Oneworld Classic Flight Reward Discussion - The Definitive Thread

[DejaBrew]

A very warm welcome aboard AFF @frequentflier

 

[elanshin]

Just checking if anyone knows about the status of New Zealand for OWA atm. Does the computer still think AKL is in Australia and thus if we start at AKL the computer won't let us stop in Australia afterwards?

 

[cloudsurfer]

Either in that split or one person travels in a different route / timing.


Yes that is possible. But I'd say that it's even harder to find a flight to NRT/HND as it's NA summer and Japan is still super popular.

Honestly your chances of going across the pacific are very slim with YVR without touching US Mainland. You may want to consider expanding to include YYZ (Toronto). But your most realistic option is back tracking across Europe.

Edit: I can see 2J and 1 W (Premium economy) for QF SCL - SYD on Aug 20 and Sep 1 - not sure if this needs higher status to see though.

Is splitting a group (in this scenario 3 people) between J and Y possible on a OWA leg? I don't see how it can be done when booking a full itinerary online, but are you suggesting a call centre can do so? I figure if, as you say, 'one person travels in a different route/timing' that persons OWA would be on a totally separate booking, which could prove tricky to mirror the other 2 people.

 

[elanshin]

Is splitting a group (in this scenario 3 people) between J and Y possible on a OWA leg? I don't see how it can be done when booking a full itinerary online, but are you suggesting a call centre can do so? I figure if, as you say, 'one person travels in a different route/timing' that persons OWA would be on a totally separate booking, which could prove tricky to mirror the other 2 people.

You'd need to end up with 2 separate PNRs which yes would cause issues and more hassle if you need to make changes or things happen.

You could however book lots of the other legs as 3 then ask for a split in the PNR when adding another sector with 2 in J and 1 in another class later.

Alternatively there are trip reports here of say parent 1 going one direction to the destination and parent 2 with child going another route and meeting up at the end point. It's all about what you're comfortable doing, whats available and how much of dealing with problems you like when things ago awry.

If you don't like to deal with it, but still want to do this, find a Travel agent who can do points bookings.

 

[casket_kite_2z]

Hi all,

Looking to book my first Qantas Oneworld Classic Flight Reward, but have a couple of questions that I can't seem to find answers to in the guide.

1. Is a 'layover' counted as 1 of the 5 stopovers if I've booked separate tickets, even if time on ground is under 24 hours? ie.
PER > KUL (4:05pm landing on day 1)
KUL > DOH (2:40am departure on day 2)

2. If I'm still waiting for reward seats to be released for later months, can I book earlier flights even if the total of these flights does not reach the reward cap? If I add flights later will the cap still be honored once reached?

 

[MEL_Traveller]

Hi all,

Looking to book my first Qantas Oneworld Classic Flight Reward, but have a couple of questions that I can't seem to find answers to in the guide.

1. Is a 'layover' counted as 1 of the 5 stopovers if I've booked separate tickets, even if time on ground is under 24 hours? ie.
PER > KUL (4:05pm landing on day 1)
KUL > DOH (2:40am departure on day 2)

2. If I'm still waiting for reward seats to be released for later months, can I book earlier flights even if the total of these flights does not reach the reward cap? If I add flights later will the cap still be honored once reached?

On a classic OWA (oneworld award) you are allowed up to 5 stopovers.

A stopover is defined as more than 24 hours.

So arriving 405pm and departing 240am will be a transit, not a stopover.

Don’t understand where the separate tickets comes in?

You can book flights as they become available. The price of the ticket will be the sum of the individual flights booked until such time as the cal is reached. Once you reach the cap it is automatically recognised by the system.

You’ll have to pay the 5000 point fee for each time you make a set of changes. That’s per passenger, but you can make multiple changes at a time. So adding one or three flights, or adding one flight and changing three others will still only cost you 5k points.

 

[casket_kite_2z]

On a classic OWA (oneworld award) you are allowed up to 5 stopovers.

A stopover is defined as more than 24 hours.

So arriving 405pm and departing 240am will be a transit, not a stopover.

Don’t understand where the separate tickets comes in?

Thanks for your quick response.

