Oneworld Classic Flight Reward Discussion - The Definitive Thread

[vetrade]

Motef, AY now releases J seats for people other than members of their own FF program at 60 days or less before travel so it's no wonder you have not seen J availability for AY if your intended flight is in Nov. AY releases Y seats as per normal. Your WP status with QF does not help.
All you need to do is take the Y seats now as insurance and then look to change to J seats in around Sept.
Usually the LHR - HEL route has plenty of AY J availability if you are patient.

 

[Kangol]

Had to make a change to a OWA (unflown) which resulted in the refund of some taxes.
There had been two cards used to pay for the changes over the course of the ticket and both have been cancelled and the accounts closed.
I was told the refund would go to the most recent card used to pay for the charges.
This came through within 3 days including a weekend.
I have other accounts with this bank - that is how I know - but I thought I'd report on a good outcome given the current circumstances.

 

[zoom&boom]

I have a OWA booked for August/September. Unfortunately I now have to cancel this trip. When I try to cancel online the site only gives me the option to Cancel/Credit Voucher.

How would this work? Assuming I would get back the points less 6K per passenger is the Credit Voucher for the taxes?
I would rather have the cash now as the taxes were paid in SIN$ and when converted to AUS$ the exchange rate would be in my favour

Has anyone else had this problem?

 

[Ktan89]

I have a OWA booked for August/September. Unfortunately I now have to cancel this trip. When I try to cancel online the site only gives me the option to Cancel/Credit Voucher.

How would this work? Assuming I would get back the points less 6K per passenger is the Credit Voucher for the taxes?
I would rather have the cash now as the taxes were paid in SIN$ and when converted to AUS$ the exchange rate would be in my favour

Has anyone else had this problem?

Call them up to cancel. Since this is a OWA redemption, you should get all your taxes back to the card you used to pay with. They will also return all points minus 6,000 points per pax on the booking as a cancellation fee.

 

[dvt]

Hi,

I'm looking at a J class award seat to the UK over Christmas. Unsurprisingly I am finding it very hard to get seats with QF. However, I have found good availability via Tokyo. However, I am struggling to make this work out at 318k points.


Route so far:
MEL to Syd to Tokyo on QF
Tokyo to LHR on JL
LHR to Tokyo on JL
Tokyo to SYD on QF
SYD to Mel on QF
Points = 373k

If I change the last 2 legs to Tokyo to HKG to MEL on CX the points do come to 318k.

What mistake am I making? Am I exceeding distance? Wrong combination of airlines? All help appreciated!

thanks

 

[defurax]

Your itinerary must include travel on at least two Oneworld member airlines other than Qantas

 

[dvt]

Hi,

I'm looking at a J class award seat to the UK over Christmas. Unsurprisingly I am finding it very hard to get seats with QF. However, I have found good availability via Tokyo. However, I am struggling to make this work out at 318k points.


Route so far:
MEL to Syd to Tokyo on QF
Tokyo to LHR on JL
LHR to Tokyo on JL
Tokyo to SYD on QF
SYD to Mel on QF
Points = 373k

If I change the last 2 legs to Tokyo to HKG to MEL on CX the points do come to 318k.

What mistake am I making? Am I exceeding distance? Wrong combination of airlines? All help appreciated!

thanks

Thanks! I'll try to get a BA flight included on the LHR leg!

 

[defurax]

But haven't you already solved your problem going via HKG and CX?

 

[dvt]

But haven't you already solved your problem going via HKG and CX?

Correct.

But I didn't want to fly the last leg on Cathay. Preferred the last leg on QF and I now also have status credits with the points club.

 

[11sjw]

I have a OWA booked for August/September. Unfortunately I now have to cancel this trip. When I try to cancel online the site only gives me the option to Cancel/Credit Voucher.

How would this work? Assuming I would get back the points less 6K per passenger is the Credit Voucher for the taxes?
I would rather have the cash now as the taxes were paid in SIN$ and when converted to AUS$ the exchange rate would be in my favour

Has anyone else had this problem?

