Help! I have over 2 million Qantas Points I can never seem to use!

[matie000]

Hi. This is my first post, and I do it out of desperation!
I have well over 2,000,000 QFF points that I have been trying for years to use, but there are never any seats available for when I want to travel. I know what the issue is: I can only travel during peak periods, and because I fly only Business or Premium Economy with paid tickets, I refuse to go Economy on an award ticket. Occasionally I can find a ticket on CX via HK to Europe, but rarely. So points keep accumulating, and I find myself switching to Virgin and Virgin partners as I find it much easier to get award seats on their flights, so rather accumulate points with them.

I have tried getting on line literally 1 minute past midnight 353 days before flights supposedly become available for booking, yet even then there are ZERO seats available to book in business class! Then I ring the QFF centre the next day during business hours and after an eternity on hold I finally get through to be told again there are no seats. This happens year after year, and frankly it all sucks, so I am one disgusted QFF member!

I realise I can get a voucher from a travel agent, but when you compare how many more points are required to do the same trip by booking directly it seems extortionary and hardly worth while. So before I cave in and get a travel voucher, I thought I'd see if anyone more knowledgeable in navigating the QFF programme has any suggestions on how to use these points during peak travel times, i.e. school holidays, etc where dates cannot be too flexible?

Any insight would be much appreciated!

 

[cove]

matie000 can you tell us where you are based and what status you have?

 

[Dr Ralph]

Hi. This is my first post, and I do it out of desperation!
I have well over 2,000,000 QFF points that I have been trying for years to use, but there are never any seats available for when I want to travel. I know what the issue is: I can only travel during peak periods, and because I fly only Business or Premium Economy with paid tickets, I refuse to go Economy on an award ticket. Occasionally I can find a ticket on CX via HK to Europe, but rarely. So points keep accumulating, and I find myself switching to Virgin and Virgin partners as I find it much easier to get award seats on their flights, so rather accumulate points with them.

I have tried getting on line literally 1 minute past midnight 353 days before flights supposedly become available for booking, yet even then there are ZERO seats available to book in business class! Then I ring the QFF centre the next day during business hours and after an eternity on hold I finally get through to be told again there are no seats. This happens year after year, and frankly it all sucks, so I am one disgusted QFF member!

I realise I can get a voucher from a travel agent, but when you compare how many more points are required to do the same trip by booking directly it seems extortionary and hardly worth while. So before I cave in and get a travel voucher, I thought I'd see if anyone more knowledgeable in navigating the QFF programme has any suggestions on how to use these points during peak travel times, i.e. school holidays, etc where dates cannot be too flexible?

Any insight would be much appreciated!

Welcome to AFF.

I'm not sure why you are having so many problems. The first thing I would ordinarily advise is to plan well in advance, but as you indicate you have tried to book 353 days out.

I can say that in the last 18 months I have redeemed well over 2 million QFF points. I got every flight I was after, even during peak periods. I have zero status. Separate flights were in first class or business class from Sydney to Bangkok, San Francisco, Dallas, Los Angelas and Chicago. I admit that these were booked at the one year out mark. Eg. Just recently I booked Sydney to New York in Business class, leave just before Christmas 2018 and return around Jan 5, 2019. And I can see these flights are still available for a similar time of the year to my current booking.

I'd also say that redeeming flights is NOT a 5 minute job. It's extremely unlikely that you'd just log on and book something that you really wanted. It may be harsh, but I think you're not trying hard enough. You'll need to spend many hours navigating the Qantas site. I spent at least 50 hours in 2017 learning about how to best use my QFF points, this included reading many threads on AFF, asking questions and experimenting with the QFF website. Do keep checking everyday and even multiple times everyday. Flights are DEFINITELY available, but you do need to be organised and dedicated.

Conversely, every time I've tried to use my Virgin points I've never been able to find anything of use to me. Although I don't have many points in this scheme.

All I can say is you need to keep trying and step up your efforts.

