Oneworld Classic Flight Reward Discussion - The Definitive Thread

[ShelleyB]

I am constructing a OWA.

My route so far is:

MEL-CMB-DEL-HEL-LHR
LHR-HEL-GDN
-ground sector-
HEL-HND

Both my first two routes transit in HEL. Will my third flight count as (a) a third transit in HEL; (b) a stop in HEL; or (c) not count as HEL at all?

Grateful for wisdom.

I am not sure I have any 'wisdom' here, but I think that (c) is likely to apply. I think your stopover is GDN and HEL won't count at all. Here is the definition of stopover in the classic award rules:

Stopover' in relation to:
(a) an Australian domestic Itinerary, means a break of journey at an intermediate point when onward travel does not take place on the same calendar day; and
(b) for all other Itineraries, including those containing a domestic to international connecting flight, means when a passenger arrives at an intermediate point and is not scheduled to depart within 24 hours of arrival;

Here GDN is the intermediate point. HEL is just a departure airport (like MEL at the beginning of your itinerary). I certainly don't see how HEL could be a transit as you did not arrive there on a flight.

Have you put a dummy booking in the multi-city tool and does it price as appropriate?

 

[Mr H]

Have you put a dummy booking in the multi-city tool and does it price as appropriate?

Good suggestion which I would never have thought of. Yes, it maxes out. It also demonstrates that the QF agent has badly inflated the taxes.

 

[cma_369]

I am constructing a OWA.

My route so far is:

MEL-CMB-DEL-HEL-LHR
LHR-HEL-GDN
-ground sector-
HEL-HND

Both my first two routes transit in HEL. Will my third flight count as (a) a third transit in HEL; (b) a stop in HEL; or (c) not count as HEL at all?

Grateful for wisdom.

You'll have to stay 24 hours on your 3rd trip via HEL, had this issue on my last RTW when Qatar was possible and had to stay longer than 24 hours on the 3rd pass via Doha to make my Doha-Istanbul flights add to the itinerary and price properly.

Putting together a new itinerary for Aug-Sep 25 and was deciding whether I'll have to cross HEL 3x or not, but I snagged a flight on JL43 to hopefully fly on the new JAL business product due to HND-HEL and HND-LHR trip times being very similar due to the Russia airspace diversions.

 

[Mr H]

You'll have to stay 24 hours on your 3rd trip via HEL

The specific issue I have is that I want to pick up in HEL after a ground sector - so technically no stay in HEL. I managed (eventually) to find similar flights to do a dummy booking and it capped out at 318,000 miles.

I'm not a great fan of JL because as a non-status passenger I can't reserve window seats. I feel like a J passenger should be able to get a window seat.

 

[cma_369]

The specific issue I have is that I want to pick up in HEL after a ground sector - so technically no stay in HEL. I managed (eventually) to find similar flights to do a dummy booking and it capped out at 318,000 miles.

I'm not a great fan of JL because as a non-status passenger I can't reserve window seats. I feel like a J passenger should be able to get a window seat.

I was able to reserve window seats on JL43 for me and my wife which worst case will still be the uber private apex seat, JL 52 only centre seats though.

Pretty sure the arrival portion of your surface sector is the the city considered the 'stop over', but given the 3x rule it would still count to your transit tally flying out of HEL.

 

[Mr H]

Pretty sure the arrival portion of your surface sector is the the city considered the 'stop over', but given the 3x rule it would still count to your transit tally flying out of HEL.

On my dummy booking it maxed out at 318,000 so it either counted the third HEL as a stopover or ignored it, but it didn't trigger a third transit problem.

 

[Mr H]

So following on from the discussion about stopovers and transits in HEL, I tried to add the final flights to my OWA as they were released today: NRT-KUL-MEL with MH to get me home. I was met with a situation that will be familiar to many, but was new to me - the agent telling me these flights were only available for new bookings and could not be added to existing bookings. She suggested I paid for them separately. Yeah, nah.

I was so surprised, I ended the call to regroup. Having done that, I idly entered my entire itinerary into the multi-city and to my greatest surprise, I was able to pretty much reconstruct it from what was still available. The only real modification was to do MEL-CMB via SYD, and to do DEL-LHR direct rather than via HEL. So I booked it all online as a new itinerary:

MEL-SYD-CMB-DEL-LHR (QF, UL, UL and BA - all in J)
LHR-HEL-GDN (AY - final sector in Y as that route is all Y on an ATR72)
HEL-HND (JL - J)
NRT-KUL-MEL (MH - all in J).



I'm quite happy with that. Now I need a flight to change on my original booking so I can cancel it with no penalty. There's 11 months for that to happen, so fingers crossed.

