Oneworld Classic Flight Reward Discussion - The Definitive Thread

[GaryLG]

The old OW website used to have a particularly handy mapping feature whereby you could select a city and the map would display every destination route available from there flown by any OW airline. Could also filter for direct or indirect flight options and select which particular airline/s you wanted to display.

Sadly, the new and improved website scrapped that tool and the mapping tool they have now doesn't have anywhere near the functionality of the old one, to the degree that it hasn't been useful to me at all. One example; if you build an itinerary starting with SYD - JNB - ARN........ it shows a direct connection between JNB and ARN, when the reality is that there are none and you can only fly to ARN indirectly via DOH or LHR.

The other problem with the site is the rules are different for OW Explorer so it gives you errors for things that you can do on an award flight.

 

[moa999]

I agree that Wikipedia is an excellent source and I use it regularly along with ✈ FlightConnections - All flights worldwide on a flight map!.

Useful now that mileagemonkey has seemingly bit the dust

 

[vetrade]

After some info on JNB - MRU award availability. BA affiliate Kulula flies this route 3 times a week but there doesn't seem to be any award seats available at all. Has anyone got experience with awards on this route?
Thanks

 

[ozflier]

I've been reading that QF will be releasing seats for international travel from december onwards .
Has anyone noticed an improvement in the number of award business class seats?
There doesn't seem to be many from my checks .
I am trying to get to Doha and onwards next march/april but getting there via SIN or HKG seems to be very difficult .
Maybe the non award seats are released first and then points redemption particular in J come later!

 

[MEL_Traveller]

I've been reading that QF will be releasing seats for international travel from december onwards .
Has anyone noticed an improvement in the number of award business class seats?
There doesn't seem to be many from my checks .
I am trying to get to Doha and onwards next march/april but getting there via SIN or HKG seems to be very difficult .
Maybe the non award seats are released first and then points redemption particular in J come later!

Can't imagine there will be many around Christmas despite rumors there would be 'points only' planes for the initial flights. i suspect QF will be making top dollar on those, both ways.

To the USA and Canada there was heaps of availability on qantas flights a couple of weeks ago... a lot of that seems to have been snapped up already. Didn't see anything on QF metal for Asia - results were just coming back on JL and CX. Didn't see anything for Europe other than EK, CX and JL.

 

[ozflier]

Can't imagine there will be many around Christmas despite rumors there would be 'points only' planes for the initial flights. i suspect QF will be making top dollar on those, both ways.

To the USA and Canada there was heaps of availability on qantas flights a couple of weeks ago... a lot of that seems to have been snapped up already. Didn't see anything on QF metal for Asia - results were just coming back on JL and CX. Didn't see anything for Europe other than EK, CX and JL.

Ta, I've held back from Christmas bookings as I want to go to Iceland and Morocco and it seemed just too soon to try those places. I was expecting that from the end of march 2022, with the start of the northern hemisphere flying season , QF would be being more generous.

 

[ozflier]

With reference to the march April 2022 travelling time and I must admit that I am not one to enjoy trips where there is a lot of 10-12 hour waits at airports and 0200 hrs departures nor longer sectors in Economy. So that does colour my opinion.

To be fair , a lot of the following is just plain whingeing and hoping but it may help fellow hopeful award redeemers for a future OWA.

1-Minimum Connecting Times quite long and dependent on origin and destination eg

SYD-HND-HEL is 230 minutes

BNE-SIN-DOH is 5 hours

2-Issues with transit even if just a stopover – eg many Australian flights to Europe via Tokyo involve a transfer from Haneda to Narita – normally a 60 minute bus ride but not currently allowed because it involves actual entry into the country.

3 London Heathrow important hub for trans Europe travel and usually to be avoided because of the excessive airline taxes in the premium classes .HKG /SIN/Tokyo to most places in Europe are currently via LHR . This means that the maximum stopover + 2 transits per city may be exceeded if LHR needed to make other sectors work - eg only way to get to Iceland is via LHR on BA - AY no longer does it )

4 Japan Airlines seem to be generous with their flights out of Australia but award seats on connections onwards from there are not that great.

5 Qatar Airways – same issue as noted by other posters – QR plus BA and AA offer business class award seats on Qatar services out of Australian capital cities but not Qantas Frequent Flier.

6 Malaysian is offering good business award coverage early next year so is worth considering using it to get to Asian and middle eastern destinations ( like Doha).

