You’ve raised an interesting point, Madrooster, and one that is worth threshing out to see where the true status quo lies because I’m not sure that your comments specifically address the question at hand. Let me elaborate……
The question is:
“If you’re on a 280K (or 420K) award itinerary can you book into PE if there are no J award seats available?” This presupposes that that there
are PE classic award seats available on the particular flight segment (i.e. “W” fare bucket code). I think an important distinction needs to be made between this conundrum and your broader comment regarding the availability of a 210K PE OW option generally.
The OW RTW awards this thread is about are officially Zone 10 awards as shown in this
Oneworld Classic Award table:
| Zone | Return Miles | Economy | Premium
Economy | Business | First |
|---|
| 1 | 0-1,200 | 30,000 | 45,000 | 60,000 | 90,000 |
| 2 | 1,201-2,400 | 40,000 | 60,000 | 80,000 | 120,000 |
| 3 | 2,401-4,800 | 55,000 | 82,500 | 110,000 | 165,000 |
| 4 | 4,801-7,200 | 75,000 | 112,500 | 150,000 | 225,000 |
| 5 | 7,201-9,600 | 85,000 | 127,500 | 170,000 | 255,000 |
| 6 | 9,601-11,600 | 100,000 | 150,000 | 200,000 | 300,000 |
| 7 | 11,601-14,000 | 110,000 | 165,000 | 220,000 | 330,000 |
| 8 | 14,001-16,800 | 120,000 | 185,000 | 240,000 | 360,000 |
| 9 | 16,801-19,200 | 130,000 | 195,000 | 260,000 | 390,000 |
| 10 | 19,201-35,000 | 140,000 | 210,000 | 280,000 | 420,000 |
N.B. the link to this table on the QF website does not work ATM – it appears that the IT work experience kids let loose a gremlin with the latest update dated 15/10/15.
Certainly there is a PE award option available, but, as you point out, its usefulness is limited because many flights don’t have a PE cabin. But do you have any evidence or references that this option specifically translates into booking a PE seat if there’s no J available on an individual segment (because my understanding is that it does not)?
The QF Ts & Cs don’t address the specifics regarding travel in lower cabins in the event of there being no award availability for the class of the booking. The closest relevant rules I could find are:
14.1.1 Classic Awards are subject to airline inventory management and availability is limited. Qantas, oneworld Alliance Airlines and Airline Partners (including Jetstar Airlines) limit the number of Classic Award seats available to Members at their absolute discretion………
14.3.8 Not all routes and cabin classes of Airline Partners and oneworld Alliance Airlines are available for Award Flights. Exclusions and limitations may change from time to time. Qantas Loyalty does not guarantee the continued availability of any particular route or cabin class for Awards…………
and:
14.5.6 Where mixed-class travel is booked in a oneworld Award, the whole Itinerary will be calculated using the Points level for the highest class booked.
In the absence of any written rule that says (either explicitly or implicitly) you can (or can’t) book into PE on a J or F ticket the ambiguity is obvious – the QF call centre says you can’t and, having followed this thread for several years, the accepted position of posters on this forum is also that you can’t. It would be good if we could have definitive proof one way or the other. I know the call centre staff are sometimes wrong and could not provide a reference when I enquired specifically about this (a couple of years ago now) the answer I got was that it was “….just QF policy to only book into Y if no J or F was available”.
So please speak up - has anyone been able to book into PE on a J OW ticket?
