Oneworld Classic Flight Reward Discussion - The Definitive Thread

[Pete98765432]

Like BA, I don't think so. My only problem has been QR disrupting flights.

Thanks, good to know. I didn’t have any issues as the ticket was reissued same day.

 

[fastferret]

I have always thought it wise not to post about bank errors in your favour on a public forum.

Probably right.

 

[Des1801]

Anyone have any experience on when American Airlines make their reward seats available to book through Qantas ? I can see there is availability on SeatSpy, but seats aren’t showing on Qantas website yet. Route is FCO-JFK

 

[DC3]

Anyone have any experience on when American Airlines make their reward seats available to book through Qantas ? I can see there is availability on SeatSpy, but seats aren’t showing on Qantas website yet. Route is FCO-JFK

Airlines will usually release award seats to members of their own FF program first. Releasing of seats (if any) to other programs, including QFF, is not something that has a guaranteed timeline IME.

 

[djkelly69]

Anyone have any experience on when American Airlines make their reward seats available to book through Qantas ?

AA domestic has always been at 330 days through QFF when I have booked it. Not sure on international but would assume it is the same.

 

[BriarFlyer]

American Airlines used to release at @ 330 days, although I'm unsure if that is still the case (a lot has changed post-Covid.) I just threw in a couple of random routes and there's availability to 19/8.

 

[Hamole]

Can't tell you for sure but I was looking at some routes in April and there were no flights when I was checking August, then some appeared this month. I got an alert from seats.aero, having a subscription for a month or two while planning has been useful.

 

[DC3]

AA domestic has always been at 330 days through QFF when I have booked it. Not sure on international but would assume it is the same.

Can also be less, but mainly seasonal routes, e.g., availability into ASE, may be released at about 6 months, depending on scheduling, IME.

Some flights/routes may have no availability.

 

[Des1801]

AA domestic has always been at 330 days through QFF when I have booked it. Not sure on international but would assume it is the same.

Yeah I can currently see seats for domestic flights up to 330 days, but not the intl route I’m wanting.

 

[Kiwiash]

Think you might be right. I booked it online with the 24 hour break, then called today and got it changed to the same day flight.

Very happy with the flights we were able to get in the end.
Melbourne -> Singapore Qantas in J
Singapore -> Tokyo on JAL in J then onwards to San Fran on JAL in premium economy.
San Francisco -> Cabo on Alaska economy
Bogota -> Athens via Madrid on Iberia in J
London -> Sydney via Bangalore on BA/Qantas in J


My advice to anyone trying to do this as a bronze frequent flyer like me is that the availability always seems to be better in the multi city search tool. Book your most important flights through that and just accept that you will have to cop the 5,000 points to make changes to add the flights you couldn't fit in the search over the phone.

Helped that when calling today was answered in less than minute by the Australian call centre, I think because I had the existing business booking?

Is the maximum number of sectors bookable through the multi city tool still 6? It looks like you can now search 12 sectors (I can't remember if this was always the case)?

 

[GDale]

Is the maximum number of sectors bookable through the multi city tool still 6? It looks like you can now search 12 sectors (I can't remember if this was always the case)?

I noticed this too but couldn't get anything more than 6 to work unfortunately! Booked the first 6 sectors (8 legs) online then had to do the rest through an agent.

 

[MelbFlyer]

It's still only a maximum of 6 sectors that can be searched / booked for online (could consist of more actual flights though if there's transfers), regardless of status.

I don't think as a Gold or Platinum you're able to get / add more fields in the multi-city search tool?

The real lottery is when you call up in an attempt to add / change your existing flights and whether or not the agent can see what you can see online in the multi-city search.

A lot of the time you'll be told -
* There are no reward seats on the day you're looking at (even despite you looking at them in the multi city tool during your call)
* Those seats showing online are for new bookings only

Amongst other BS replies.

Unless you're Gold or Platinum, expect a difficult time in adding / changing flights and / or dates on your existing rewards booking.

I've posted about this extensively and my (mostly negative / lengthy) experience on adding / changing flights for reward bookings.

 

[ozflier]

Can't tell you for sure but I was looking at some routes in April and there were no flights when I was checking August, then some appeared this month. I got an alert from seats.aero, having a subscription for a month or two while planning has been useful.