The SMS service might be able to sort this for you if it is still working.

 

[zoom&boom]

Call them up to cancel. Since this is a OWA redemption, you should get all your taxes back to the card you used to pay with. They will also return all points minus 6,000 points per pax on the booking as a cancellation fee.

The SMS service might be able to sort this for you if it is still working.

Thanks for that. Thought there might have been a work around without calling.....Guess that’s tomorrow taken care of

 

[Tonkatough]

I was part way through a OWA J ticket, divided into two separate trips separated by many months. Unfortunately, after the first part, I had to cancel the second part of the trip.
I planned to subsequently rebook the second part using the same routing within the 12 month date limitation, as advised by the call centre, but there are no current bookings in the system.
At the moment, I can't re-book any flights within the date expiry of the OWA ticket because of the COVID-19 travel restrictions.
I was hoping a refund of the some points could be in order, or a time extension, or something else??
Would anyone have any ideas?

 

[Kangol]

I was part way through a OWA J ticket, divided into two separate trips separated by many months. Unfortunately, after the first part, I had to cancel the second part of the trip.
I planned to subsequently rebook the second part using the same routing within the 12 month date limitation, as advised by the call centre, but there are no current bookings in the system.
At the moment, I can't re-book any flights within the date expiry of the OWA ticket because of the COVID-19 travel restrictions.
I was hoping a refund of the some points could be in order, or a time extension, or something else??
Would anyone have any ideas?

It's been discussed in the last few pages or so.
For tickets with some segments already flown, cancelling it now will not result in a refund of any points.
They are not charging the 6k point cancellation fee.
All unused taxes will be refunded.
Look at your TI to see if you can make a claim.

 

[Tonkatough]

It's been discussed in the last few pages or so.
For tickets with some segments already flown, cancelling it now will not result in a refund of any points.
They are not charging the 6k point cancellation fee.
All unused taxes will be refunded.
Look at your TI to see if you can make a claim.

Thanks Kangol, but I don't think it has been discussed.
Flights on this ticket had already been cancelled.
I'm looking at the current restrictions in rebooking within the date range of the ticket.

 

[Kangol]

Thanks Kangol, but I don't think it has been discussed.
Flights on this ticket had already been cancelled.
I'm looking at the current restrictions in rebooking within the date range of the ticket.

Go back some more pages. The issue of "a refund of some of the points" is that you will not get a part or any refund of the points because it has partly been flown.
Once flown there are several restrictions to changes that can be made.
If those new flights are unavailable, you are out of luck.
No difference to say if there was no pandemic and there simply were no award seats.t

Look at the terms on the website from 14.7.

Sounds like that doesn't apply in this case because you have already cancelled all remaining flights and the ticket is complete. Unless there's something you're not telling us.

 

[onetonnerodeo]

Go back some more pages. The issue of "a refund of some of the points" is that you will not get a part or any refund of the points because it has partly been flown.
Once flown there are several restrictions to changes that can be made.
If those new flights are unavailable, you are out of luck.
No difference to say if there was no pandemic and there simply were no award seats.t

Look at the terms on the website from 14.7.

Sounds like that doesn't apply in this case because you have already cancelled all remaining flights and the ticket is complete. Unless there's something you're not telling us.

While this is normally the case, you'll find given the circumstances, Qantas are adopting a more lenient take over everything in the moment. A couple pages back I queried the partly-flown OWA situation, as I had only gone 7k miles into my itinerary. I followed it up with Qantas a few days ago, and without hesitation, they (NZ centre) straight up quickly offered a refund of taxes/points for unflown segments. And that's with the next segment not even due til August. On hold for 5 minutes while it was all calculated in the background and based on a reduction of the flown segment(s), as if it were based on it being individual flights. So depending how far into your journey you are (because normally points cap at the various thresholds), that will influence things, but in my case I'm getting back 80% taxes and 60% of points. As happy as I could be given circumstances.

