This weeks project: Redeem BNE-HRE

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albatross710

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I thought I'd put this project on the forum to see what ideas people have.

I want to send my 70 year old father-in-law J class to Harare to visit some friends. There are sufficient points (thanks suppliers!) in the KrisFlyer program to cover *A redemption.

He has some flexibility +- 7 days on his travel dates which are "end of September" and return "end of October". This gives good flexibility and increases the chances of a redemption.

The JNB - HRE leg is on South African Airway which are *A. I'm assuming this will fit into a SWP1-Africa redemption.

So far, using the SQ website & ANA Tool.

Option 1:
BNE-SIN - There are various J Saver seats

SIN-JNB - There is limited/no J award availability on SQ from . There were some seats a week ago when the idea was first mooted. There are some 'waitlist' J savers on the outbound leg. J savers are available on returns dates.

JNB-SIN - Nothing so far found on this leg. It isn't available on the ANA tool.


Option 2:
SYD - JNB. South African Airways have flights, some are QF codeshare. I haven't seen any award availability. Much shorter trip time. Fly the F-I-L to Sydney and join one of these flights. These flights don't appear in the ANA tool at all.


At this stage, I'm considering go ahead with a telephone booking and waitlist J JNB-SIN. Assume SQ may have visibility of the JNB-HRE awards.

Has any one got any experience that may be beneficial to this plan?

I would appreciate thoughts on the best way to improves chances of the J waitlist coming through.

Any thoughts on gaining redemptions on the SAA flights SYD-JNB?
 
Hi there
I think the SAA code share SYD JNB trip is on QF metal so I don't think you've got much chance there.
SAA fly PER JNB on their own metal so more chance of *A award (my recent trips the planes have been half empty with upgrades offered in the lounge before departure) your problem is getting to PER from BNE. I hope you've got some QFF points to burn to buy the J seat!
Other than that it sounds like paying the standard fare for the SIN JNB trip
Cheers Danger UXB
 
Also note that they might ask you to ticket the JNB-HRE flights as a separate intra Africa award booking due to "backtracking" from SIN. At least that's what they wanted when I enquired about SIN-JNB-NBO.
 
Thanks Danger UXB & elimn8r for the feedback. Just spent 30 minutes on the phone with SQ. The only QF points I'm accruing these days are for groceries.

According to SQ for 240,000 pts, possible to get a reasonable itinerary via BNE -SIN-JNB-HRE. SIN-JNB likely to be Business waitlist with a fall back economy booking.

The alternative they suggest is book BNE-JNB online and then do a separate phone booking JNB-HRE. All up about 160k pts.

Not sure that I'm happy with the calculation of the original points. I'll will call back on their next shift.
 
Thanks Danger UXB & elimn8r for the feedback. Just spent 30 minutes on the phone with SQ. The only QF points I'm accruing these days are for groceries.

According to SQ for 240,000 pts, possible to get a reasonable itinerary via BNE -SIN-JNB-HRE. SIN-JNB likely to be Business waitlist with a fall back economy booking.

The alternative they suggest is book BNE-JNB online and then do a separate phone booking JNB-HRE. All up about 160k pts.

Not sure that I'm happy with the calculation of the original points. I'll will call back on their next shift.

A couple of points to note (no pun intended).

1) J Saver BNE-JNB is 72,500 one way, the outward trip should get the 25% disc being before 30 Sept, effective points are 54,375.
The return trip will still receive the 15% online discount, if booked on-line, otherwise 0 discount.

2) If you did not already, it's far better to call the KF Centre in Singapore.
The Aus toll free number number IIRC goes to India, where the operators read from a script, with no decision making power there.

3) You probably know this already, but there are only 90 J seats in total a week available SIN-JNB. Stock is therefore scarce, and SQ will probably only release Saver availability to KF (and before *A) only in the last couple of days.

At least that's my experience with SIN-LAX, ie no availability more than a week in advance, but up to 2-3 days before, multiple availability magically appears.