7 Emirates would be particularly useful if it were allowed as part of a OWA but at least useful to get out of Oz to multiple European destinations as part of a standard Qantas points redemption.

Good luck.

 

[vetrade]

Ozflier, maybe your biggest problem is your April 2022 timeframe. That's just too optimistic because many airlines appear to be factoring in a return to normal services from 1/7/22. After that date I have found J availability good for the flights that have been released. Since you mentioned Iceland maybe my experience will be of interest to you.

I have partially booked a 3 month 318K award for Mrs V and myself commencing at the end of July next year. 5 stops, 16 sectors and 53,000km. We will visit family in JNB first (to see our newest granddaughter for the first time). Still waiting for SYD - JNB availability because we don't have status but J seats don't appear likely to be a problem. What I have booked is JNB - LHR (transit) - KEF (stop) with BA. (FWIW, I had intended to go JNB - DOH - ARN but QR didn't have availability for a couple of weeks either side of the dates we wanted). Maybe flying to Iceland via SYD, JNB and LHR to KEF would be an option for you since availability through Asia or DOH is problematic especially because QR isn't even listing revenue fares out of any Australian capital city for next year yet.

Also I would add that the UK airport taxes are only a problem for long haul departures originating from LHR etc. If you are transiting London you will avoid them. (We will be having 2 transits and a stopover in LHR and will avoid the departure taxes by buying a cash fare across the Channel to BRU for a few days, which means we actually commence our trip home from there rather than the UK).

After 2 weeks in Iceland, I have already booked to then fly KEF - HEL - ARN in J with AY - so you're mistaken in thinking that AY no longer flies the HEL - KEF - HEL route. Even better, there's no waiting till 60 days before travel to get those J seats - there's plenty available now. I was able to book 5 flights online to start our itinerary, all in J, and it was all confirmed and ticketed within 30 minutes.

We will spend 5 weeks touring Scandinavia (including a cruise up the Norwegian coast), with 5 cheap short duration Y cash flights. From CPH we will re-commence the OW award and have time in PMI and NCE, for which I have seen plenty of J awards for BA flights.

No need to transfer from HND to NRT - Plenty of JL J availability for SYD - HND - HEL and HEL - HND - SYD (but you may not find the transit time to your liking and you may prefer to fly into a more central European city). AY flies the HND - HEL route too but I haven't seen any of their J awards for that, which is a shame because the HND transit times are a lot shorter than taking the 2 JL flights.

Overall, I have been pleasantly surprised at the supply of J award seats so if you can delay your trip by a few months you may be pleasantly surprised too. One last comment: Iceland in April isn't ideal - we intend to self drive and I found that travel conditions in August are much better because it's still summer and all roads will be open. That won't be the case in April.

 

[Matt_01]

@vetrade I think your response is a nice summary/ reminder that OWR bookings do take some effort and research on the travellers behalf.

 

[Matt_01]

Would one of the knowledge base be able to remind me if just using OW carriers are bookings treated as all individual bookings if using a combination of carriers. In an attempt to explain a little further I am looking to get from AU-UK then EU-AU so nothing major or complex and both within Zone 10. I am also looking to go through ports that are currently on the UK green list or those I will take a punt that could be on the green list by Sep 22, the requirement on the return is direct into ADL which is limited. When searching today I can get AU-UK on CX however the HKG-LHR sector is in F so total points is 224.8K which is what I would expect. If CX J was available on both flights it would be 159K points, again what I would expect. But if selecting a combination of CX and BA in J the required points becomes 179.5K. I am still travelling SYD-HKG-LHR on a through flight (Zone 10) and when I called QF they said this is the way it has always been.

To be honest I cannot remember how this use to work as all my previous bookings were based on larger itineraries more carriers and more often mileage, transits, stopovers were the main consideration knowing that the total points would cap at 280K now 318K points. I am just weighing up if it may be better (less risk) to book x2 separate trips using the same airline 159K points each way (so the same as the cap) and if anything goes wrong I will only have one airline to deal with. I have no concern booking the outbound via SIN, DOH, HND, HKG or KUL coming back likely to be via KUL or a separate SQ booking (I have to use some up or they may expire). Also given that QF has moved EK to the partner airline table they may also be on the cards as EK J is now also 318K points return for a simple there and back itinerary.

I am sure there was another thread discussing changes to the QF website and possible miss calculation of points but cannot seem to find it.

