Oneworld Classic Flight Reward Discussion - The Definitive Thread

[ozflier]

Hi,
I have 2 OWAs where i am trying to get back home from Europe / Middle East to Brisbane.
QR business availability seems to be opening up in September but weirdly , Royal Jordanian seems to be not available in several sectors - specifically AMM-DOH .There were plenty of U seats up to a week ago on multiple dates but all have disappeared. QR is not an option as they do not offer u seats on multiple sectors in the Middle East incl AMM-DOH.
Is this just September 2022 or is there a political or other issue from either end cutting back on award seat offering by RJ?

 

[Guvner]

Hi everyone,
Thank you for all the help and advice, this forum is such a mine of information.
After our cancelled 2020 OWA , I managed to book again yesterday for travel in August.
Couldn't believe that I got the flights.

Am worried though as I have 2 days in Japan which I actually wanted as a transit. As far as I know Japan is still closed to tourists .
I think I'm going to have to try to get this changed .
PER-NRT (STOPOVER) - via KUL
NRT-YVR (STOPOVER)
SFO-HEL- via ORD
HEL - DOH (STOPOVER)
DOH-MEL (TRANSIT)
MEL-PER

When I tried adding DOH-IST and IST-DOH
I kept getting sent back to my search page , this was after I had selected flights for the previous legs . My plan was to spend a few days in DOH , then fly to Istanbul, I had intended using DOH as a transit enroute home.

So I removed it, and got the tickets.

Now I think I will need to call to add on this.

I've found that you get returned to the search page if the flight dates or times don't line up
i.e. DOH-IST lands after IST-DOH departs.

 

[Guvner]

If Japan has not opened up by August then the whole world will be in trouble and you'll have more to worry about than just that flight IMO.

Agree. That was my thinking when I booked a stopover in Tokyo for Sept.

 

[bookworm]

I've found that you get returned to the search page if the flight dates or times don't line up
i.e. DOH-IST lands after IST-DOH departs.

Thank you so much for this. There certainly was flight availability but i didn’t check the times properly.

 

[bnr032]

Hi everyone,
Thank you for all the help and advice, this forum is such a mine of information.
After our cancelled 2020 OWA , I managed to book again yesterday for travel in August.
Couldn't believe that I got the flights.

Am worried though as I have 2 days in Japan which I actually wanted as a transit. As far as I know Japan is still closed to tourists .
I think I'm going to have to try to get this changed .
PER-NRT (STOPOVER) - via KUL
NRT-YVR (STOPOVER)
SFO-HEL- via ORD
HEL - DOH (STOPOVER)
DOH-MEL (TRANSIT)
MEL-PER

When I tried adding DOH-IST and IST-DOH
I kept getting sent back to my search page , this was after I had selected flights for the previous legs . My plan was to spend a few days in DOH , then fly to Istanbul, I had intended using DOH as a transit enroute home.

So I removed it, and got the tickets.

Now I think I will need to call to add on this.

As per previous Comments, we will be in trouble IF japan doesnt open for tourists. I was in a similar predicament for Tokyo stop (before i changed my flights to a different route).
Keep in mind - Tokyo NRT i beleive isnt 24 hrs, so you cannot stay overnight airside (and not enter japen), But this can be done in Tokyo HND - i am not sure the length of time you CAN stay airside max if the country wasnt open for tourists. also im not sure if you would want to stay 2 days in an airport - but maybe worth as a plan b?
(for reference i had a 22 hr connection lined up on tokyo - and HND looks like there is enough to do, except you cannot access lounges until your day of departure)

 

[vetrade]

Whilst i think it may be the best value, keep in mind, if your trip is less then 35,000 Miles, you dont actually pay the full 318k in pts.
Refer to this table:
View attachment 273621

I'm a bit confused as to why this table was referenced because it is a general Partner Classic Flight Reward table and doesn't apply to OWAs.
It applies to all the airlines QF has a reward partnership with, not just the OW member airlines applicable to a OWA. - i.e.:

Partner Classic Flight Reward table
For Partner Classic Flight Rewards with Air France, Air Niugini*, Alaska Airlines, British Airways, Cathay Pacific Airways, China Airlines, China Eastern, Cathay Dragon#, EL AL, Emirates (for Emirates bookings from 1 September 2020), Finnair, Iberia, Japan Airlines, KLM, LATAM Airlines, Malaysia Airlines, Qatar Airways, Royal Air Maroc, Royal Jordanian, S7 Airlines and SriLankan Airlines.

