US Dividend Miles - Oneworld Award Booking Questions and General Discussion

[Swan]

Hi Swan, I've been able to use the QR website fine to allocate seats. Just enter the PNR and last name under Manage My Booking and do it there. In fact I've been able to change my Qantas and airberlin seats also through the QR website but in general each carrier's own website does it. I did my CX ones online on their website as well.

Sorry, I am missing something here where do you obtain the PNR for QR?

 

[anat0l]

Sorry, I am missing something here where do you obtain the PNR for QR?

You can usually get the PNRs of other carriers from US DM. Some PNRs are used for more than one carrier (e.g. for all carriers on the Amadeus system, they will use one PNR).

I've never called QR before, but I wonder if you could get them to help you out by giving the e-ticket number / name details rather than PNR? (And if they tell you to go back to your agent to get the PNR, tell them the agent won't give it to you?)

 

[Swan]

You can usually get the PNRs of other carriers from US DM. Some PNRs are used for more than one carrier (e.g. for all carriers on the Amadeus system, they will use one PNR).

I've never called QR before, but I wonder if you could get them to help you out by giving the e-ticket number / name details rather than PNR? (And if they tell you to go back to your agent to get the PNR, tell them the agent won't give it to you?)

My recent experience, US could not provide PNR for QR and Tam and said I need to contact them. Incidentally US are unable to do seat allocations for American so you have to wonder how close integration actually is, they insist they are still operating as two separate airlines. Tam eventually provide seat allocations by way of the ticket number, though TAM Aust could not help and switched me to Brazil where after a lot of pain they were able to provide the allocation.

QR could find the booking by way of the ticket number but then could not proceed without a PNR. I am interested to know how Curtainbounce managed to do it on line.

Telephoning takes hours so if there is an online way I would like to hear it.

 

[Doggy]

Hey guys, quick question. Last night I got knocked back on a trip to India that connected through Perth. As soon as I got to the PER leg, she stopped me and said there was a red flag because you couldn't make a connection through a city that wasn't a OW hub or focus city (in her words). I've done some searching on the forum and read the USDM rules and couldn't find anything like that. Only that STOPOVERS weren't allowed in non-hubs. Which this was not.

Does anyone know if this is true? You can't even CONNECT through a non-hub?

 

[anat0l]

Hey guys, quick question. Last night I got knocked back on a trip to India that connected through Perth. As soon as I got to the PER leg, she stopped me and said there was a red flag because you couldn't make a connection through a city that wasn't a OW hub or focus city (in her words). I've done some searching on the forum and read the USDM rules and couldn't find anything like that. Only that STOPOVERS weren't allowed in non-hubs. Which this was not.

Does anyone know if this is true? You can't even CONNECT through a non-hub?

Not true. I would try again, though connecting through PER to India using oneworld...I assume you must be using MH or possibly CX (the latter might break the MPM).

 

[d.diddy_13]

Hey guys, quick question. Last night I got knocked back on a trip to India that connected through Perth. As soon as I got to the PER leg, she stopped me and said there was a red flag because you couldn't make a connection through a city that wasn't a OW hub or focus city (in her words). I've done some searching on the forum and read the USDM rules and couldn't find anything like that. Only that STOPOVERS weren't allowed in non-hubs. Which this was not.

Does anyone know if this is true? You can't even CONNECT through a non-hub?

I had the same response maybe a month ago (actually asked the same question in this thread)...

Just HUCA

 

[Doggy]

Not true. I would try again, though connecting through PER to India using oneworld...I assume you must be using MH or possibly CX (the latter might break the MPM).

Thanks anat0l and diddy.

Actually going through DOH with QR. Never found BOM in the MPM chart but I'm hopeful it'll be okay. DOH isn't that far out of the way. I'll try again tonight if I get time.

 

[bcworld]

Thanks anat0l and diddy.

Actually going through DOH with QR. Never found BOM in the MPM chart but I'm hopeful it'll be okay. DOH isn't that far out of the way. I'll try again tonight if I get time.

Assuming you're in SYD the routing SYD-PER-DOH-BOM shows **MPM not available** - this sometimes seems to be a red flag to US agents that something is wrong with the routing...and perhaps that's true.

For plain old SYD-BOM, MPM is:

[KVS Availability Tool 7.4.4 - Reference: Maximum Permitted Mileage [MPM]: SYD-BOM/US]

         GI       M      5M     10M     15M     20M     25M     
MPM      EH    7615    7995    8376    8757    9138    9518

...which your routing just sneaks under.

 

[Doggy]

Assuming you're in SYD the routing SYD-PER-DOH-BOM shows **MPM not available** - this sometimes seems to be a red flag to US agents that something is wrong with the routing...and perhaps that's true.

For plain old SYD-BOM, MPM is:

[KVS Availability Tool 7.4.4 - Reference: Maximum Permitted Mileage [MPM]: SYD-BOM/US]

         GI       M      5M     10M     15M     20M     25M     
MPM      EH    7615    7995    8376    8757    9138    9518

...which your routing just sneaks under.

Thanks bcworld. Very helpful.

 

[d.diddy_13]

Advise...