Hi, can you help me please with your experience with alerts from seats.aero.
I have taken up the PRO version but am unable to work out how to use the alerts feature.
I am trying to set alerts for business / first reward seats on Alaskan that i can access with QFF points.
For business class for example , I need "E" class seats for First class saver awards on say SEA-ANC but the system will not search for this class individually . I just end up with a list of award seats that involve different points and money requirements which are useless to me to purchase with QFF points . I need E class seats !
I'd be grateful for your advice as to where I am going wrong.

 

[Kiwiash]

It's still only a maximum of 6 sectors that can be searched / booked for online (could consist of more actual flights though if there's transfers), regardless of status.

I don't think as a Gold or Platinum you're able to get / add more fields in the multi-city search tool?

The real lottery is when you call up in an attempt to add / change your existing flights and whether or not the agent can see what you can see online in the multi-city search.

A lot of the time you'll be told -
* There are no reward seats on the day you're looking at (even despite you looking at them in the multi city tool during your call)
* Those seats showing online are for new bookings only

Amongst other BS replies.

Unless you're Gold or Platinum, expect a difficult time in adding / changing flights and / or dates on your existing rewards booking.

I've posted about this extensively and my (mostly negative / lengthy) experience on adding / changing flights for reward bookings.

One thing I found worked when I got that response was to email the rewards escalation address and they could add the flight. Though this was changing a sector from X to U, they might not have responded if it was an entirely new sector..?

 

[Hamole]

Hi, can you help me please with your experience with alerts from seats.aero.
I have taken up the PRO version but am unable to work out how to use the alerts feature.
I am trying to set alerts for business / first reward seats on Alaskan that i can access with QFF points.
For business class for example , I need "E" class seats for First class saver awards on say SEA-ANC but the system will not search for this class individually . I just end up with a list of award seats that involve different points and money requirements which are useless to me to purchase with QFF points . I need E class seats !
I'd be grateful for your advice as to where I am going wrong.

I found Alaska a bit tricky because it shows award seats for their own program which you can't get with QFF. If you set the mileage program in the alert to either Qantas or American Airlines it should only alert when there are Alaska flights that can be booked with QFF. I used American Airlines because they seem to be updated more frequently.

 

[ozflier]

Thank you for that .

I found Alaska a bit tricky because it shows award seats for their own program which you can't get with QFF. If you set the mileage program in the alert to either Qantas or American Airlines it should only alert when there are Alaska flights that can be booked with QFF. I used American Airlines because they seem to be updated more frequently.

I tried that but
Seats Aero says :
"Your alert will search for availability on the selected mileage programs. Only direct flights from the selected mileage programs are supported"
I take this to mean that the alerts can only be successful if the primary flights of mileage programme you enter actually do the flying between the 2 cities requested. So as Qantas do not fly between Seattle and Anchorage, the alert will not work .
I tried the same with AA and same result
"We don't appear to track flights for the route that you provided. Seats.aero only tracks routes with direct flights; check the Routes pages to see what we track! Pro users can request new direct routes to be tracked on the Routes page."
Happy to be proved wrong and advised accordingly.

 

[Hamole]

I think you are right, way forward would be to request them to add the route on https://seats.aero/qantas/routes

 

[levelnine]

Happy to be proved wrong and advised accordingly.

seats.aero only tracks SEA-ANC on AS, not AA or QF.

If seats.aero's search function for AS cannot differentiate between awards available to partners and awards not available to partners, you're out of luck.

 

[ozflier]

I think you are right, way forward would be to request them to add the route on https://seats.aero/qantas/routes

I have but they say it is not a priority.

 

[Mr H]

seats.aero only tracks SEA-ANC on AS, not AA or QF.

If seats.aero's search function for AS cannot differentiate between awards available to partners and awards not available to partners, you're out of luck.

I have just had a look at that website and I can see that many of the routes I have used for QF OWAs are not tracked. This makes the site about as useful as a chocolate teapot.

Quite specifically, I have found zero routes listed for any flights involving Lahore, Tehran, London City, Baghdad, Belfast City. And it's not just less fashionable routes that are not listed - Edinburgh to London is not there - nor is Kuala Lumpur to Tokyo Narita - nor Colombo to Delhi. And these are just the destinations/routes I have wanted for 2022 and 2023 bookings. Presumably others will also be finding huge blind spots. It's hardly something I would pay $120 a year for.