recently (you may have read about it!). So there are very few QR awards on QF at the moment - although a lot more on VA.

Look at the multi-city booking tool to work out where a route is available across a month, and think about dropping $US10 on a subscription to seats.aero for a month (you can look at 2 months of results for free to get a taste of what it does).

 

[oz_boater]

think about dropping $US10 on a subscription to seats.aero for a month (you can look at 2 months of results for free to get a taste of what it does).

Thanks for that
Doing a bit of testing with seats.aero I am getting some weird results

This is what seats says is available for SFO -> SYD on the 29th Oct this year
vs
what the QANTAS booking engine says.

Note that the booking engine does agree there is a economy seat available for 51,200 points (but not the 41,200), but does not show it and it only shows the super expensive business flight on China and not the AA flight

Given this is supposedly pulled from QANTA itself it seems odd

So far where seats.aero says a premium seat is available on AA via the QANTAS website - they have never shown up when I checked. Have checked 5 or 6 so far.

What is particularly confusing here is the ticker on the QANTAS engine saying an economy seat is available for 51K but the detail section not listing it

Is this the sort of thing you ring about? Or if it is not listed as a flight you can pick, that is it?

 

[kangarooflyer88]

I have a few questions if I may

1) I am planning a multi-city award trip in 3 parts
Syd -> Rome on Emirates
London -> Helsinki -> Bangkok on Finnair
Bangkok -> Syd, undetermined

For an award booking is it better to put all 3 legs on one ticket, or break them into 3?
Keeping in mind QANTAS has been loosing award bookings and every time you make a change the ticket needs to be reissued (so another chance to lose it)

There are pros and cons to booking the three trips on a single ticket versus a separate one. If we are talking about award tickets, the main benefit of putting everything on one ticket is that if you travel enough distance, and can keep yourself to OneWorld airlines, you can book a OneWorld round the world award which caps the entire itinerary in business class at 318,000 points + taxes & fees (more info here).

The downside to booking all as one itinerary is if you need to make a change it could be challenging to reticent especially if you are making major changes whereas if everything was one-way they would be independent of one another and you can change freely. Another benefit is you can book awards as you see them being released. This is crucial if you have an itinerary where you can't find those business classic awards the whole way through. If you take this approach what you could do is simply book what you find now and then call up later to have segments added on. However, keep in mind for classic awards you are paying 5,000 points per ticket per passenger to make a change. So if you end up booking these tickets separately (i.e. AU to Europe, Europe to NA and NA to AU) and you want to change the entire itinerary you are looking at 15,000 points per passenger to make a change or 18,000 points per passenger to cancel everything out.

2) There appears to be no way (online) to book a multi-city trip with a mix of Classic Reward and revenue legs. In the mutli-city above I can't find an acceptable classic reward ticket from BKK -> Syd.

I would recommend against mixing revenue and award flights it makes ticketing messy especially when it comes to refunds and changes. In particular, it is my understanding that if you have a combination of classic awards and revenue flights on the same ticket, the most restrictive terms will apply for the whole thing.

3) I have been using the "where can I go" page in QANTAS to look for Classic Rewards and it will often pop up with a specific flight that it says is available, but when you click through the booking engine says the flight does not exist.

As others have pointed out, Seats.aeo is a great tool. You don't need a membership to use the tool and I think you'll find something that will work. One thing to note about the tool is they aren't showing you real-time availability as they seem to scrape the various websites to find this availability. If you look at the table you'll see a last checked column and often times that will be a couple of hours ago. So it is possible that a savvy traveller may have "snagged" one of these awards in the meanwhile.

One of the key things to successfully booking these awards is flexibility both in where you are travelling to and when you are travelling. Remember, this isn't WebJet or Expedia, you can't simply tell Qantas where you want to go and there will be a flight you can choose from. It's gonna take research to find those dates where availability is there. It may be that you need to fly to Zurich instead of Rome or. Remember too that Qantas flies all over Europe. By that I mean, yes Qantas just operates flights to London Heathrow and Rome, but once at Heathrow you've got several OneWorld partners you can connect onto including British Airways and Iberia.

