Oneworld Classic Flight Reward Discussion - The Definitive Thread

[deebens]

Confusing! I think you mean SCL, as SLC is Salt Lake City

Yeah sorry Santiago.

How many flights is it total? I got it again and it was 6 in the last one. I thought it was only 5 in total?

 

[There'sOnlyOneJimmy]

Does anyone have any experience with changing the flight times or dates of sectors after taking the first flight? No change to the route or carrier but there may be an opportunity to push some dates out. Is there a link to the QF terms & conditions that would allow this? Easy to do over live chat with the usual 5k per person fee in J?

Assuming that there’s a seat available, it can be done. I have personal experience of doing it a couple of years ago.

The relevant rule is:

14.7.6 Subject to this clause 14.7, the following changes are permitted to a Classic Flight Reward flight before departure of that flight, provided the booking contains one or more Flight Segments that are not within Australia, and the Flight Segment(s) being changed do not include a partner airline that requires a ticket to be reissued for the change. Any such change will incur a Change Fee (see the Fee Schedule) per passenger:

(a) change to flight number; and
(b) change to date of travel.

 

[There'sOnlyOneJimmy]

Does anyone have any experience with changing the flight times or dates of sectors after taking the first flight? No change to the route or carrier but there may be an opportunity to push some dates out. Is there a link to the QF terms & conditions that would allow this? Easy to do over live chat with the usual 5k per person fee in J?

Link to the Terms & Conditions page:

Frequent Flyer Terms and Conditions | Qantas

 

[flychrisfly]

Yeah sorry Santiago.

How many flights is it total? I got it again and it was 6 in the last one. I thought it was only 5 in total?

Well, it's 16 flights and 5 stops, or 6 stops if you count coming home as a stop.

 

[soh]

Assuming that there’s a seat available, it can be done. I have personal experience of doing it a couple of years ago.

The relevant rule is:

14.7.6 Subject to this clause 14.7, the following changes are permitted to a Classic Flight Reward flight before departure of that flight, provided the booking contains one or more Flight Segments that are not within Australia, and the Flight Segment(s) being changed do not include a partner airline that requires a ticket to be reissued for the change. Any such change will incur a Change Fee (see the Fee Schedule) per passenger:

(a) change to flight number; and
(b) change to date of travel.

Exactly what I was looking for. The only question is how do I know if the partner airline would need to reissue a ticket? I will be flying on QF, JL, CX, AY and AA. If any of these airlines need to reissue a ticket for a flight number or date change (same routing) then it would mean I can't make the change.

 

[There'sOnlyOneJimmy]

Exactly what I was looking for. The only question is how do I know if the partner airline would need to reissue a ticket? I will be flying on QF, JL, CX, AY and AA. If any of these airlines need to reissue a ticket for a flight number or date change (same routing) then it would mean I can't make the change.

I’m sorry, I can’t answer your question *definitively*, but I *suspect* that the reference to the re-issue of a ticket is to a paper ticket rather than an e-ticket.
In my case, I changed 2 connecting sectors with QR (bringing them forward about a month). I just checked the documentation I received at the time, and what I got was the regular email from Qantas headed “Booking Information”, using the existing PNR and the existing e-ticket number, just with the changed QR sectors.
I may have been lucky: these were the last 2 sectors on the ticket, and only one airline was involved.
Good luck.

 

[Pele]

Gday

Can someone please send the link to the qantas website which tallies up how many points are required for a one world multi carrier award. When i use the multi city option for rewards flights it just adds up each of the sectors. Shouldn't it come up with a points total that references the table in the wiki?

Thank you.
Pele.

 

[djkelly69]

When i use the multi city option for rewards flights it just adds up each of the sectors. Shouldn't it come up with a points total that references the table in the wiki?

Do you have an EK or other non-One World flight in there?

 

[Pele]

Do you have an EK or other non-One World flight in there?

Gday

No. Only MH,JL,CX and QF. I get points totals that dont tally in to any band on the award chart. I will keep playing with it but with JL not being bookable i will have to call when it comes time to book.

Pele.

 

[Captain Halliday]

Gday

No. Only MH,JL,CX and QF. I get points totals that dont tally in to any band on the award chart. I will keep playing with it but with JL not being bookable i will have to call when it comes time to book.

Pele.

Are you within all the other rules - Miles? Stopovers? Sectors?
Perhaps post your routing and we may be able to offer further advice.

 

[Pele]

Are you within all the other rules - Miles? Stopovers? Sectors?
Perhaps post your routing and we may be able to offer further advice.