 

[MEL_Traveller]

Would one of the knowledge base be able to remind me if just using OW carriers are bookings treated as all individual bookings if using a combination of carriers. In an attempt to explain a little further I am looking to get from AU-UK then EU-AU so nothing major or complex and both within Zone 10. I am also looking to go through ports that are currently on the UK green list or those I will take a punt that could be on the green list by Sep 22, the requirement on the return is direct into ADL which is limited. When searching today I can get AU-UK on CX however the HKG-LHR sector is in F so total points is 224.8K which is what I would expect. If CX J was available on both flights it would be 159K points, again what I would expect. But if selecting a combination of CX and BA in J the required points becomes 179.5K. I am still travelling SYD-HKG-LHR on a through flight (Zone 10) and when I called QF they said this is the way it has always been.

To be honest I cannot remember how this use to work as all my previous bookings were based on larger itineraries more carriers and more often mileage, transits, stopovers were the main consideration knowing that the total points would cap at 280K now 318K points. I am just weighing up if it may be better (less risk) to book x2 separate trips using the same airline 159K points each way (so the same as the cap) and if anything goes wrong I will only have one airline to deal with. I have no concern booking the outbound via SIN, DOH, HND, HKG or KUL coming back likely to be via KUL or a separate SQ booking (I have to use some up or they may expire). Also given that QF has moved EK to the partner airline table they may also be on the cards as EK J is now also 318K points return for a simple there and back itinerary.

Both BA and CX are on the same partner award table, the fare should be the through fare.

I have posted earlier though that the table seems incorrect and has been adding sectors in many cases... even where the same airline is being used for both sectors... so in one case an EK/EK via DXB was priced by adding the sectors rather than the through fare.

If QF is now adding sector prices for changing an airline this has not always been the case. Previously you could change from EK to QF to AA all on the one ticket - when EK was on the same table - and benefit from the through fare.

Just checking the QFFF the wording is now somewhat ambiguous in regards to the pricing of a trip.

A trip is now defined as:

'Trip' means a series of one or more consecutive Flight Segments within an Itinerary:​

​

(a) that does not include:​

(i) a Stopover; or​

(ii) a Flight Segment whose arrival city is the same as the departure city of any other Flight Segment in that series (in this instance the Trip will be broken at the farthest point from the departure city for that series);​

(b) not exceeding the maximum permitted miles in the Qantas, Jetstar or Partner Classic Flight Reward tables as applicable (see qantas.com for the tables); and​

(c) not broken by a change to or from any airline included in the Partner Classic Flight Reward table (see qantas.com for the table).​

​

Previously 'C' always meant a change between tables - so changing from airlines in table 1 to those in table 2 or 3 (or any combination of those) would mean pricing per sector(s) per table. The wording now could be interpreted to mean a change even *within* a table!

Edited to add: it does look like they are now treating any change between airlines as triggering the sector pricing! This includes changing between airlines in the partner award table.

 

[Matt_01]

@MEL_Traveller thanks for your response and your summary aligns with my recollection when it come to changing between the QF and Partner Rewards tables and booking just with Partners and through fares. In the past I have always ensured that our bookings were from one table only so as not to waste points. In your edit comment this is exactly what I have noticed over the past few weeks and to add insult to injury it would seem that this is just some QF tweek to claw back and pass on whatever cost the partner airlines (OW or other) charge QF for reward availability.

 

[aikman]

The partner award pricing has existed for quite some time.
Qantas site a mess

 

[ozflier]

Ozflier, maybe your biggest problem is your April 2022 timeframe. That's just too optimistic because many airlines appear to be factoring in a return to normal services from 1/7/22. After that date I have found J availability good for the flights that have been released. Since you mentioned Iceland maybe my experience will be of interest to you.

I have partially booked a 3 month 318K award for Mrs V and myself commencing at the end of July next year. 5 stops, 16 sectors and 53,000km. We will visit family in JNB first (to see our newest granddaughter for the first time). Still waiting for SYD - JNB availability because we don't have status but J seats don't appear likely to be a problem. What I have booked is JNB - LHR (transit) - KEF (stop) with BA. (FWIW, I had intended to go JNB - DOH - ARN but QR didn't have availability for a couple of weeks either side of the dates we wanted). Maybe flying to Iceland via SYD, JNB and LHR to KEF would be an option for you since availability through Asia or DOH is problematic especially because QR isn't even listing revenue fares out of any Australian capital city for next year yet.