The AA site for example often reward flights on Qatar Airlines are available (and they are in One World) but QANTAS simply won't give them as on option

Partners will release different amounts of awards to different partners. AA and QR have a closer relationship so QR will provide AA members with more awards seats than members of the QF program. This isn't just a QR thing you'll see this across airlines and alliances. For instance, for a while Singapore Airlines was releasing more award seats to Air Canada Aeroplan members than its own frequent flyers.

 

[SYD]

I would recommend against mixing revenue and award flights it makes ticketing messy especially when it comes to refunds and changes. In particular, it is my understanding that if you have a combination of classic awards and revenue flights on the same ticket, the most restrictive terms will apply for the whole thing.

The obvious main benefit of mixing revenue and rewards is getting access to the cheaper fare compared with say paying for a oneway international flight that will usually be sold as Flex.

It’s usually possible to book online as a simple return booking (although not all destinations and fare classes work). The multi-sector tool doesn’t support mix and match CR and revenue but it might be possible over the phone? The main issue is the OP’s proposed itinerary would also be open jaw between counties that’s probably even harder.

 

[oz_boater]

...

Thanks for the very comprehensive reply Mr Roo.
Very much a journey of discovery for me it has been thus far.

I have found the QANTAS "Where I can go" website quite helpful when you say 'classic only', one way, premium classes - as it can look out over a whole year and the whole world and suggest where is possible.

Searching from SYD found the 1st class ticket to Rome
Searching from BKK found you could fly business to Helsinki
Reversing the search found a business ticket from Helsinki to Bangkok

Then the Multi-city classic rewards (with 'flexible with dates') ticked to nail everything down

Up till I found AusFF I have been very frustrated trying to find classic reward international seats, AusFF has been a game changer for techniques (after a fair bit of reading) though it certainly still isn't easy.

But due to the forum I now have a Emirates 1st class classic rewards ticket, Syd -> Rome at the start of March and a Finnair Business classic rewards ticket from HEL -> BKK early in April

 

[elanshin]

Just had my DSC SYD > CBR > MEL rewards J flight cancelled. They're rebooking me on a direct SYD > MEL Y flight.

If i understand correctly I should get a refund of points (and taxes?) And i should still be able to chase down my points through ORC right?

Would be nice getting 72SC for 8k points

Just an update on this. After many many back and forth emails and calls. Agent on the phone decided to manually credit it all and I've suddenly got an extra 42 SC as i think they added it up wrong.

But ive had many agents "look into it" and "call me back later".

Timeline of events
June 17 SYD > CBR > MEL (J reward) cancelled. Moved to SYD > MEL Y reward. Received 7+7
June 18 MEL > SYD Cash red e deal. Received 0.

3 weeks later Refunded points for downgrade.
6 weeks after received 10+10 for the revenue flight.
Today (10 weeks later) received 36 for ORC. + 36 for DSC. Then he also gave me another lot of 18 and 10.

Fair amount of effort but at least resolved and with freebies

 

[oz_boater]

Today (10 weeks later) received 36 for ORC. + 36 for DSC. Then he also gave me another lot of 18 and 10.

Excuse this newbie's ignorance, but what are ORC and DSC?

I have checked the abbreviations page Abbreviations & Explanations and can't find either of them

From the context I am guessing DSC is "Double Status Credits", but ORC still eludes me.

Thanks

 

[AIRwin]

ORC still eludes me

Original Routing Credit

 

[oz_boater]

Original Routing Credit

Thanks

So getting credit on a QANTAS metal reward ticket presumably via points club status ?

 

[AIRwin]

So getting credit on a QANTAS metal reward ticket presumably via points club status ?