 

[ShelleyB]

So following on from the discussion about stopovers and transits in HEL, I tried to add the final flights to my OWA as they were released today: NRT-KUL-MEL with MH to get me home. I was met with a situation that will be familiar to many, but was new to me - the agent telling me these flights were only available for new bookings and could not be added to existing bookings. She suggested I paid for them separately. Yeah, nah.

I was so surprised, I ended the call to regroup. Having done that, I idly entered my entire itinerary into the multi-city and to my greatest surprise, I was able to pretty much reconstruct it from what was still available. The only real modification was to do MEL-CMB via SYD, and to do DEL-LHR direct rather than via HEL. So I booked it all online as a new itinerary:

MEL-SYD-CMB-DEL-LHR (QF, UL, UL and BA - all in J)
LHR-HEL-GDN (AY - final sector in Y as that route is all Y on an ATR72)
HEL-HND (JL - J)
NRT-KUL-MEL (MH - all in J).

View attachment 406630

I'm quite happy with that. Now I need a flight to change on my original booking so I can cancel it with no penalty. There's 11 months for that to happen, so fingers crossed.

That's fantastic. Saves needing to argue with (likely) multiple agents about adding your new sector, and of course saves any risk of losing seats from delayed re-ticketing. Looks like a great trip.

 

[Jacques Vert]

So following on from the discussion about stopovers and transits in HEL, I tried to add the final flights to my OWA as they were released today: NRT-KUL-MEL with MH to get me home. I was met with a situation that will be familiar to many, but was new to me - the agent telling me these flights were only available for new bookings and could not be added to existing bookings. She suggested I paid for them separately. Yeah, nah.

I was so surprised, I ended the call to regroup. Having done that, I idly entered my entire itinerary into the multi-city and to my greatest surprise, I was able to pretty much reconstruct it from what was still available. The only real modification was to do MEL-CMB via SYD, and to do DEL-LHR direct rather than via HEL. So I booked it all online as a new itinerary:

MEL-SYD-CMB-DEL-LHR (QF, UL, UL and BA - all in J)
LHR-HEL-GDN (AY - final sector in Y as that route is all Y on an ATR72)
HEL-HND (JL - J)
NRT-KUL-MEL (MH - all in J).

View attachment 406630

I'm quite happy with that. Now I need a flight to change on my original booking so I can cancel it with no penalty. There's 11 months for that to happen, so fingers crossed.

Good outcome. Only downside I see is that the DEL-LHR on BA has very much higher taxes than AY via HEL.

 

[Mr H]

Good outcome. Only downside I see is that the DEL-LHR on BA has very much higher taxes than AY via HEL.

Yes, plus you have to pay for seat selection but at least they recline.

 

[kenjicult]

Hello all

After many additional hours battling with Qantas, now purely on principle of them honouring their own rules.. I appear to have reached an impasse.

If you recall I had a HKG-ICN-HEL, HEL-JFK, SIN-LHR ticketed itinerary for 620600 points (2 pax in J) and was trying to make it HKG-ICN-HEL, HEL-JFK, EWR-CLT-LAS, SIN-HEL-LHR at 636000 points. But they were quoting me the full rewards points price for that added EWR-CLT-LAS segment (such that the total would be over 700k). The wrong price is one thing, the other one thing is that I need it to be a valid itinerary as I want to add LHR-HKG at the end later when flights are released.

I was coming up against all kinds of wrong advice from the call centre as to why the system wasn't pricing correctly, including accusing me of having too many stopovers, too many miles, not starting and ending in the same place. They were also counting ground sectors as an additional stopover, citing that the itinerary I wanted would have 6 stopovers. They were also generally getting confused with round the world rules (RTW being a term I stopped using very soon after realising their frequent confusion). I've even been told that a valid OW classic flight reward itinerary has the individual flights add up to no more than 318k pp (rather than the system "capping it")

Without labouring even more frustrating details since then, my issue is probably that I can't directly reach anyone in Hobart, and the senior manager I've been dealing with is citing (alleged) advice from Hobart that states there's nothing they can do to add the sector to my itinerary and have it cap correctly at 318k per pax.

This manager is saying that there's no one else to pass me on to. Basically stating that she's the highest point of escalation and there's no way to get me in contact with Hobart directly. I am of lowly FF status.

Someone in the thread above said that the eventual diagnosis for a similar issue for them was that the initial itinerary was incorrectly issued by Qantas, such that the itinerary in the first instance wasn't considered a OW classic flight reward. I strongly feel that this is also the issue for me but am hitting a wall of "the system is not capping the points at 318k pp, therefore it's an invalid itinerary". This is despite no one being able to correctly tell me which criteria of the OW classic flight reward the itinerary doesn't meet.

