Oneworld Classic Flight Reward Discussion - The Definitive Thread

[Battymum]

Yes, it was my first award booking - I have no status, so I am not sure if its a regular occurrence.

I am currently planning a oneworld award in J and have accrued the points - but DH is now convinced that its all a myth.

 

[fairbasa]

Yes, it was my first award booking - I have no status, so I am not sure if its a regular occurrence.

I am currently planning a oneworld award in J and have accrued the points - but DH is now convinced that its all a myth.

I'm sure this was an isolated incident. You should follow up with AA to determine what exactly happened.

 

[aussiel]

Has anyone ever been "bumped" from their cabin class on any of these flights?

We recently flew a US domestic flight and had booked an award seat in first - only to find we were seated in row 35?

MCO airport was chaos and when we checked in it said our seat allocation would be advised at the gate - we didn't realise until we were on the airbridge what seats we were allocated. It was only a 2 hour flight to DFW, and on return I complained to QF and my points were refunded.

But I would be annoyed if a long flight had us bumped up the back.

I've had this happen with equipment changes, but they were notified in advance via email, and I had the opportunity to change without penalty. It sounds like there may have been some delays and cancellations which may have worked against you?

 

[exceladdict]

Has anyone ever been "bumped" from their cabin class on any of these flights?

We recently flew a US domestic flight and had booked an award seat in first - only to find we were seated in row 35?

MCO airport was chaos and when we checked in it said our seat allocation would be advised at the gate - we didn't realise until we were on the airbridge what seats we were allocated. It was only a 2 hour flight to DFW, and on return I complained to QF and my points were refunded.

But I would be annoyed if a long flight had us bumped up the back.

Complain to AA as well. I've found their compo has been very generous - you might find yourself with a $100 flight voucher or similar

 

[repete]

Hi folks,
Not trying to post questions I could just research myself... I have looked through this thread and tried some dummy bookings on qantas and just wanted to ask for assistance on booking RTW fares online?

I have put in an economy itinerary I thought was right and after three flights it was 140K points, but then ended up continuing to rise up to about 285K by the end? I was searching for "Classic Award Flights" through the multi-city booking link. Is that the correct way? Perhaps I just need to tweak something on the flights but certainly was less than 35,000 miles.
Appreciate any input.

 

[FrankC]

Hi folks,
Not trying to post questions I could just research myself... I have looked through this thread and tried some dummy bookings on qantas and just wanted to ask for assistance on booking RTW fares online?

I have put in an economy itinerary I thought was right and after three flights it was 140K points, but then ended up continuing to rise up to about 285K by the end? I was searching for "Classic Award Flights" through the multi-city booking link. Is that the correct way? Perhaps I just need to tweak something on the flights but certainly was less than 35,000 miles.
Appreciate any input.

Can you share the itinerary details, such as the flight number, the carrier, departure and destination for each of the segments, and indicate which one is a stopover vs transit

 

[repete]

Can you share the itinerary details, such as the flight number, the carrier, departure and destination for each of the segments, and indicate which one is a stopover vs transit

Can you share the itinerary details, such as the flight number, the carrier, departure and destination for each of the segments, and indicate which one is a stopover vs transit

Thanks Frank,

Just did a dummy search on behalf of my brother and I think I have had some success! I just had a response drafted up and checking on another site realised that it might be the fact I had an Emirates flight in there which caused the problem. Changing that dropped my new dummy booking from 222000 down to the magic 140! Thanks for the offer to provide more info - I may well be back

 

[Meggsy]

Thanks Frank,

Just did a dummy search on behalf of my brother and I think I have had some success! I just had a response drafted up and checking on another site realised that it might be the fact I had an Emirates flight in there which caused the problem. Changing that dropped my new dummy booking from 222000 down to the magic 140! Thanks for the offer to provide more info - I may well be back

Yes that will be the cause. The 140/280/560K is a Oneworld fare and Emirates is not part of Oneworld.

 

[snabbu]

Yes that will be the cause. The 140/280/560K is a Oneworld fare and Emirates is not part of Oneworld.

Correct, however just for clarity and for new thread viewers it's 420K for F as the title of the thread suggests.

 

[Meggsy]

Correct, however just for clarity and for new thread viewers it's 420K for F as the title of the thread suggests.