Status credits based on what would have been originally earned prior to any involuntary change in the flight routing

 

[oz_boater]

Status credits based on what would have been originally earned prior to any involuntary change in the flight routing

Sure, but you don't normally get status from Reward flights so I am presuming @elanshin was eligible for status on these flights in the 1st place due to Points Club status.

 

[AIRwin]

Sure, but you don't normally get status from Reward flights so I am presuming @elanshin was eligible for status on these flights in the 1st place due to Points Club status.

Sounds like it

 

[elanshin]

Sure, but you don't normally get status from Reward flights so I am presuming @elanshin was eligible for status on these flights in the 1st place due to Points Club status.

Yes basically i booked this slightly longer route via Canberra to earn extra status.

For reference with points club, SYD > MEL in J reward earns 18 status. +18 more for the double status promotion at a cost of 18,000 points + taxes. This is a reasonable way to convert points into status credit basically.

SYD > CBR > MEL costs 18000 points as well but a bit more in taxes. As such i turned a relatively routine SYD <> MEL weekend into a reasonable status earning run albeit originally needing 4 hours for the journey instead of 1.5 hours.

That was before they deplaned us and everything.
Incidentally doing the same trip this weekend. Hopefully much smoother and get to try out the E190.

 

[SYD]

Status credits based on what would have been originally earned prior to any involuntary change in the flight routing

Has anyone had success with ORC when a cancellation (well out) meant rerouting and reticketing? I’ve assumed you only get the points/SCs of the new ticketed flights?

For example, booked QF J SYD-YVR//YUL-ORD-LAX-SYD all QF codes. AA cancelled one of the return flights and the only option that worked was AA YUL-DFW QF DFW-SYD. So ultimately less points, less squiggles and less SCs….

 

[Buzza]

Relative newbie here but very long time lurker.

Im hoping to get some advice on the following trip using points with my family of 4, unfortunately not flexible due to school & uni holidays departing 30/6/24 returning 24/7/24

MEL-DXB-CAI-CDG-VCE then ATH-DXB-MEL

I have been trying different combinations and permutations however the only leg i have booked on points is ATH-DXB, once that came up i was onto it like a rash.

All other legs there are no reward flights yet and ive been searching since July 1st.

Im convinced some legs will need to be fully paid and then go via DPS or SIN in both directions or is there a sneaky route or method i havent thought of yet or am i just too early.

Many thanks

 

[encryptededdy]

Is this the sort of thing you ring about? Or if it is not listed as a flight you can pick, that is it?

I think it's just the website lagging behind a bit. I just repeated your search and it looks like the options now reflect actual availability. I assume the system doesn't actually run a search on all days every time you bring up the multi-day view, and instead has a cache that's refreshed periodically.

 

[oz_boater]

The AA site for example often reward flights on Qatar Airlines are available (and they are in One World) but QANTAS simply won't give them as on option

Found the answer to this question at least (with regards to Qatar Airlines)

Qatar Airways Reward Seats Vanish from Qantas Website

Update (24 September): Limited Qatar Airways award availability has returned to the Qantas website, but only for certain travel dates and cabin classes.

www.australianfrequentflyer.com.au

and

When Qatar Airways Releases Seats for Qantas Points Bookings

Update (28 September): It appears that Cathay members may also now be subject to the 119/249 day rule. Members of Qatar Airways Privilege Club and British

www.australianfrequentflyer.com.au

and so "One World" is not quite "One World"

 

[elanshin]

Has anyone tried going to the lounge and asking if their co travellers can go in instead of themselves?

Seeing If i can't get both my parents into QFi J lounge in Sydney but I can only bring +1. We're all be on the same flight (MU so I can't just add a lounge pass). I don't particularly need to go into QF lounge as I can access skyteam too.

 

[exceladdict]

Figure this is a newbie question: does a lounge pass have to be used by the expiry date, or linked to a flight by the expiry date?