We've even tried alternatives like JFK-ORD-LAS, EWR-PHX-LAS; allegedly they are also not capping at 318k. (which if the initial itinerary wasn't "tagged" correctly as a OW classic flight reward, is possibly unsurprising).

When I asked them specifically to recreate the itinerary to see that it caps, they have told me that it doesn't. (Though a post in the thread above has shown it would be recognised as a valid OW classic flight reward itinerary and cap correctly) Basically rather than the logic of "he has a valid OW classic flight rewards itinerary therefore it will cost no more than 318k pp", they're doing the reverse of "it hasn't capped at 318k pp therefore it's not a valid itinerary", and then calling it quits on looking into it further.

I've all but run out of steam to battle it. I've also emailed the rewards ticketing escalation email (and cc'd in some of the execs for what it was worth) - haven't heard back. Unfortunately I don't have enough points or guts to rebook the itinerary in full without cancelling my current rewards flights (which seems too risky - 3 decent birds in the hand to try and add 1 more seems silly..)

All in all - it's been a bad time and I feel like I've only been lied to or discounted for over 20 hours with no power or avenue to challenge. Ultimately, I would probably pay cash to get across the US and save the points for a long haul international trip - maybe with Emirates or something so I don't feel too annoyed about having that flight not included in the OW cfr itinerary. Rant over!

 

[Mr H]

Someone in the thread above said that the eventual diagnosis for a similar issue for them was that the initial itinerary was incorrectly issued by Qantas, such that the itinerary in the first instance wasn't considered a OW classic flight reward. I strongly feel that this is also the issue for me but am hitting a wall of "the system is not capping the points at 318k pp, therefore it's an invalid itinerary".
...
I've all but run out of steam to battle it... Ultimately, I would probably pay cash to get across the US and save the points for a long haul international trip.

You actually do need to sort it out because if your initial reservation has been processed incorrectly, your final LHR-HKG is going to take you massively over the 318,000 cap.

 

[kenjicult]

You actually do need to sort it out because if your initial reservation has been processed incorrectly, your final LHR-HKG is going to take you massively over the 318,000 cap.

Yes you're absolutely right. I've lodged an online complaint for what it's worth as well.

Playing phone roulette has only ever gotten me. Cape Town, Manila, or Fiji. Is there a chance that Hobart picks up for non plat members?

 

[MEL_Traveller]

Yes you're absolutely right. I've lodged an online complaint for what it's worth as well.

Playing phone roulette has only ever gotten me. Cape Town, Manila, or Fiji. Is there a chance that Hobart picks up for non plat members?

there were reports that non-status members can actually get routed to Hobart if they call often enough! Don’t know whether that is still the case but it certainly was a few weeks ago.

I think the agents are partly right. The system will cap at 318,000 points provided you are within the rules. I don’t think there is any flag that needs to get added to the booking at the outset because plenty of people just book one or two sectors, come back later, and complete the booking. It caps out at that stage at 318.

generally speaking agents will come up with all sorts of reasons to try and figure out why the system is throwing up an error. There is a known error that New Zealand for example is considered part of Australia and so you can’t transit through Australia and back as it considers your award has already finished. But that’s about the only error that I’m aware of.

There must be something perhaps it’s based or the number of transits in Helsinki… Something is causing the error. It’s just finding that.

 

[djkelly69]

Just spitballing some ideas:
- have you had any schedule changes affecting the existing itinerary?
- if you go into Manage My Booking (not just the Bookings page you posted earlier in the thread), what flights are showing and are they all showing as Confirmed?
- similarly if you email a copy of the itinerary/tax invoice to yourself from MMB, is it up to date and shows all existing flights?
- have you tried looking up the PNR on other Oneworld airline's websites and looked for any issues/errors?

 

[kenjicult]

I think the agents are partly right. The system will cap at 318,000 points provided you are within the rules. I don’t think there is any flag that needs to get added to the booking at the outset because plenty of people just book one or two sectors, come back later, and complete the booking. It caps out at that stage at 318.

Yes totally agree - a valid booking would automatically cap at 318k. And I guess that's their entire basis for saying that it mustn't be valid. They can't identify what the issue is however. When someone else in this thread said they had an issue with the initial PNR not being issued correctly, it made me wonder whether that was the case with me. Since this person had to get the initial itinerary reissued and then no longer had issues adding the segment.