Captain Halliday,

I think it is the because of a JQ(Japan) flight. Are they oneworld? Anyway my sample itinerary is below:

SYD-oHKG-oNRT-oOKA//TPE-xHKG-oKUL-SYD
CX-CX-JQ-CX-KA-MH

All J except the JQ which is Y only. When it comes time to book i will be booking the domestic Japan leg as JL. Does anyone know how many Qantas points a JL HND-OKA flight would cost?

According to gcmap.com the above itinerary comes in at 13,996 miles which is band 7 on the Qantas table and should be 220,000 points. Strangely enough the above works out as 215,600 on qantas.com. I am guessing the discrepancy is due to the JQ leg only working at at 9,600 points(is JL more?). Based on these calculations is the only benefit in booking the one world multi carrier ticket ,as opposed to the individual tickets, the protection afforded in case of delay for transits?

Thank you.
Pele.

 

[Captain Halliday]

Captain Halliday,

I think it is the because of a JQ(Japan) flight. Are they oneworld? Anyway my sample itinerary is below:

SYD-oHKG-oNRT-oOKA//TPE-xHKG-oKUL-SYD
CX-CX-JQ-CX-KA-MH

All J except the JQ which is Y only. When it comes time to book i will be booking the domestic Japan leg as JL. Does anyone know how many Qantas points a JL HND-OKA flight would cost?

According to gcmap.com the above itinerary comes in at 13,996 miles which is band 7 on the Qantas table and should be 220,000 points. Strangely enough the above works out as 215,600 on qantas.com. I am guessing the discrepancy is due to the JQ leg only working at at 9,600 points(is JL more?). Based on these calculations is the only benefit in booking the one world multi carrier ticket ,as opposed to the individual tickets, the protection afforded in case of delay for transits?

Thank you.
Pele.

JQ is your problem if you want it to price as a oneworld award. JQ is not a oneworld airline.

JL flights would be eligible.

 

[Pele]

Gday

When trying to check availability on a city pair on the qantas website and it says 'these cities are not available on classic flight rewards' does this mean they cannot be a part of the one world multi carrier award? There is plenty of availability for said city pairing on BA.com . The city pairing is TPE-KUL.

Thanks.
Pele.

 

[Captain Halliday]

Gday

When trying to check availability on a city pair on the qantas website and it says 'these cities are not available on classic flight rewards' does this mean they cannot be a part of the one world multi carrier award? There is plenty of availability for said city pairing on BA.com . The city pairing is TPE-KUL.

Thanks.
Pele.

If they’re available as redemption seats on BA, you should be able to include them. However the QF website is known to have issues like this. You will probably have to call QF to get the routing you want.

If it can’t be done online, make sure you ask for the phone booking fee to be waived.

 

[Pele]

If they’re available as redemption seats on BA, you should be able to include them. However the QF website is known to have issues like this. You will probably have to call QF to get the routing you want.

If it can’t be done online, make sure you ask for the phone booking fee to be waived.

Captain thanks for all your help. I am still in the planning stages and will aim to book it in March. What's frustrating is that the TPE-KUL pair gives the message i said above but if you reverse it ie KUL-TPE it works and comes up with MH flights (although no CX/KA).

Pele.

 

[Pele]

This might be stating the obvious but after looking at the QFF one world award tickets and rules this week i have come to the conclusion that the only one which offers any value is band 10 awards ie 19,000- 35,000 miles. For multi stop award tickets below this distance quite often it works out cheaper points wise to book each flight separately. Also when booking separately you dont have the issue of different airlines having their seats become available at different periods in advance.

Not sure if taxes and fees come out differently by booking each flight separately. Maybe someone knows?

Pele.

 

[exceladdict]

This might be stating the obvious but after looking at the QFF one world award tickets and rules this week i have come to the conclusion that the only one which offers any value is band 10 awards ie 19,000- 35,000 miles. For multi stop award tickets below this distance quite often it works out cheaper points wise to book each flight separately. Also when booking separately you dont have the issue of different airlines having their seats become available at different periods in advance.

Not sure if taxes and fees come out differently by booking each flight separately. Maybe someone knows?

Pele.

Depends on the carrier - have a look at the wiki above, for AY for example it seems to be a flat fee no matter how many flights of theirs are in the itinerary, up to a certain number

 

[p--and--t]

A sincere thankyou to all those contributors on this bulletin board for all your tips and tricks to make use of points for OneWorld Business RTW.

Having saved up some 550,000 points mainly from purchases on credit cards (rather than flights), I managed with quite some hours of effort using all your tips and tricks to book a RTW J holiday this year for my partner and I, all on points.

