Oneworld Classic Flight Reward Discussion - The Definitive Thread

[Aus ATC]

Hi guys,

My fiance and I are getting married in Europe next year and are looking to book 2 x business class around the world flights. However, we're looking to also purchase a conversion van and jet around Europe for 4-5 months before proceeding on. I've heard it can be an absolute nightmare booking on points, and since i've never done more than a BNE - MEL flight on points (cattle class too) - i'm wondering if anyone can advise on how I might go about this. As my understanding is that I need to book all legs at once for the round the world flight? Is this the case or can you book parts of it at a time and book others later as they become available?

Thanks very much!

Your best bet will be to book the outbound flights as soon as they become available (generally 330 to 360 days out - but maybe less if you are not SG or WP), and the return flights later. You will cop a change fee of 5000 points each for adding the additional segments, but worth it to secure the outbound sectors when they become available. I did this myself recently - in fact I had 2 changes (total 20000 points for the 2 of us), but was happy(ish) to pay the 'penalty' for the result.

So you will need 600k points - not all of them right away though.

I wish I had 4 - 5 months in Europe - should be a great honeymoon!

 

[JohnM]

Hi guys,

Very new to this so please go easy on me

My fiance and I are getting married in Europe next year and are looking to book 2 x business class around the world flights. However, we're looking to also purchase a conversion van and jet around Europe for 4-5 months before proceeding on. I've heard it can be an absolute nightmare booking on points, and since i've never done more than a BNE - MEL flight on points (cattle class too) - i'm wondering if anyone can advise on how I might go about this. As my understanding is that I need to book all legs at once for the round the world flight? Is this the case or can you book parts of it at a time and book others later as they become available?

Appreciate if anyone can point me to any material to read or can share their experiences.

Thanks very much!

First up, there is no requirement to go RTW on a OneWorld Award. Calling it a RTW fare mixes it up with a OneWorld Explorer, which is a fully-paid and obligatory RTW fare. Please refrain from calling it 'RTW' .

I have never booked a OneWorld Award but I have booked many OneWorld Explorers. I can say that you don't need to book all sectors at once but you can progressively build it and pay the change penalty.

There are many other s who can give you full guidance on the OW Award.

From all accounts, booking a OW Award in premium cabins can be an enormous amount of work. You could use Award Flight Assist to relieve that pressure: see post #6491.

 

[cjd600]

15 mins jumping on a "RTW" misnomer, new record @JohnM, great work!

 

[dryath]

First up, there is no requirement to go RTW on a OneWorld Award. Calling it a RTW fare mixes it up with a OneWorld Explorer, which is a fully-paid and obligatory RTW fare. Please refrain from calling it 'RTW' .

I have never booked a OneWorld Award but I have booked many OneWorld Explorers. I can say that you don't need to book all sectors at once but you can progressively build it and pay the change penalty.

There are many other s who can give you full guidance on the OW Award.

From all accounts, booking a OW Award in premium cabins can be an enormous amount of work. You could use Award Flight Assist to relieve that pressure: see post #6491.

Thanks John much appreciated. Apologies, I didn't realise this was what differentiates the fully paid with award fare.

Appreciate the guidance thus far, i'll check out 6491 and see what everyone else chimes in with!

Cheers

 

[JohnM]

15 mins jumping on a "RTW" misnomer, new record @JohnM, great work!

Hmmm - you checking on me @cjd600? But you know it's my pet hate .

 

[JohnM]

Thanks John much appreciated. Apologies, I didn't realise this was what differentiates the fully paid with award fare.

Appreciate the guidance thus far, i'll check out 6491 and see what everyone else chimes in with!

Cheers

No worries . It's just best to keep it all clear from the outset IMO .

 

[N860CR]

But you have to watch those married segments. Hence the reason I asked.
I can stopover one way but not twice.

Very true. That seems to be a bigger issue ex Australia though so this has worked out well. Out of SYD and straight to Europe, stop in Doha on the way to Africa then straight from ADD to Hong Kong. Three visits in Doha, one of 24:10 so just scrapes into a stopover. Great outcome!

Might even be able to score a hotel for the transit....

 

[cjd600]

Hmmm - you checking on me @cjd600? But you know it's my pet hate .

Haha, if someone mentions "RTW" in this thread, I sit back with my popcorn and wait for your arrival
Same with anyone mentioning "taxes" instead of carrier surcharges in any thread, grab the popcorn and wait for @serfty
All good fun.

 

[Kangol]

Are you saying that if you rang and made changes to the booking and ticketing did no occur for 2 months later , the 5k is not deducted until then?

Yes. Same with the refund of existing points and deduction of new points. That and the taxes.

 

[Daver6]

Right. So a little more background and what we actually booked.

We have a bunch of HH points and wanted to burn them at the Conrad Maldives. We also wanted to do something else and make a decent break. We decided on cruise up and down the coast of Norway on a Hurtigruten ship sounded perfect. Add to that a stop in London to see family and friends. All we knew was we wanted to go some time around Oct/Nov this year. We had narrowed it down to which ships would be acceptable to us, giving us a selection of start and end dates in Bergen. We wanted 6 nights in the Maldives and about 5 in London.

I gave all this information (the list of dates for the cruise and ordered them by preference to the Award Flight Assist person who was helping us. In the end, this is what we booked.

PER - ADL QF ADL - DOH - HEL QR. Over night in HEL but less than 24 hours.
HEL - BGO AY 12 nights. 11 on the cruise and one in Bergen.
BGO - HEL - LHR AY Managed to score a throne seat on the A330 from HEL to LHR. 7 nights in London
LHR - DOH - MLE QR Scored the Q-suites to DOH.
MLE - CMB UL in Y (90 minutes) then CMB - HKG - PER CX.