Also I would add that the UK airport taxes are only a problem for long haul departures originating from LHR etc. If you are transiting London you will avoid them. (We will be having 2 transits and a stopover in LHR and will avoid the departure taxes by buying a cash fare across the Channel to BRU for a few days, which means we actually commence our trip home from there rather than the UK).

After 2 weeks in Iceland, I have already booked to then fly KEF - HEL - ARN in J with AY - so you're mistaken in thinking that AY no longer flies the HEL - KEF - HEL route. Even better, there's no waiting till 60 days before travel to get those J seats - there's plenty available now. I was able to book 5 flights online to start our itinerary, all in J, and it was all confirmed and ticketed within 30 minutes.

We will spend 5 weeks touring Scandinavia (including a cruise up the Norwegian coast), with 5 cheap short duration Y cash flights. From CPH we will re-commence the OW award and have time in PMI and NCE, for which I have seen plenty of J awards for BA flights.

No need to transfer from HND to NRT - Plenty of JL J availability for SYD - HND - HEL and HEL - HND - SYD (but you may not find the transit time to your liking and you may prefer to fly into a more central European city). AY flies the HND - HEL route too but I haven't seen any of their J awards for that, which is a shame because the HND transit times are a lot shorter than taking the 2 JL flights.

Overall, I have been pleasantly surprised at the supply of J award seats so if you can delay your trip by a few months you may be pleasantly surprised too. One last comment: Iceland in April isn't ideal - we intend to self drive and I found that travel conditions in August are much better because it's still summer and all roads will be open. That won't be the case in April.

Thanks for your thoughts and advice.

I am looking to delay this routing to august September 2022 where there are better partner options but Qantas is not offering that many possibilities . Understandably I guess with our current political situation.

Your comments are on the mark re UK APD not being levied on the transit passenger. For starters, it is levied on the operating carrier as an export tax. ( having resided in UK for > 24 hrs and leaving the UK) but of course with a few exceptions is passed on by the carrier to the passenger).

So, it doesn't apply to transit passengers who are never actually "imported" in the first place, so they are not “exported” and so not subject to export taxation.

I do find a lot of interesting historical minutiae in the aviation industry – eg Friends live in Aberdeen, Scotland . Flying overseas with their large family can be expensive but they can save significant money when they go to Asia or North America by flying out of Inverness to their destination via Amsterdam – INV is exempt from APD !! ( You cant beat the Scots for their thrifty natures)

 

[Oubline]

With reference to the march April 2022 travelling time and I must admit that I am not one to enjoy trips where there is a lot of 10-12 hour waits at airports and 0200 hrs departures nor longer sectors in Economy. So that does colour my opinion.

To be fair , a lot of the following is just plain whingeing and hoping but it may help fellow hopeful award redeemers for a future OWA.

1-Minimum Connecting Times quite long and dependent on origin and destination eg

SYD-HND-HEL is 230 minutes

BNE-SIN-DOH is 5 hours

2-Issues with transit even if just a stopover – eg many Australian flights to Europe via Tokyo involve a transfer from Haneda to Narita – normally a 60 minute bus ride but not currently allowed because it involves actual entry into the country.

3 London Heathrow important hub for trans Europe travel and usually to be avoided because of the excessive airline taxes in the premium classes .HKG /SIN/Tokyo to most places in Europe are currently via LHR . This means that the maximum stopover + 2 transits per city may be exceeded if LHR needed to make other sectors work - eg only way to get to Iceland is via LHR on BA - AY no longer does it )

4 Japan Airlines seem to be generous with their flights out of Australia but award seats on connections onwards from there are not that great.

5 Qatar Airways – same issue as noted by other posters – QR plus BA and AA offer business class award seats on Qatar services out of Australian capital cities but not Qantas Frequent Flier.

6 Malaysian is offering good business award coverage early next year so is worth considering using it to get to Asian and middle eastern destinations ( like Doha).

7 Emirates would be particularly useful if it were allowed as part of a OWA but at least useful to get out of Oz to multiple European destinations as part of a standard Qantas points redemption.

Good luck.

Hi Ozflier, good luck with organising your trip. I know it does take a lot of planning and research.

I have booked a 318k award focused on Europe for April too, so I can relate when it comes to the Europe hub situation. Working with Madrid, Helsinki or London, which are all relatively far-flung can make it tough. And once you connect through one of those hubs you'd often do just as well taking a train, to be honest.