Sorry should have used the term "flights" not "tickets". Just to clarify, the flights I'm looking to book are separate through the multi-city booking tool. ie.
PER > KUL, then KUL > DOH
not
PER > KUL > DOH

This does lead me to another question - does anyone have any experience with booking this way and any potential issues that would arise from missing flights due to delays with earlier departures? Does travel insurance generally still cover you for these types of issues given it's an 'award' booking?

 

[MEL_Traveller]

Thanks for your quick response.

Sorry should have used the term "flights" not "tickets". Just to clarify, the flights I'm looking to book are separate through the multi-city booking tool. ie.
PER > KUL, then KUL > DOH
not
PER > KUL > DOH

This does lead me to another question - does anyone have any experience with booking this way and any potential issues that would arise from missing flights due to delays with earlier departures? Does travel insurance generally still cover you for these types of issues given it's an 'award' booking?

Almost all oneworld award tickets will involve separate flights, often on different airlines, with connections.

You can either book these using the multi-city tool, or sometimes you’ll be offered connections just be searching a city pair (for example MEL-SFO might return Qantas to LAX and American LAX-SFO).

As all these flights and connections are on the one ticket, you’ll be protected in the event one of these flights is delayed. The airline will get you to your destination - whatever that is - by whatever means they can. If you PER-KUL arrives late, they might put you on the next flight, or another airline to get to DOH.

Travel insurance may cover you for delay expenses, food and accommodation if the delay is longer than 6 hours, but mostly the airline will take care of all that anyway.

But whether you have an award or paid booking doesn’t really matter, travel insurance works the same way.

 

[casket_kite_2z]

Almost all oneworld award tickets will involve separate flights, often on different airlines, with connections.

You can either book these using the multi-city tool, or sometimes you’ll be offered connections just be searching a city pair (for example MEL-SFO might return Qantas to LAX and American LAX-SFO).

As all these flights and connections are on the one ticket, you’ll be protected in the event one of these flights is delayed. The airline will get you to your destination - whatever that is - by whatever means they can. If you PER-KUL arrives late, they might put you on the next flight, or another airline to get to DOH.

Travel insurance may cover you for delay expenses, food and accommodation if the delay is longer than 6 hours, but mostly the airline will take care of all that anyway.

But whether you have an award or paid booking doesn’t really matter, travel insurance works the same way.

Thankyou so much, really appreciate your help!!!

 

[Jacques Vert]

Thankyou so much, really appreciate your help!!!

And if you are delayed and miss a flight, make sure you keep all your receipts.

 

[avioslover]

Just booked the following, 2 pax all J, for mid next year and thought I'd share my experience.

MEL-LAX-JFK=EWR-(CTY)-YUL-(CMN)-LGW=LHR-CMB-MEL

As many are aware, due to Qantas' very limited point of sale countries, flights departing from such locations (e.g. CMB, GRU) don't show up in award tools (you need to cross-reference availability from other carriers) and are only bookable as an additional leg. However, it seems flights departing CMN are not bookable even in this way. Flights that only stopover in CMN are also seemingly not bookable via the multicity tool despite being bookable individually. Because of this, I intended to book all legs except YUL-(CMN)-LGW using the multicity tool then cop the 5k point penalty to add that over the phone.

Now, I booked the above for 2 people, but as separate itineraries, because for the LAX-JFK leg, I couldn't find availability on the exact same flight in J, but did manage to find flights with departure times within an hour of each other. However, when I went to book the 2nd itinerary, I received the dreaded 15079-23951-420 error. I dropped a couple more legs from the itinerary and managed to get past the error but didn't yet pay. I then clicked 'Start Over' to try add some more legs but found that the reward seats for the legs I had added in that last attempt hadn't been released.

So off I went to make the booking over the phone and it was as painful as I expected. It took a while for me to get across that some of the reward seats that I was trying to book were still being held in a lost booking attempt and weren't actually unavailable. They got confused and assumed I was referring to my first, successful booking, but did eventually manage to recover my lost booking attempt.

