Qantas points upgrade to London

[dvt]

With the reduction in capacity to London are their any views on the amount of upgrades being made available up to business class? I am considering booking a PE ticket to London on Qantas with the hope of using points to upgrade to J. However, there is a distinct lack of award tickets available in J class so I'm left wondering if points upgrades are even less likely.

I've had success in the past with upgrades and awards tickets but I am now finding it even more difficult to redeem my hard earned Qantas points on any QF flight to Europe!

 

[mviy]

What status do you have with QANTAS?

Under Community Resources > Your Questions there is a Flight Availability/Loadings & Upgrade Probability Help Desk sticky thread you can ask about the loads for say 2-3 flights you are considering. That should give an indication as to where the loads are at. Though upgrade chances may not become very clear till not many days before upgrades are processed.

 

[dvt]

I have platinum status so pretty lose to the top of priority.

I'm pretty much up to speed on loadings and how to check. I suppose my question was more in relation to people having success with upgrades being confirmed during the week of departure and wether they had experienced a fall in success rates now that capacity has been reduced.

 

[CaptJCool]

Re the question of points awards..... see this thread. Best awards Europe bound flight

You’re right About flights ex-Australia however, this predominates ex-Syd or Melb but other cities give you more likely availability...... on EK QR or CX or JAL.... unfortunately usually not QF during peak season....so I would expect upgrade chances to correlate to awards availability. More in March and November.

However, given J customers will often book (multiple flights) within the last two weeks, they will often cancel or re-book or are no shows, so some late notice opportunity exists. It’s why QF introduced at the gate upgrades to cover these kind of scenarios.

Unfortunately, Ive been in the Europe upgrade lottery half dozen times in an April, July or September and had no luck even as Platinum. Eventually just booked J and tax expensed it against professional development allowance at 40% rebate. (Works a bit like negative gearing. Seminars, conferences and education workshops

 

[Daver6]

My only experience was PER-LHR and return. Booked into Y. I'm a WP. Upgrade request went it about 4 months before the flight and didn't get it either way. J was pretty much sold out in both directions.

 

[sudoer]

I am considering booking a PE ticket to London on Qantas with the hope of using points to upgrade to J.

Is this only because awards aren't showing on the Qantas site? If so..

I have platinum status

As a WP, you can call Qantas to request a classic award be released. This generally yields a much better $/point rate than purchasing + upgrading on points. For comparison:

PE>J upgrade is 66k + PE fare + taxes
J classic award is 128k + taxes

The real upside to this is if Qantas agree to release an award, there is no last minute lottery involved - your J seat is locked in.

See this thread for more info: Wiki - QFF Platinum requesting release of extra Classic award seats?

 

[dvt]

Is this only because awards aren't showing on the Qantas site? If so..



As a WP, you can call Qantas to request a classic award be released. This generally yields a much better $/point rate than purchasing + upgrading on points. For comparison:

PE>J upgrade is 66k + PE fare + taxes
J classic award is 128k + taxes

The real upside to this is if Qantas agree to release an award, there is no last minute lottery involved - your J seat is locked in.

See this thread for more info: Wiki - QFF Platinum requesting release of extra Classic award seats?

I have had seats released in the past which has been great. For this trip I was initially looking at an economy ticket with a hopeful upgrade as the taxes on award tickets are so high and are close to buying an actual Y ticket! I then looked at PE as I could just about manage to fly to LHR in this seat if an upgrade didn't come through. Both of these tickets would also allow me to earn full QF status which is why I haven't looked at an outright award seat through the call centre.

 

[rikkitikkitavi]

I tried a few times over the years as WP and never had luck withthst route, the only upgrades I got were for apologies for inconvnience or swapping to different flights to help out the check in staff, never on points.

 

[kookaburra75]

As a WP, you can call Qantas to request a classic award be released. This generally yields a much better $/point rate than purchasing + upgrading on points. For comparison:

PE>J upgrade is 66k + PE fare + taxes
J classic award is 128k + taxes

Flex Y to J is also only 66k points. I use this a lot so I can chop and change flights, but only 'pay' the same in points to get an upgrade - and it's cheaper than a discount PE seat. As I can't sleep sitting up, it doesn't matter a whole lot whether I'm in Y or PE, but I do make sure I get the seats in the upper section of the 380 (32-36), where I get served from the PE drinks trolley.

In the past five runs to the UK (10 legs), I've only missed out once in May (SYD-LHR), but otherwise got the upgrade. A lot of my flights are in shoulder or low season. The first two upgrades were when I was SG (2 years ago), but now I'm WP