For all the doubters, it is doable and even with only a 7 month lead to time our holiday.

The best tricks I used were:

- Try the one world site first for your planned journey to see options of who flies where and what the approximate fees will be.
- Next, don't search the whole end to end trip to the final destination. Search for available seats on sectors. e.g. don't look for MEL-LHR, but look for MEL-BKK, MEL-HKG, MEL-SIN etc
- The Qantas booking engine, even though a magic piece of technology with the monthly views, doesn't always show what it thinks are illogical or all available options. e.g. if MEL-HKG fails, try BNE-HKG or ADL-HKG, you can always add a domestic sector after you have all the international bits mapped out.
- If you don't find a seat in offerings on the Qantas site - register for the BA site (using a friends address o/s) and search there. The Qantas site doesn't show JL seats and doesn't always show all options on even BA and QR flights. (QR has an abundance of award seats - but not out of Australia)
- Be flexible and think out of the box with your routing. If you are flying J class or F class, whats a few extra hours via an alternative connection city.
- Don't panic when the Qantas site shows you need far more points than you have - after the third non-QF sector is added the points drop back to 280K per passenger and stay there. If you a few short you can always buy some more to top up.
- Once you have an itinerary together that seems to work but it can't be booked online, call the Qantas operator and say you have a list of flights already planned - the operator only to happy to put the lot together and did not charge a booking penalty.

Our final routing which fits perfectly with our travel plans ended up as:
MEL-BNE-HKG
HKG-DOH-NBO
NBO-LHR-PRA
TXL-LHR-LAX
LAX-NRT
NRT-BNE-MEL

The only sting in the tail is Qantas' fees and charges which added up to around $1,500pp - BUT we got fares worth over $29,000 on points - YAY.

 

[Guvner]

A sincere thankyou to all those contributors on this bulletin board for all your tips and tricks to make use of points for OneWorld Business RTW.

Having saved up some 550,000 points mainly from purchases on credit cards (rather than flights), I managed with quite some hours of effort using all your tips and tricks to book a RTW J holiday this year for my partner and I, all on points.

For all the doubters, it is doable and even with only a 7 month lead to time our holiday.

The best tricks I used were:

- Try the one world site first for your planned journey to see options of who flies where and what the approximate fees will be.
- Next, don't search the whole end to end trip to the final destination. Search for available seats on sectors. e.g. don't look for MEL-LHR, but look for MEL-BKK, MEL-HKG, MEL-SIN etc
- The Qantas booking engine, even though a magic piece of technology with the monthly views, doesn't always show what it thinks are illogical or all available options. e.g. if MEL-HKG fails, try BNE-HKG or ADL-HKG, you can always add a domestic sector after you have all the international bits mapped out.
- If you don't find a seat in offerings on the Qantas site - register for the BA site (using a friends address o/s) and search there. The Qantas site doesn't show JL seats and doesn't always show all options on even BA and QR flights. (QR has an abundance of award seats - but not out of Australia)
- Be flexible and think out of the box with your routing. If you are flying J class or F class, whats a few extra hours via an alternative connection city.
- Don't panic when the Qantas site shows you need far more points than you have - after the third non-QF sector is added the points drop back to 280K per passenger and stay there. If you a few short you can always buy some more to top up.
- Once you have an itinerary together that seems to work but it can't be booked online, call the Qantas operator and say you have a list of flights already planned - the operator only to happy to put the lot together and did not charge a booking penalty.

Our final routing which fits perfectly with our travel plans ended up as:
MEL-BNE-HKG
HKG-DOH-NBO
NBO-LHR-PRA
TXL-LHR-LAX
LAX-NRT
NRT-BNE-MEL

The only sting in the tail is Qantas' fees and charges which added up to around $1,500pp - BUT we got fares worth over $29,000 on points - YAY.

Some good tips there p--and--t. I'm in the middle of trying to put together a 280 and it does take a lot of work. Your routing is similar to what I want to do except I want CPT instead of NBO and FRA instead of PRA..

Just to clarify, yours was a 280 and not a OW RTW?

 

[ozflier]

I asked to speak to a QFF supervisor this morning on a separate matter,
I did mention in passing that I and others had noticed a reduction in the number of premium award seats from eastern Australia to Santiago and vv later next year.
I can remember there being up to 15 days each month with J award seats on flights direct to SCL ( not via the USA) in the months of July,August and September 2018 but they seemed to have dried up for subsequent months.
The Supervisor has had complaints get up to his level on this issue .
He believes that LATAM has pulled business availability on the SCL-AKL/SYD/ MEL routes for later next year.
He did not speculate why.