Booked HKG - LHR (BA 26) on the A380 4 x F & 2 x J

What's BA policy like going from F to J ect and would you recommend seats in J on lower or upper deck considering above?

 

[MEL_Traveller]

Advise...

Booked HKG - LHR (BA 26) on the A380 4 x F & 2 x J

What's BA policy like going from F to J ect and would you recommend seats in J on lower or upper deck considering above?

Passengers from First are free to visit the Club cabin, and depending on the timing, may also able to request a guest to come and enjoy a drink at their seat with them.

permission for a guest is now up to crew discretion, and will not be allowed during meal service, if the majority of the cabin is sleeping (or in rest mode), or if the crew think it would otherwise disturb the cabin. This is generally a 'short' visit for a drink only.

Inviting a guest used to be an official published benefit, although it is not longer such. it can't hurt to ask.

 

[curtainbounce]

My recent experience, US could not provide PNR for QR and Tam and said I need to contact them. Incidentally US are unable to do seat allocations for American so you have to wonder how close integration actually is, they insist they are still operating as two separate airlines. Tam eventually provide seat allocations by way of the ticket number, though TAM Aust could not help and switched me to Brazil where after a lot of pain they were able to provide the allocation.

QR could find the booking by way of the ticket number but then could not proceed without a PNR. I am interested to know how Curtainbounce managed to do it on line.

Telephoning takes hours so if there is an online way I would like to hear it.

hi Swan, sorry haven't been on for a few days.

I got given the PNR by USDM at the time of booking - it applied to all of my flights on that particular itinerary - Qantas, Qatar, Airberlin and Cathay - I was then able to go onto each respective website and select my seats using the PNR.

The only tip I can give is that the USDM customer rep basically said oh there's another number here you may need and that was the 6 digit PNR. It wasn't like they knew what number they were giving me, just that it had showed up in their system as being related to my booking.

I've done about 4 bookings for other people though admittedly not on Qatar but in each case USDM has advised the PNR over the phone at the time of booking.

 

[Swan]

Thanks for the reply.
Interesting - when I did the booking I was given some PNR's but was told they were not available for Qatar, TAM and Cathay. Hence the laborious task of seat allocations over the telephone.
Next booking I will be more insistent.

 

[bcworld]

Thanks for the reply.
Interesting - when I did the booking I was given some PNR's but was told they were not available for Qatar, TAM and Cathay. Hence the laborious task of seat allocations over the telephone.
Next booking I will be more insistent.

Sometimes they simply aren't available as the system does not return the reference from the other GDS...in that case I doubt there is a way for the agent to retrieve it. After TG moved to Amadeus their PNRs were never sent back to US on booking, you'd have to request it from TG. For OneWorld airlines now that behaviour might still exist but be intermittent.

 

[nickykim]

Looking for some initial guidance - I have read ALL 104 preceding pages which shows that I may need to "get a life" and in that context I am off to Portland Oregon in August 2015 for a series of art workshops. At this stage I am focusing on the route in and out of the USA. I am looking at Melbourne to Hong Kong, Hong Kong to San Francisco then up to Portland on the way out, then Vancouver, Los Angeles, Melbourne on the way home. Just wanting to advice on whether this is a valid route.

 

[bcworld]

Does anyone have any experience if you can take an existing *A award and change it to a OW award within the same zones?

I have an existing MEL-GUM booking (via various places obviously!) which I'd happily change to MEL-BME...for 2 x $150.

Otherwise I'm going to have to cancel the GUM booking anyway at 2 x 150 and then make a new booking for BME.

So I ended up cancelling this in the end. Well, so I thought!

They actually refunded the miles, BUT reissued the tickets AND charged me the taxes again! Online it shows as 'Refund Requested' but the taxes figure has doubled from the original figure.

Idiots! Too bad if you're using a non USD credit card and getting hit up for fees.

 

[MEL_Traveller]

So I ended up cancelling this in the end. Well, so I thought!

They actually refunded the miles, BUT reissued the tickets AND charged me the taxes again! Online it shows as 'Refund Requested' but the taxes figure has doubled from the original figure.

Idiots! Too bad if you're using a non USD credit card and getting hit up for fees.

for or international transactions best to follow up with the merchant bank here in AU. the bank doing a chargeback will void the transaction without any associated fees.

whether or not that would affect any future attempts to use the credit card with avianca is the question.

 

[bcworld]

whether or not that would affect any future attempts to use the credit card with avianca is the question.

US Airways.

 

[MEL_Traveller]

US Airways.

....d'oh... (from all the descriptors I thought for some reason it must have been LM)

 

[bcworld]

for or international transactions best to follow up with the merchant bank here in AU. the bank doing a chargeback will void the transaction without any associated fees.

Well that's what I've had to do...very frustrating call with US. They deny all knowledge of charging the taxes again. Talked to me like I was an idiot actually, blaming schedule changes and anything else they could think of. I asked, why did you reissue the ticket when I asked for it to be cancelled? No answer. Why does my reservation on US Airways.com now show $646 in taxes when previously it showed $323? The supervisor said, oh, it's because you have a 'conjunction ticket'...you can't have more than 4 sectors on one ticket and you have 6...WTF! Very annoyed.