This has been said many times before, but if you book over the phone, never use the term "Oneworld" at any point, say you want to book a business classic reward and just list out your legs. Also don't mention implicit stopovers as they will think you mean explicit, separate legs. The reward availability is obviously different when entered that way. Once they've searched the intended route you can then mention departure time and any expected stopovers if needed. I didn't make either of those mistakes by the way, but the operator still managed to do the wrong thing...

We got there in the end though and apparently there was phantom availability on the LHR-CMB leg and that's presumably why I was getting an error online. So we moved that flight to a different day and all was good. Amending my original successful booking was much simpler and the 5k point cost was worth the time saving.

 

[acam28]

Has anyone had the problem with calling to add new sectors to your pre-existing booking that the system doesn't allow flights to be added that would be taken more than 12 months after the booking date of the original booking, even if the flights are there to book?

I know you can't have flights greater than 12 months from the start of your trip but why does it matter when the booking date was?

Is this a HUACA or is it actually not possible?

 

[There'sOnlyOneJimmy]

Has anyone had the problem with calling to add new sectors to your pre-existing booking that the system doesn't allow flights to be added that would be taken more than 12 months after the booking date of the original booking, even if the flights are there to book?

I know you can't have flights greater than 12 months from the start of your trip but why does it matter when the booking date was?

Is this a HUACA or is it actually not possible?

Unfortunately this is a strongly held belief by some in the call centres, despite having no basis in fact.
This is the relevant clause in the QF Book of Rules (my bolding):
“13.3.4 Flight Reward tickets will be valid for one year from the original ticketed departure date and all travel must be completed within 12 months of first departure, unless otherwise specified.”
I can’t find anything “otherwise specified”…

 

[elanshin]

Has anyone had the problem with calling to add new sectors to your pre-existing booking that the system doesn't allow flights to be added that would be taken more than 12 months after the booking date of the original booking, even if the flights are there to book?

I know you can't have flights greater than 12 months from the start of your trip but why does it matter when the booking date was?

Is this a HUACA or is it actually not possible?

HUACA.

For reference my current OWA that im on right now (Nov 2025) was first booked in Oct 2024 (when they had the DSC). Then altered later into a OWA with everything locked in late Dec 2024.

 

[bion]

Why is there no business class availability from Europe to Sydney in early June 2026? I’ve been checking almost daily for the past three months.

 

[nickfromeastryde]

Why is there no business class availability from Europe to Sydney in early June 2026? I’ve been checking almost daily for the past three months.

Firstly they are probably the hardest J reward seats to find especially for more than one person and secondly, if you started looking in August for June next year, you were probably already too late.

Expand your search look for different combinations for both departure cities in Europe and arrival cities in Aust. Taking it further, look for flights back to Asian ports as there tends to be more availability for those. From there you could maybe look for options back to Aust in Y as there would likely be more availability.

 

[Aeryn]

Ive been looking daily for last 6 months from SYD/PER to LHR/CDG/FCO and nothing available on QF metal in J ever shows up more than than 30 days out - I cant travel at that short notice.

I honestly dont think they have been releasing seats except via request for P1s and the odd WP.

 

[Aeryn]

Well wasnt an issue last 3 years, seems to be just a problem since start of this year. I only need 1 seat and was looking at shoulder season not peak holidays or summer.

 

[algae]

Well wasnt an issue last 3 years, seems to be just a problem since start of this year. I only need 1 seat and was looking at shoulder season not peak holidays or summer.

In the 4ish years I've been booking OWAs, I've never had a single Qantas flight in any of my itinerarys. I usually book 11ish months in advance, and never seen any useful Qantas award flights. I've always booked with partner airlines

 

[Aeryn]

Post Covid have done 3 * J OWAs all used QF out of / into Aus:
* 2024 - SYD-HNL + HKG-SYD on QF (+ AA, AY & CX flights in between)
* 2023 - SYD-DFW + LAX-SYD on QF (+ AA and AY flights in between)
* 2022 SYD-SIN-LHR + DFW-SYD (+ AA and BA flights in between)

Only this year was none possible. Next Year I managed a seat release for QF SYD-HKG out but likley wont be taking those flights, as could only get home on JAL 2 weeks later than ideal; so I have been looking for alternatives daily.

Back in July JAL were dropping seats to/from AUS and Europe daily; havent seen them release anything for about 10 weeks now