Can I ask a bit more about the Minimum Connection Time - they seem really long.. have special MCTs been brought in because of COVID? For example, I would have thought something like 60 mins would be more the norm for SIN or HND.

 

[ausfox]

The risk with tight connections is that if you have any sort of delay you might miss your onward flight.

 

[motef]

The risk with tight connections is that if you have any sort of delay you might miss your onward flight.

But if it is all booked under the same PNR then you are protected and it’s the airline’s responsibility to re-accommodate you.

 

[vetrade]

But if it is all booked under the same PNR then you are protected and it’s the airline’s responsibility to re-accommodate you.

That's true, but it's little consolation if the delay is long enough to cause your forward plans to be messed up. If the airline can put you on another flight within a few hours the damage is probably minimal but if you lose a day it can be very inconvenient +/- costly. On long haul connections we always opt for the "peace of mind" approach and aim for about 3hr minimum transits but we might cut that back a little if we're passing through an efficient airport like HEL. A few hours passes easily if the bar's open in the lounge!

Imagine if the delay caused you to miss the departure of a week-long cruise or tour - the damage done to your trip would be far more than what the airline could possobly compensate you for for. To me the stress just isn't worth skimping on connection times unless it's a short route with lots of alternate flights like MEL - SYD etc.

Another point is that there may be a significant disconnect between what the airline thinks is adequate and what you expect; and if their attitude is "take it or leave it", what are you going to do, because ranting and demanding something else will just get you ejected from the terminal by security?

 

[ozflier]

Can I ask a bit more about the Minimum Connection Time - they seem really long.. have special MCTs been brought in because of COVID? For example, I would have thought something like 60 mins would be more the norm for SIN or HND.

Re your question on MCTs ,I have delved a little more deeply as I suspect that many of us have not flown substantially for so long that what used to be common knowledge is now recessed in our deep memories. So apologies in advance for telling readers what they may already know.

Minimum connection time ( MCT) or legal connection time are the same . Airlines have calculated the minimum amount of time it will take for you to physically make it to the next gate and to get your checked bags to your connecting aircraft. Weirdly in the past , some airports were so efficient with baggage that they are loaded onto your connecting aircraft before you get to the departure gate ( Frankfurt FRA is a good example)

MCTs used to be reflect the requirements of

each airline

sometimes individual flights of the same airline

a combination of airlines in the case of an interline connection and of course,

the airport

MCTs are partly dependent on whether there was a domestic – international connection or some combination of those as well as things like

• airport layout ( eg int to domestic at SYD needs an interterminal bus transfer) and
• likelihood of using a bus gate especially in Europe– eg connection time increased between a long haul carrier arrival and a departure on a local carrier travelling a short distance .
• Need in some cases of passing thru security

MCTs need to get final approval from IATA.

Things have changed and I think part of the issue also is that incoming international carriers are loath to take a chance with their incoming passengers misconnecting during the current pandemic uncertainty. For example, in London , BA has changed , sometimes on several occasions, whether their a/c use Heathrow or Gatwick – MCTs for certain long distance flights have been expanded to reflect future uncertainty eg in situations where the domestic to international flights departed and now a land transit is needed to get between LHR and LGM or vv ( up to 3 hours minimum)

In some cases, there are different timings in connections between the same airline connecting vs different carriers being involved– this appears to happen at Singapore eg a pax on a Qantas a/c connecting at SIN to use Qatar to continue onto DOH must expect a MCT of over 5 hours.

The transit process is also now much more complicated even if it all takes place airside – so MCTs have been lengthened because of that .

Some airports close late at night thru early morning so if you arrive on the last flight prior to closure , you will have to wait til the next day.

MCTs will hopefully go back to the old ways in 2022 because long connections at airports are not particularly popular particularly if you don’t have access to a premium lounge.

I hope that helps.

 

[MEL_Traveller]

The QF multi city tool will only return results with legal connecting times. In cases where you are manually forcing connections it won't let you book two sectors where MCT is breached.

MCT is completely different to 'sensible connecting time'. The latter is determined by the passenger taking into account their mobility, familiarity with the airport, knowledge of the airlines involved and how helpful they will be if you miss a MCT, and flight frequency and and how important the original flight timing is (if you need a flight to make a tour, catching the next one might not be suitable).

QF allowed something like an hour or so for domestic to international connections at SYD. MCT 'yes', but 'sensible'? Hardly. Yet in reverse, INT->DOM it didn't really matter because they'd just put you on the next available flight, which were often hourly.