- have you had any schedule changes affecting the existing itinerary?
- if you go into Manage My Booking (not just the Bookings page you posted earlier in the thread), what flights are showing and are they all showing as Confirmed?
- similarly if you email a copy of the itinerary/tax invoice to yourself from MMB, is it up to date and shows all existing flights?
- have you tried looking up the PNR on other Oneworld airline's websites and looked for any issues/errors?

Thanks for this
No schedule changes, have checked (transits still <24 hrs, no city changes)

HKG-ICN-HEL, HEL-LHR-JFK, SIN-HEL-LHR are showing confirmed
The segment I wanted to add is still in my bookings and reads confirmed but is not e-ticketed (since we haven't yet sorted out how much it is I'm supposed to pay in points)

Via Qantas MMB, the e-ticket with 081 numbers for both passengers shows the HKG-ICN-HEL, HEL-LHR-JFK, SIN-HEL-LHR flights (all of them except the segment I want to add)

However, interestingly, when I go onto partner airlines to manage the booking

Finnair - no errors
AA - havent tried yet
Cathay Pacific (Only flying with them from HKG-ICN) - it says Our records indicate that your e-ticket(s) has not been issued yet. Please contact Customer Care to issue ticket(s).

I will get in touch with Cathay to sort this out, although a little confused how it could be ticketed in my Qantas itinerary but not via Cathay's system?

ADDIT: got in touch with Cathay via their Whatsapp support and they told me that if its a QF ticketed flight, it'll read ticket not issued. Indeed upon checking, it says ticket not issued for all the flights not just the HKG-ICN leg.

 

[termx]

And 1 minute later ticketing has been completed. Victory!

Happy to report that I was able to add 4 new legs to complete an existing OWA booking without incident, with a new ticket being reissued within 8 hours. Only having JAL and Finnair for the entire itinerary might have made things more straightforward.

In my case I suspect having Points Club helped with priority phone access to the Hobart call centre (I think).

I made sure I had the full details for each leg before calling. The agent had no problem adding each new leg to the booking. I did mention to the agent that I had checked that the entire itinerary was a valid OWA but to double check just in case.

After recalculating taxes, the new itinerary came to an extra 6500 points, plus 5000 points booking fee. Total taxes / fees came to $1071.54 / 132,400 QFF points.

Itinerary is

MEL-ITM via NRT
ITM-JFK via HND
JFK-VIE via HEL
VIE-ICN via HEL
GMP-HND
NRT-MEL

Miss 18 is very pleased that I discovered Finnair fly HEL-ICN I reckon that won me dad of the year right then.

 

[kenjicult]

Happy to report that I was able to add 4 new legs to complete an existing OWA booking without incident, with a new ticket being reissued within 8 hours. Only having JAL and Finnair for the entire itinerary might have made things more straightforward.

In my case I suspect having Points Club helped with priority phone access to the Hobart call centre (I think).

I made sure I had the full details for each leg before calling. The agent had no problem adding each new leg to the booking. I did mention to the agent that I had checked that the entire itinerary was a valid OWA but to double check just in case.

After recalculating taxes, the new itinerary came to an extra 6500 points, plus 5000 points booking fee. Total taxes / fees came to $1071.54 / 132,400 QFF points.

Itinerary is

MEL-ITM via NRT
ITM-JFK via HND
JFK-VIE via HEL
VIE-ICN via HEL
GMP-HND
NRT-MEL

Miss 18 is very pleased that I discovered Finnair fly HEL-ICN I reckon that won me dad of the year right then.

Well done - this is the outcome I am hoping for myself..
I do have points club but have called maybe a dozen times on phone roulette in the last 2 hours to try and get Hobart to add a segment to my existing booking. Anyone know a specific time window to trial as non-status to maximise chances of getting Hobart?

 

[MEL_Traveller]

Well done - this is the outcome I am hoping for myself..
I do have points club but have called maybe a dozen times on phone roulette in the last 2 hours to try and get Hobart to add a segment to my existing booking. Anyone know a specific time window to trial as non-status to maximise chances of getting Hobart?

I don’t believe points club has any priority to reach Hobart. There is anecdotal evidence that non-status members may get escalated to Hobart after they have previously attempted to reach the regular call centre. Not sure if there is a confirmed algorithm for that.

 

[kenjicult]

I don’t believe points club has any priority to reach Hobart. There is anecdotal evidence that non-status members may get escalated to Hobart after they have previously attempted to reach the regular call centre. Not sure if there is a confirmed algorithm for that.

This is what I'm feeling as well.. they pick up very fast but it's not the centre I'm looking for. I've been told that Hobart are a 7am-5pm centre but I see others successfully making contact as late as 10pm. Will keep trying I guess!