 

[jeza]

While this is normally the case, you'll find given the circumstances, Qantas are adopting a more lenient take over everything in the moment. A couple pages back I queried the partly-flown OWA situation, as I had only gone 7k miles into my itinerary. I followed it up with Qantas a few days ago, and without hesitation, they (NZ centre) straight up quickly offered a refund of taxes/points for unflown segments. And that's with the next segment not even due til August. On hold for 5 minutes while it was all calculated in the background and based on a reduction of the flown segment(s), as if it were based on it being individual flights. So depending how far into your journey you are (because normally points cap at the various thresholds), that will influence things, but in my case I'm getting back 80% taxes and 60% of points. As happy as I could be given circumstances.

@onetonnerodeo I wanted to give your post both a Like & Informative!

That is really good news for you & possibly others that have part flown OWA itineraries. I'm just under half way through mine so I wouldn't expect much but something is better than nothing.

 

[Tonkatough]

@onetonnerodeo I wanted to give your post both a Like & Informative!

That is really good news for you & possibly others that have part flown OWA itineraries. I'm just under half way through mine so I wouldn't expect much but something is better than nothing.

That's a really good experience onetonnerodeo, and probably goes against Kangol's theory.
What I am still trying to find out from this forum is the possibilities with re-booking/refunding/extending the end date for the remaining part of the ticket considering the current limitations in travel, not the availability or non-availability of seats.
I am aware of the OWA ticket rules and there is scope within my ticket to re-book to/from the same cities using the same airlines, but the travel restrictions make this impossible before the end date of the ticket.
I would welcome people's advice before I phone up.

 

[Kangol]

While this is normally the case, you'll find given the circumstances, Qantas are adopting a more lenient take over everything in the moment. A couple pages back I queried the partly-flown OWA situation, as I had only gone 7k miles into my itinerary. I followed it up with Qantas a few days ago, and without hesitation, they (NZ centre) straight up quickly offered a refund of taxes/points for unflown segments. And that's with the next segment not even due til August. On hold for 5 minutes while it was all calculated in the background and based on a reduction of the flown segment(s), as if it were based on it being individual flights. So depending how far into your journey you are (because normally points cap at the various thresholds), that will influence things, but in my case I'm getting back 80% taxes and 60% of points. As happy as I could be given circumstances.

OK. I'm P1 LTG (not that it matters) and they weren't able to refund me any points, only the unusued taxes.
If the SST weren't able to do it at the time (there was a LOT of time on hold) or speak to the right people then so be it.
I think I might be over the ~19k miles but I only realised this after hanging up - they did not mention this at all. In any case, that's what TI is for and if the documents say they compare it to the retail value, there's a good chance some people won't be too unhappy not being able to get back some points.

 

[onetonnerodeo]

OK. I'm P1 LTG (not that it matters) and they weren't able to refund me any points, only the unusued taxes.
If the SST weren't able to do it at the time (there was a LOT of time on hold) or speak to the right people then so be it.
I think I might be over the ~19k miles but I only realised this after hanging up - they did not mention this at all. In any case, that's what TI is for and if the documents say they compare it to the retail value, there's a good chance some people won't be too unhappy not being able to get back some points.

I'm just a lowly Bronze, so I suspect by 19k miles, you probably reached the points 'cap' if it had been based on each segment being individual flights. For example, with my 7k miles flown, the equivalent points used on the first flight would be either 119k business or 58k economy...so once they remove that from the 'cap' of 318k or 132k, it has 'eaten' up 40% of points. You can imagine, once the next flight segment 'eats' up as a similar amount, and then the next one does the same, that's probably why they couldn't refund any points, since they've all been 'eaten' up based on their individual rates.

Not exactly a 'pro-rata' outcome, but I think that's where one with a significant;y-flown OWA can go down the TI insurance path like you point out, seeing what avenues are available there. As you say as well, retail value could be a great outcome for many too. In my case TI pushed me to push Qantas, who as it turns out, didn't even need much of a push at all. I just mentioned my circumstances, asked what my options were, and was practically offered a refund.