Good Luck!
 
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2) If you did not already, it's far better to call the KF Centre in Singapore.
The Aus toll free number number IIRC goes to India, where the operators read from a script, with no decision making power there.
Thanks for that. Luckily I saved the Westpac KF Concierge number onto my phone when I first received the info pack a couple of months ago. It does first go onto the Voice Response system and eventually lands me in Singapore call centre.

3) You probably know this already, but there are only 90 J seats in total a week available SIN-JNB. Stock is therefore scarce, and SQ will probably only release Saver availability to KF (and before *A) only in the last couple of days.

That figure of 90 puts my chances into stark reality. I'm tossing up the benefits of the J travel of the award booking for him verses the certainty that he can travel on the specific he wants. While I'm happy to deal with the vagaries of award redemption when I travel, not the best for a 70 year old.

Thanks for your ideas.
 
Thought I'd update and put it on the record how this panned out. We had some date changes due to the availability of people in Harare for the visit.

4 days days ago, I had 3 sectors confirmed, 3 sectors on wait list. 3 days ago using the ANA tool I could see some seats one day later than I had planned his return and I moved his return back one day. This left me with two sectors on waitlist SIN-JNB & return HRE-JNB

The SIN-JNB leg came through on Monday night sometime and I also now had a HRE-JNB sector a day earlier which required an overnight stay in Joberg. With the firearms baggage that are involved in this one I was hoping that all baggage would be able to be checked through.

At the ticketing limit time I was advised that there were no seats on the South African Airways flight that we needed. A check of the ANA tool showed that there was J class availability nut the SQ telephone agents assured me that they could not see any availability.

As always suggested on this forum, I rang back 10 minutes later and spoke to another call centre agent. She was able to now see the availability and completed the itinerary in the format I needed.

At each of the stages along the way I had been getting emailed the itineraries after each discussion. A worthwhile practice as on one occasion I found problems with dates which were different to the verbal discussion.

In the end, I was able to complete a 6 sector J *A booking via the SQ call centre on the required travel dates +- 1 day on the return.
 
Just for the record can we get the points cost and breakdown. This has been a good one for those of us to follow who have moved to KF follow ing the 31/3/09 qantas thing
cheers Danger UXB
 
Just for the record can we get the points cost and breakdown. This has been a good one for those of us to follow who have moved to KF follow ing the 31/3/09 qantas thing
cheers Danger UXB
Of course. This redemption was more from the heart than the mind!

*A Business Saver redemption "South West Pacific 1' to Central South Africa' 145,000 pts + SG$1,126.

(No discounts available as had to be booked over the phone to add the South African Airways flight.)

As a comparison, F-I-L was looking at economy flight on QF $3,200 or $2,300 for current SQ promo with JNB-HRE sidetrip


As a comparison, $48,333 dollar spent on KF Amex for these points.

A quick look on QF website shows 192,000 pts BNE-JNB-BNE - $192,000 spend on Altitude Amex.

Taxes would be lower on QF of course.
 
PS: Forgot to mention the new found level of respect for people whom put together those 15-20 sector RTW itineraries.

Can't wait until I have the time to put that together!
 
thanks for that. Pretty good value I would say as I have found with most of my SQ research and dealings. And they had the seats pretty much when you wanted . I hope the f-i-l enjoys the trip
Cheers Danger UXB
 
In the end, I was able to complete a 6 sector J *A booking via the SQ call centre on the required travel dates +- 1 day on the return.

Thanks for the updates, albatross.
Glad it's all worked out so well.
Any chance your F-I-L will do a TR ? :)
 
Thanks for the updates, albatross.
Glad it's all worked out so well.
Any chance your F-I-L will do a TR ? :)

I don't expect a trip report from him. I will do my best to extract & report info regarding the experience.

The next stage of this booking is now the firearms as his checked luggage. To keep it in context, I'll continue to report progress on that part in this other thread; http://www.frequentflyer.com.au/com...velling-internationally-with-a-gun-18955.html
 
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