Correct you are. My bad

 

[serfty]

I've had this happen with equipment changes, but they were notified in advance via email, and I had the opportunity to change without penalty. It sounds like there may have been some delays and cancellations which may have worked against you?

I would suggest it being as simple as not having picked their seating immediately after booking!

 

[Battymum]

I did select seats straight away, but then later on as I was checking I got a message saying seats were unavailable for selecting (or something like that). I figured it was first class on a two hour flight, how bad could it be.

 

[Battymum]

Is there anyway of including flights from Calgary to Vancouver as part of a one world award? I can't seem to find any options.

 

[fairbasa]

Is there anyway of including flights from Calgary to Vancouver as part of a one world award? I can't seem to find any options.

Not without going via DFW or LHR.

I ended up using my AMEX Explorer Travel Credit for this trip one way on Air Canada.

 

[Radio8tiv]

Is there anyway of including flights from Calgary to Vancouver as part of a one world award? I can't seem to find any options.

I looked into this a little when I was planning mine, Westjet may be an option but you will spend a lot of time planning this one out, it may be easier to just get to Vancouver with Cathay for example, and then use Qantas points on Westjet

Westjet is a Qantas partner https://www.qantas.com/fflyer/dyn/partners/airline/westjet#book-qantas-qf-for-more-rewards

Also OneWorld says its possible (on a global explorer fare) https://www.oneworld.com/news-infor...lobal-explorer-round-the-world-fare/maximized

But Westjet is not a OneWorld airline, so I don't think it is possible.

 

[Ken1]

Last week I booked a 280K J award for November to January. Our Son is applying for a work Visa for France and hopes to leave Sydney in June and spend a year in Paris and we'd like to spend Christmas and New Year with him. I didn't have enough points for 2 x 280K so we were thinking of buying Y tickets for this trip since usually for J awards you have to be ready to book the day the flights for the date you want are released but we weren't looking forward to flying to Europe in Y after having flown J in recent years thanks to 280K J awards. I recently applied for an American Express Explorer card and after receiving 110,000 bonus points we now have enough points to book 2 x 280K J One World awards.

I saw a lot of EK SYD-LHR flights available in late November and early December but nothing with CX or BA. I saw availability with QF on 28 November, which I was surprised to see as a QFF Bronze, so booked that. I had the choice of QF1 connecting to QF9 at DXB but that meant a 7hr50 transit at DXB, arriving at 00:40 and departing at 08:30, or flying SYD-MEL at 19:15 connecting to QF9 MEL-LHR so we decided to book that.

However there is no availability for anywhere in Europe back to Sydney in early to mid January (I checked CDG, LHR, ZRH, AMS and FCO for CX flights) so we've booked to fly CDG-LHR-YYC with BA on January 3 and since we couldn't see anything available in J for YVR to SYD with CX we've booked JFK-SYD via HKG with CX for January 11. After arriving at YYC we will travel up to Banff for a few days and then on January 9 will book a paid ticket with Westjet or Air Canada from YYC to JFK with WS or YYC-EWR with AC. That will give us two nights in NY before our flight to SYD. later we will add an LHR-CDG flight to the itinerary.

If anything is released for YVR-SYD with CX we would like to change to that so as not to have the long flight from YYC to JFK when we are only going to be there for 2 nights. Looking at J availability for YVR-SYD with CX I see seats available for a lot of days in October, November and early December but nothing in January so I'm guessing that since January is a popular time it is unlikely we will see anything available unless someone cancels so I'll keep checking each day in case anything comes up to fly from YYC, SFO or LAX to SYD around mid January so as not to have to fly across to NY but at least we are booked to get back to SYD in J, and were lucky to get the whole trip in J without having booked earlier, when flights were first released.

Has anyone seen CX release more seats throughout the year or are they only usually when first released and then close to the day of flight if still unsold? I know I can't change the routing once travel commences, only the date or time of a flight. I logged in to CX Asia Miles today and most flights are listed as full but some are listed as waitlist request so if I was booking through AM I could request to be on a waitlist. I don't know if the difference between full and waitlist is that it is possible that they may release more seats on those flights.

 

[Kangol]

FWIW I don't know why you mentioned EK, they are not part of OW and not bookable under this award.

Did you look at JL flights?

 

[Ken1]

FWIW I don't know why you mentioned EK, they are not part of OW and not bookable under this award.

Did you look at JL flights?