OWAs don't have a scale of points required; for a J award its 318,000 points irrespective of how many miles are in the itinerary, and they have unique terms which differentiate them from other types of awards.

 

[bnr032]

I'm a bit confused as to why this table was referenced because it is a general Partner Classic Flight Reward table and doesn't apply to OWAs.
It applies to all the airlines QF has a reward partnership with, not just the OW member airlines applicable to a OWA. - i.e.:

Partner Classic Flight Reward table
For Partner Classic Flight Rewards with Air France, Air Niugini*, Alaska Airlines, British Airways, Cathay Pacific Airways, China Airlines, China Eastern, Cathay Dragon#, EL AL, Emirates (for Emirates bookings from 1 September 2020), Finnair, Iberia, Japan Airlines, KLM, LATAM Airlines, Malaysia Airlines, Qatar Airways, Royal Air Maroc, Royal Jordanian, S7 Airlines and SriLankan Airlines.

OWAs don't have a scale of points required; for a J award its 318,000 points irrespective of how many miles are in the itinerary, and they have unique terms which differentiate them from other types of awards.

when i originally booked my OWA, i knew i was well under 35000 miles, and the total was 278400 pts. everything else ticked the OWA boxes, unless it was just totally random and coincidentally that exact value.

 

[Mr H]

I claim post 11,111.

The table is shown on the Qantas website as the oneworld® Classic Flight Reward table and says it only applies when your Reward Itinerary includes travel on at least two oneworld Member Airlines other than Qantas, and does not include any travel on any airline that is not a oneworld Member Airline. So OWAs do come with lower cost for shorter itineraries but I am guessing that few of us would plan one that came in at under 19,200 miles.

 

[ozflier]

There has been a small increase in business reward availability on Qatar on the QFF website particularly and from to Doha / Brisbane in the months june thru to september 2022. A lesser increase for DOH-MEL-DOH but it was there.
Dates are still pretty patchy but have availability for at least 2 pax ( I know because I got 2 "u" seats on 3 flights that i booked.) Saturday/Sunday was the most common day of the week.
The numbers are not great and the increased availability only appeared over the last couple of days .
It may be worthwhile rechecking QFF if you have been hanging out for a Doha connection to/from Europe or the Middle East avoiding issues with HKG , SIN and extended flight times overflying Russia.
This experience did teach me that , if you have the time ,checking the QFF site every couple of days is worth the trouble.

 

[Pom-DownUnder]

Hi All,

Trying to get my head around the Oneworld award in business, not sure what part of this trip is breaking things to where it comes out at over 400k points and not 318k, thanks for any pointers!

 

[jfl]

Hi All,

Trying to get my head around the Oneworld award in business, not sure what part of this trip is breaking things to where it comes out at over 400k points and not 318k, thanks for any pointers!

View attachment 273774

Air France is not a Oneworld airline

 

[Pom-DownUnder]

Ahhhh AirFrance isnt part of of Oneworld and neither is KLM !?

 

[Mr H]

Would you do better to do that route as two one way redemption tix CBR-NCL and then do the NCL-CDG return on a cheap AF revenue ticket in Y?

 

[vetrade]

Hi All,

Trying to get my head around the Oneworld award in business, not sure what part of this trip is breaking things to where it comes out at over 400k points and not 318k, thanks for any pointers!

View attachment 273774

Here's my 2 cents worth:
You can replace the AF flight with NCL - LHR - CDG with BA. It's common for the QF website to only show Y availability for many BA flights within the UK but often times the QF call centre will be able to see J reward availability and book them for you.

Your departure from Gatwick to Doha will attract the hefty UK departure tax. You wouldn't have to pay that if you commence your return to Aus from outside the UK and just transit through LGW (or LHR) e.g. I see that you will be spending time in NCL twice and having a 3 day stop in Paris inbetween. If there's no specific reason for you to be in Paris from 27-30 Sept, then you could consider having your 3 days in Paris immediately before heading back to Aus i.e., you could have 8-11 Oct in Paris and then fly CDG - London - DOH - MEL etc on 11 Oct. That would also cut out the sector back to NCL.