 

[MEL_Traveller]

Hi. This is my first post, and I do it out of desperation!
I have well over 2,000,000 QFF points that I have been trying for years to use, but there are never any seats available for when I want to travel. I know what the issue is: I can only travel during peak periods, and because I fly only Business or Premium Economy with paid tickets, I refuse to go Economy on an award ticket. Occasionally I can find a ticket on CX via HK to Europe, but rarely. So points keep accumulating, and I find myself switching to Virgin and Virgin partners as I find it much easier to get award seats on their flights, so rather accumulate points with them.

I have tried getting on line literally 1 minute past midnight 353 days before flights supposedly become available for booking, yet even then there are ZERO seats available to book in business class! Then I ring the QFF centre the next day during business hours and after an eternity on hold I finally get through to be told again there are no seats. This happens year after year, and frankly it all sucks, so I am one disgusted QFF member!

I realise I can get a voucher from a travel agent, but when you compare how many more points are required to do the same trip by booking directly it seems extortionary and hardly worth while. So before I cave in and get a travel voucher, I thought I'd see if anyone more knowledgeable in navigating the QFF programme has any suggestions on how to use these points during peak travel times, i.e. school holidays, etc where dates cannot be too flexible?

Any insight would be much appreciated!

QF doesn't make finding seats easy. But they are usually there, somewhere. Either on QF flights, or Emirates or Cathay. Cathay is best searched Australia to Hing kong, and then hong-kong to Europe separately... you can do this a multi-city booking so it's still all on the one ticket and the same number of points. Other partners simply aren't on line... you need to search using the British Airways tool (free, but you need an account with a UK address), or the Japan Airlines tool (free, no account restrictions).

Last year looking to come back from Europe there was nothing on the QF site 'dates not available', but searching found a combination of Finnair and Emirates via SIN. And that was for two seats. Booked via the call centre.

For a small fee there are also award search assistance companies (one is even provided by AFF).

 

[BenSQ380]

If you're looking for CX then 353 days is about 6/7 days too late. It's the 20th today and flights are available for the 14th of next year. Also, if you're referring to midnight literally and you're not in a GMT zone then that could also be part of the problem.

Last week I booked a J RTW for 2 pax leaving 14/12 returning 6/1. Because of the time of year we burnt 22k points on cancellations and changes given that we had to book our original Oz to Europe leg as a one way and wait until the return legs became available.

We had a plan A but ended up settling for a plan D outcome - much better than plan Y.

Along the way we had a couple of occasions where legs were selected and were unavailable in the seconds it took to complete the check out process. We also had to book a leg separately that wasn't able to be incorporated into the RTW for no apparent reason.

On the upside, you've come to the right place.

 

[amaroo]

We burn >1,000,000 points a year .... sure I've got status, but I believe with planning anyone can do the same.

 

[Matt_01]

What is your status, if you are WP you can request the release of QF seats. CX normally have good redemptions 12 months out, but they get snapped up pretty quickly, they also seem to put out more reward seats closer to departure. EK also normally offer good redemptions via the QF web site but these start to appear around T-335-T337 (from memory I may be wrong).

With a bit of planning, flexibility in routing and dates reward seating is reasonably accessible. Not all OW carrier rewards are not displayed on the QF site so you will need to ring the QF CC, there is a thread on this site that details all the T-Days for carries (can not find it to add the link). Also 1 minute past midnight may not help, although I am not familiar with all the booking systems, most work in zulu time, not local.

I am with Dr Ralph, my +1 and daughter have redeemed in excess of 2-3M points over the past 2-3 years for travel in J and F to the US, Canada, Japan, Middle East, China, Korea, Hong Kong, China and Singapore.

 

[JohnM]

Are you my long-lost cousin matie, by any chance? Family transfers always ease the burden .

You haven't said specifically where you are trying to go, but the indication is Europe.

I've had no problems getting QF points redemptions in EK F or J out of PER. Two EK flights PER-DXB/day - one A380, one B777 - and I much prefer EK F to QF F. Maybe it's harder from the east coast if that's where you are.

 

[love_the_life]

Are you my long-lost cousin matie, by any chance? Family transfers always ease the burden .