Fuel fines were high at just over $2k per pax. This was expected given the flights and cities. We will likely add on a side trip from London to Germany towards the end of our time in London. This would mean leaving Germany back to LHR and on to DOH. This should knock off a good few hundred dollars in terms of the UK APD.

Landed up making a minor change to this. Rather than going PER-ADL-DOH I changed to go via SYD. Two advantages of this are the QF F lounge and will be on the A350-1000 from SYD - DOH. Ie Q-Suites.

 

[nickfromeastryde]

Landed up making a minor change to this. Rather than going PER-ADL-DOH I changed to go via SYD. Two advantages of this are the QF F lounge and will be on the A350-1000 from SYD - DOH. Ie Q-Suites.

I thought it was the 777 from Sydney with Q-Suites

 

[Daver6]

I thought it was the 777 from Sydney with Q-Suites

A351 scheduled for late October. This is the flight than originates in CBR.

 

[blu]

... Europe next year and are looking to book 2 x business class .... I've heard it can be an absolute nightmare booking on points ...

Welcome to AFF. Have you read the Wiki at the top of page, it is a good summary of the rules, which need to be adhered to for the 280k J Award to stick. See Wiki para 14.5 above. Not a nightmare, but there are rules and a large body of knowledge. Success may depend on avoiding Peak travel periods (eg Xmas) and being very flexible with dates and OWpartner airlines. You will find carrier charges less on Asian partners than QF, BA, QR. Be aware there is a significant departure tax leaving LHR from a Stopover (but avoided if a EU>LHR transit).

 

[11sjw]

Thanks again.

I've just put in the sample itinerary and its come out with $2600 in taxes/charges (for 2 people) and I haven't even got all the segments in there (only 8 so far). Does this sound overly extreme? No BA travel.

Flights:
DBO-SYD / SYD-HKG-DEL
DEL-DOH-AMM
AMM-FCO
FCO-DOH / DOH-JFK

Sorry to take so long to reply but it seems reasonable.

We have 3 x J PER-JFK (via HKG), JFK - FCO (via LGW), FCO - PRG (via LHR), CDG-SIN (via DIA) and SIN-PER (via HKG) and surcharges came to $1750pp.

 

[wentworthmeister]

I've been sitting on our OWA plan for a few months waiting for LATAM flights to become available in Dec 2019 - initially they hadn't reached their release window, but now they have and I'm still not seeing any award availability via the Qantas multi-city tool. I'm a Gold FF and am looking for the following flights in Economy:

LA1: LAX-SCL on/around 2 Dec.
LA603: SCL-PNT (although PNT doesn't exist in the QF tool so this will never show).
LA2: PNT-SCL on/around 14 Dec.
LA805: SCL-MEL on/around 16 Dec.

I know these flights exist on these dates because they show up on the LATAM site, but I never seem to get any LATAM flights coming up in my QF multi-city classic award searches - only AA and QF options (which are sparse or non-existent on those routes). Is this a known issue with LATAM, or could it just be that they aren't releasing award availability on those flights?

 

[wentworthmeister]

LA1: LAX-SCL on/around 2 Dec.
LA603: SCL-PNT (although PNT doesn't exist in the QF tool so this will never show).

Got those the wrong way around - LA603 is LAX-SCL and LA1 is SCL-PNT.

I've done some more digging into LATAM award availability, specifically on LA805 (SCL-MEL) as a test case. Interestingly I've found award availability in Economy on pretty much every day the flight occurs, but only up until 30th November 2019. There's nothing for the whole of December and January, but then it opens up again in Feb 2020 (next available award seat is on 5th Feb 2020).

Could they be intentionally not releasing Economy award seats in Dec/Jan due to it being a peak period?

 

[JohnM]

Interestingly I've found award availability in Economy on pretty much every day the flight occurs, but only up until 30th November 2019. There's nothing for the whole of December and January, but then it opens up again in Feb 2020 (next available award seat is on 5th Feb 2020).

Could they be intentionally not releasing Economy award seats in Dec/Jan due to it being a peak period?

I'd be very surprised if that is not the case. The summer is very busy in S Chile.

 

[Rtw]

Hi guys, quick question regarding the 140k economy trip. I'm looking at booking x2 for mid year 2020 and want to get the most out of it. I can't quite understand the surface sector rules. Is it possible to fly into Europe then make your own way around a few cities and depart from somewhere else like London to continue the rtw trip?
Very rough example - Perth to Doha, Doha to Rome, *make our way to London outwith flights from the qantas rtw deal*, London to New York, New York to Perth.

 

[Kangol]

Hi guys, quick question regarding the 140k economy trip. I'm looking at booking x2 for mid year 2020 and want to get the most out of it. I can't quite understand the surface sector rules. Is it possible to fly into Europe then make your own way around a few cities and depart from somewhere else like London to continue the rtw trip?
Very rough example - Perth to Doha, Doha to Rome, *make our way to London outwith flights from the qantas rtw deal*, London to New York, New York to Perth.

Yes, you can do that.
The surface sector is the distance from where your flight lands to when your next one departs.
Rome to London is your surface sector and the distance is calculated as part of the 35k miles.
It doesn't have to be RTW.

 

[jfl]

So I've finally amassed enough points for 2 x J RTW and want to make sure this itinerary works!

August 2019 - HKG-HND
August 2019 - HND-SYD

April 2020 - SYD-JNB
April 2020 - JNB-LHR
May 2020 - FCO-DOH-SYD

We will be flying to HKG as a positioning flight.

Am I best booking the first leg now and then booking the second leg in July when they become available? And is it an issue that I won't be going "around the world" and instead just using the mileage (34,800 - close!)?