 

[Pom-DownUnder]

Here's my 2 cents worth:
You can replace the AF flight with NCL - LHR - CDG with BA. It's common for the QF website to only show Y availability for many BA flights within the UK but often times the QF call centre will be able to see J reward availability and book them for you.

Your departure from Gatwick to Doha will attract the hefty UK departure tax. You wouldn't have to pay that if you commence your return to Aus from outside the UK and just transit through LGW (or LHR) e.g. I see that you will be spending time in NCL twice and having a 3 day stop in Paris inbetween. If there's no specific reason for you to be in Paris from 27-30 Sept, then you could consider having your 3 days in Paris immediately before heading back to Aus i.e., you could have 8-11 Oct in Paris and then fly CDG - London - DOH - MEL etc on 11 Oct. That would also cut out the sector back to NCL.

Thanks for all the helpful hints guys, basically NCL is local to my folks and the primary reason for all my uk trips is seeing family, i'm just thinking if i do a oneworld ticket I can sneak in a 'during the week' 3/4 days somewhere in EU or maybe eastcoast USA for 0 extra points, and who doesnt love something cheeky for 0 points?!?!!? trick seems to be using BA for the cheeky part which gives lots of options.

 

[Mr H]

Thanks for all the helpful hints guys, basically NCL is local to my folks and the primary reason for all my uk trips is seeing family, i'm just thinking if i do a oneworld ticket I can sneak in a 'during the week' 3/4 days somewhere in EU or maybe eastcoast USA for 0 extra points, and who doesnt love something cheeky for 0 points?!?!!? trick seems to be using BA for the cheeky part which gives lots of options

You are going to run into the problem of transiting London three times which is against OWA rules. You can fix that by making one of your stops in London more than 24 hours which counts as a stop, or yo could pay LHR-NCL-LHR return as revenue. If you are doing a cheeky side trip you might look at options such as RAK with AT or CAI with BA which gets real J service.

 

[flyingchicken]

Hey everyone. I'm in need of some pretty urgent advice. I'm currently mid-way through my outbound trip using OWA to get to Italy, and return home from France.

Due to many muck arounds one of my domestic flights repositioning in Oz ended up being economy, which I later successfully upgraded with a points bid in MMB (only confirmed and took that flight today/last night).

I'm literally sitting in HIA at Doha waiting for my last flight to Italy, finally got some wifi access and see that somehow today following the confirmation of the upgrade and the flight, my ticket has maybe been put in a queue for reticketing or something and 3 of my 5 return flights (all non-qantas) have disappeared leaving me stuck over here. E ticket numbers have disappeared from Check My Trip and all the flights. It wasnt like that when I got on the plane, but now it's gone.

I've tried calling a number of numbers, email, twitter, facebook, and an online form enquiry. I haven't found a number that works from here. The other airlines (understandably) say that I need to talk to Qantas.

Has this ever happened to anyone else, or have a suggestion of how to proceed? Number I can call from Italy when I land there etc? I'm really at a loss now.

 

[ozflier]

Cheeky side trip is a great idea but if you go business class on BA within Europe or close by , you are looking at economy class seating and slightly better catering vs the back of the plane.
This includes LHR-CAI .
Maybe consider LHR-Amman on Royal Jordanian - most days of the week , the AC is a 787 but all services have real business class seats and decent food and wine!

 

[Mr H]

Cheeky side trip is a great idea but if you go business class on BA within Europe or close by , you are looking at economy class seating and slightly better catering vs the back of the plane.
This includes LHR-CAI .

You seem to be correct. I did LHR-CAI 14 years ago and it was on a 747 - how times enhance.

 

[Mr H]

Has this ever happened to anyone else, or have a suggestion of how to proceed? Number I can call from Italy when I land there etc? I'm really at a loss now.

The website gives this as a number to call from Italy: +41 44 511 1237

Is it possible that your upgraded flight was re-ticketed and means you were a no-show on your redemption itinerary? Hopefully your forthcoming flight to Italy has not been cancelled too. You might want to check that right away.