You haven't said specifically where you are trying to go, but the indication is Europe.

I've had no problems getting QF points redemptions in EK F or J out of PER. Two EK flights PER-DXB/day - one A380, one B777 - and I much prefer EK F to QF F. Maybe it's harder from the east coast if that's where you are.

Get in line JohnM
That said, back to the topic, I have generally managed to find J seats when I want them. A thought - How many seats are you after? A NB chasing more than 2 seats in a premium cabin might find it not so easy.

 

[matie000]

Thank you all for taking the time to respond.

I accumulated most of my miles via my Amex Platinum card so basically have Zero status with QF, but no longer transfer Amex points to QF. I wasn't aware that there are award assistance companies, which I have now sussed out and will try in the future, so that info was very helpful, as well as the other insight & techniques you all provided. Much appreciated guys.

 

[Scr77]

Good luck. Don’t forget that the points will expire without activity on the account.

 

[Flying mermaid]

Someone alluded to this, but I will emphasise it - award seats are not released by Qantas at midnight, it is 10am AEST. I have booked award flights for a friend who is bronze and have been sitting at my desk at 10AM checking for awards and you do see award flights pop up shortly after 10am (I am generally booking in winter).

 

[love_the_life]

I'm not sure if the dates are still correct on this but here is a list of when award bookings open up for each airline (and therefore via QF for One World airlines).

 

[JohnM]

Someone alluded to this, but I will emphasise it - award seats are not released by Qantas at midnight, it is 10am AEST.

Midnight UTC (aka GMT).

 

[Flying mermaid]

Midnight UTC (aka GMT).

the op said “midnight”, without any additional info after it. For the sake of clarity I added something familiar to Australians.....I wouldn’t have the foggiest what it was in GMT...

Also given he states “I phone the next day during business hours”, I rather suspect he wasn’t checking 12 GMT

 

[turtlemichael]

The list of release dates linked here is very helpful. In addition to Qantas at 10:00AEST can anyone add times for some of the others eg AA?

 

[JohnM]

The list of release dates linked here is very helpful. In addition to Qantas at 10:00AEST can anyone add times for some of the others eg AA?

Might a reasonable assumption be 0000 UTC (aka 0800 WST ... and whatever time that may be on the other side of Australia given a strange propensity to meddle with clocks there )?

 

[Flying mermaid]

Might a reasonable assumption be 0000 UTC (aka 0800 WST ... and whatever time that may be on the other side of Australia given a strange propensity to meddle with clocks there )?

too many letters there for me on a hot Sunday

 

[Deleted member]

Thank you all for taking the time to respond.

I accumulated most of my miles via my Amex Platinum card so basically have Zero status with QF, but no longer transfer Amex points to QF. I wasn't aware that there are award assistance companies, which I have now sussed out and will try in the future, so that info was very helpful, as well as the other insight & techniques you all provided. Much appreciated guys.

In some ways, it’s a little like restoring a classic car, but not having a drivers licence. Having all of those points and not accumulating some kind of status makes it just that little bit harder. If only from the viewpoint of having experience.
That said, the accumulated wisdom you will find here, may go a long way to solving your problem. Good luck with your plans.

 

[cjd600]

In some ways, it’s a little like restoring a classic car, but not having a drivers licence. Having all of those points and not accumulating some kind of status makes it just that little bit harder. If only from the viewpoint of having experience.
That said, the accumulated wisdom you will find here, may go a long way to solving your problem. Good luck with your plans.

Agreed....but status (lack of) isn't that much of a handbrake.
I have zero status and am shopping for 4.
Just completed a 4 x J SYD-LAX return late last year, a 4 x J SYD-DFW return a couple of years ago, and not having too much trouble with my current dummy bookings for a 4 x J 280k Oneworld Award SYD-EUR/UK-USA-SYD.
Knowledge is the key, coupled with a bit of patience and flexibility.
Endless planning/testing in advance to work out release patterns and availability doesn't hurt either.
As Dr Ralph alluded, it's not necessarily simple, but can be done with some effort.