I realise that EK are not part of OW so can't be used on this award but was just mentioning that there are a lot of EK flights available at the moment for SYD-LHR, but nothing for CX or BA that I could have used with this award, and that QF showed up with flights available for one day that worked out well with our plans, so we went with that despite the high taxes. If there had been flights from anywhere in Europe back to SYD still available we would have booked those and would not have necessarily needed to use the OW 280K Award but since we couldn't find anything I booked to fly via YYC. I love visiting Banff so it was certainly no hardship deciding to travel home that way. My wife does not want to be away any longer than this so we can't get the full benefit of 5 stopovers on a OW Award but this still gives us good value for 280K being able to fly home via YYC.

I haven't looked at JL flights - I logged in to BAEC and CX AM as well as QF but nothing is showing in any of those. I've just set up a JL account and keyed in January 5 as an example date and it tells me I can only book up until December 27, 330 days out so I'll have to check over the next couple of weeks. Thanks for the suggestion!

 

[lolouni]

Nearly completed my first 280K booking, for me and my wife.
I just wanted to share my experience, as this site was incredibly helpful, hope my experience can help someone else too.

Frustrating and nervous from time to time yes, but I have to confess that I really enjoyed the process - it has become my hobby.
Checking availability, talking to QF CSR, create mock itinerary, etc. I'm kind of sad actually as the fun part is over.
I'm sure a lot will agree, planning is fun part indeed. The moment I get onboard and start the journey half of fun is already gone......

#Full Itinerary
FEB 2017 GMP-HND-LHR JL // CDG-HKG(x)-MEL CX
JAN 2018 MEL-HKG-DXB CX - DXB-DOH-BUD QR // VIE-DUS AB // DUS-LHR-ICN BA

As you can see, I tried to divide whole trip into 2, so I can have 2 holidays essentially. It was challenging to organise as seat release date is tight from each airlines while I need to complete whole journey within 12 month. 34981 miles in total, Tax and surcharge is $1136 pp.

#Episode
- First leg booked was CDG-HKG-MEL as I wanted to fly JL, which releases their seats later than CX. When I found JL leg seat was released on my desired date in BA search, I started calling QF. Unfortunately I found QF CSR is hit and miss. Both online chat and phone. I guess it took me more than 5 CSR until I met someone who finally found the seat on JL flight. The one who made the JL booking, he didn't struggle at all, was able to see availability straight up and proceeded smoothly - while others were trying this and that but insisting there is NO availability. If they don't give you what you know it is there, hang up and call again.

- I lost opportunity to fly QR 380. At one stage I have secured MEL-DOH on QR. Plan was to add DOH-BUD later. However when I rang up and tried to add, the system said "Not available for exchange". There was definitely available seats on DOH-BUD, so the CSR CANCELLED my 2 seats on MEL-DOH and tried to book in one queue. Seat was cancelled but it didn't come back to inventory. She booked on revenue(!!!!) seat while put a request to Oneworld helpdesk with screen shots and booking details to revert it back to my original award booking. 5 days waiting, calling every day to check if there is any update, finally QR replied the request has been rejected. Thus alternative route, MEL-HKG-DXB-DOH-BUD. Also It was frustrating to hear all different advises from each CSR, some says within 24 hours some says it takes at least a week to get an answer from Oneworld helpdesk. I'm under impression of that QR is somewhat dodge. If a booking is not ticketed in a timely manner, they will simply cancel it without notice - many horror stories around. If you plan to include QR leg, I would suggest to be vigilant to secure it.

- Due to excessive tax and surcharge I tried to avoid BA, but since original plan(//MEL-DOH-BUD-VIE-DUS-HKG-TPE-ICN) was altered, to make it under 35000 miles I had to make a choice between AY and BA. Both expensive, but at least BA releases J cls. AY never makes J seat available on HEL-ICN leg. Note that BA charges 55 GBP for seat selection, for business class which I think it's absurd.


Well this was my first 280K booking experience. Hopefully QF doesn't devalue their program anytime soon so I can do it again.
If you have any questions feel free to ask, would be more than happy to answer.

Bon voyage!

 

[DontGetMeStarted]

well done, it can be a daunting task but satisfying when its all done. I will need to commence trying to book my next one in a few months as need to be back in the UK for April 2018 for a wedding and then a holiday one the way back to OZ