Using Qantas Frequent flyer points to book classic rewards flights- SYD to London with Qatar

[alsl2246]

Hi all

I am a newbie here and wanting to get some guidance/ tips on how to utilise the Qantas FFY points to redeem SYD-London flight(business class) for April 2020 (end of April) with Qatar airline. I have been carefully watching for past couple of weeks and I have seem it come up 2wks ago for multiple times for mid April 2020 but last week and this week, I have not seen any. I checked SYD-Paris flight options as well again the same. 2wks ago I was able to see Qatar airline as an option available but again was not able to see it for last week and this week. Does anyone know if there is some pattern involved with Qatar airline availabilities? If so what would it be? I ha e a friend who has platinum one status and logged in to his account and had a look and same options showed up(China Eastern/ JAL only).

Let me know if you know anything.

 

[Kerrodt]

Call the QFF centre and ask what availability they can see.

 

[sudoer]

April 2020 (end of April)

How are you searching for dates at the end of April 2020? The QF classic award search engine only allows date selections up to 353 days in advance (11 April 2020)

Also QR release awards 361 days in advance, which means 19 April 2020 is the furthest into the future you'd be able to book today.

 

[Mattg]

Qatar doesn't usually receive business class award seats on this route during school holidays. But good luck.

 

[JohnM]

Try other outbound ports (eg. PER, BNE, ADL). They may be under less pressure than out of SYD.

Also, why just QR? EK usually has better availability than QR IME. You can still use QF points. Same thing applies: search from all available ports in Australia. It may still be worth it to pay for a cheap positioning flight (or use points to fly J domestically - don’t waste points for whY domestic).

 

[cjd600]

Try Syd-Doh on the 361 day mark. Releasing 4 J per day on the 2 flights mon-wed, and 2 J thurs-sun for April 2020. The Doh-eur is released next day. May need stopover in Doh to avoid married segments. The Q suites go in 1-2 hour after release at the moment, A380 after about a day

 

[offshore171]

I ha e a friend who has platinum one status and logged in to his account and had a look and same options showed up(China Eastern/ JAL only).

If JAL popped up, I would have jumped on that.

As always, when trying to book J with points on a popular route, you need to be prepared to lock it in as soon as you see availability. If you stuff around the seats will dry up very quickly.

 

[goldenhorn]

If JAL popped up, I would have jumped on that.

As always, when trying to book J with points on a popular route, you need to be prepared to lock it in as soon as you see availability. If you stuff around the seats will dry up very quickly.

Yup. This is great advice. I hear JAL is awesome so have booked an award trip to Japan in J with them next Jan. Can't wait.

I've missed out on award seats in the past by stuffing around and just waiting 24 hours!

 

[Pushka]

I was searching for flights into Tel Aviv for Christmas time. I found Qatar just didn’t release many award flights out of Australia at the time I’d expected them to. Then a few popped up much later, later even than when EK release theirs.

 

[alsl2246]

ㅅ

Try Syd-Doh on the 361 day mark. Releasing 4 J per day on the 2 flights mon-wed, and 2 J thurs-sun for April 2020. The Doh-eur is released next day. May need stopover in Doh to avoid married segments. The Q suites go in 1-2 hour after release at the moment, A380 after about a day

Thank you for that. Do you know what time of the day the flights are released? I have found early morning isn’t the case.

 

[alsl2246]

I was searching for flights into Tel Aviv for Christmas time. I found Qatar just didn’t release many award flights out of Australia at the time I’d expected them to. Then a few popped up much later, later even than when EK release theirs.

I see. When you say much later, are we talking about 6-8 months before the departure or later than that?

 

[Pushka]

I see. When you say much later, are we talking about 6-8 months before the departure or later than that?

I’d say around 9 months when I first saw Qatar seats come out. They certainly didn’t follow the ‘rules’ because I was checking daily for any availability (and weird routes) for Qantas, Emirates, CX and Qatar just to get into Tel Aviv on a very specific Day and well before I knew they would be released just so I could see ‘the release pattern’. I first booked CX routing through HK then changed that to EK later when their seats came out but never saw QR until much later. And as WP I can see seats really early but they just didn’t appear when they should have.

 

[ozflier]

CX seems to release seats HKG-TLV round the 350 day mark.

 

[Pushka]

CX seems to release seats HKG-TLV round the 350 day mark.

They were certainly the earliest to release seats. Unfortunately from Adelaide they leave at lunchtime and we were leaving on Christmas Day and wanted EK or QR that depart around 10pm.

 

[alsl2246]

Try other outbound ports (eg. PER, BNE, ADL). They may be under less pressure than out of SYD.

Also, why just QR? EK usually has better availability than QR IME. You can still use QF points. Same thing applies: search from all available ports in Australia. It may still be worth it to pay for a cheap positioning flight (or use points to fly J domestically - don’t waste points for whY domestic).

Hi John
Thank you for the advice. It helped so much!! I am forever grateful. I was able to secure 2x business class flights from Adelaide to London for the 19th April 2020 with Qatar this morning.

One question though, on the itinerary it says that the aircraft for Adelaide - Doha leg is A350-900 but Qatar website says that Adelaide to Doha(QR915) will have Q-Suite available from 16th of June 2019. Does that mean the aircraft will Change to A350-1000 down the line? Or are they introducing Q-Suite on A350-900 as well?

 

[alsl2246]

Try Syd-Doh on the 361 day mark. Releasing 4 J per day on the 2 flights mon-wed, and 2 J thurs-sun for April 2020. The Doh-eur is released next day. May need stopover in Doh to avoid married segments. The Q suites go in 1-2 hour after release at the moment, A380 after about a day

Thank you!! I did take on your advice and successfully secured 2x business class flights from Adelaide to London for the 19th

 

[Quickstatus]

QSuites will be on all A350-1000, but only some Q350-900.

Remember The odd numbered Q Suites are rear facing.

So in the A350-900:

1,3,5,7,9 A, E, F, K are rear facing

You can check the airline's seat map whether your A350-900 has Q Suites because the front section of business class will have 9 rows. And Qsuites are not the herringbone design

 

[alsl2246]

This is the seating plan I see atm. Quite confusing actually. Does it mean it is Q-Suite?

 

[JohnM]

Hi John
Thank you for the advice. It helped so much!! I am forever grateful. I was able to secure 2x business class flights from Adelaide to London for the 19th April 2020 with Qatar this morning.

One question though, on the itinerary it says that the aircraft for Adelaide - Doha leg is A350-900 but Qatar website says that Adelaide to Doha(QR915) will have Q-Suite available from 16th of June 2019. Does that mean the aircraft will Change to A350-1000 down the line? Or are they introducing Q-Suite on A350-900 as well?

I am not right up with which birds QR has fitted with QSuites and what their roll-out plan is, so that is one part I can’t help you on. All I can say is that I hope you get them!

I’ve only flown QSuites LAX-DOH last year on a B777 and will be doing so on the same type of bird on Monday EZE (Buenos Aires)-DOH.

Glad you secured the flights that suited! - and welcome to AFF!

 

[JohnM]

If you get QSuites, as a couple, you will be placed in the middle section, I believe.

Some people have an issue with rear-facing. It is not something that worries me.

From the look of the seat plan, maybe it’s not QSuites, but this is quite dynamic as they implement them, so my advice is just hang loose.