Advice on DONE4 / SC run plans

[djfuzz]

Please forgive me if I ask some silly questions that have been answered x times already (I’ve done my best to trawl for the answers already, really!). Had been meaning to post here for a little while, but the last week or so has been a little distracting and has shed some perspective to say the least.

In any case, I have been planning a DONE4 for our honeymoon for May/June, and happened across the good fortune of the Oneworld sale fares. Have been trying to find an itinerary that fits things we want to see/do with sufficient rest and relaxation as well as a status credit maximising run. Both my SO and I are pretty much starting from scratch on Qantas FF. Accordingly, I’ve mapped out the following itinerary:

MEL-CNS-SYD-LAX-DFW-LGA-DFW-SFO-LHR-CAI-LHR-SIN-NRT-HKG-HKT-HKG-MEL

According to Mileage Monkey, a DONE4 on this route should net about 1580 SCs, plus an extra 160 for the A class AA flights, for a total of 1740 SCs, which is more than enough for our needs.

We are hoping to catch the A380 from SYD-LAX and LHR-SIN. Also, I had hoped to try to arrange flights between DFW and JFK (rather than LGA), but cannot find any such flights on the RTW planner for the life of me.

Anyway, I have a few questions in relation to this itinerary:

1) When flying in First on AA on a DONE4 (or Business for that matter), what lounge access is available internally in the US? The AA website suggests that only Admirals Club members, Emerald, Sapphire, transcon passengers and Oneworld international connections have lounge access. Does this mean that there is no lounge access at all for passengers in First/Business without such status?

2) Given that we are starting from close to zero, I figure we will be making SG by the time we reach SFO, and WP once we get to NRT. I have two questions relating to this:

a) My QFF assessment year ends on 30 June, and to be perfectly frank, the chances of me racking up this many SCs next year are much slimmer. For us, there seems to be little point in getting more SCs than required to reach WP prior to that date. Accordingly, would it at all be wise to structure the trip so that I reach 1400 points in NRT just before that date, and travel from NRT afterwards thereby accruing the remaining 360 SCs towards the next year? And if so, is there a risk that the points may not be credited prior to the 30 June deadline which may result in missing out on WP?

b) What happens when you reach a new status tier during the DONE4, and will obviously not have access to any updated membership cards that may be issued? For example, say we reach WP in NRT, is there any way of being able to access any WP benefits prior to our next outbound flight without being able to produce a card that reflects the new status? Will a print out of the account summary from the QFF site suffice, or something similar? Or is it a case of varying mileage with no real guidelines?

3) If you qualify and fail to retain status, do you: (i) drop to the immediately lower status; or (ii) drop to the whatever status you have retained on SCs in the relevant year? And if you fail to retain status, do you then have to re-qualify at the full qualification threshold, or merely make it back to the retention threshold?

4) Finally, have I overlooked anything glaring that might improve or is detracting from making the most of this itinerary?

Many thanks in advance for any assistance, this community has been a great resource and I hope to do my bit in kind where I can.

 

[Dave Noble]

1) When flying in First on AA on a DONE4 (or Business for that matter), what lounge access is available internally in the US? The AA website suggests that only Admirals Club members, Emerald, Sapphire, transcon passengers and Oneworld international connections have lounge access. Does this mean that there is no lounge access at all for passengers in First/Business without such status?

Correct. Without status, no access

a) My QFF assessment year ends on 30 June, and to be perfectly frank, the chances of me racking up this many SCs next year are much slimmer. For us, there seems to be little point in getting more SCs than required to reach WP prior to that date. Accordingly, would it at all be wise to structure the trip so that I reach 1400 points in NRT just before that date, and travel from NRT afterwards thereby accruing the remaining 360 SCs towards the next year? And if so, is there a risk that the points may not be credited prior to the 30 June deadline which may result in missing out on WP?

The 1st question that comes to mind to me is .. are you getting points as a benefit of going on the trip or is the trip a benefit of getting points... if the former, then plan the trip around where you want to go and when

If you are unlikely to attain 1200SCs in the following year even with the 360 , then it would seem a waste of time anyway since regardless you will drop back to Gold. If you would get 1200SCs , then really need to consider where priorities lie

b) What happens when you reach a new status tier during the DONE4, and will obviously not have access to any updated membership cards that may be issued? For example, say we reach WP in NRT, is there any way of being able to access any WP benefits prior to our next outbound flight without being able to produce a card that reflects the new status? Will a print out of the account summary from the QFF site suffice, or something similar? Or is it a case of varying mileage with no real guidelines?

As far as lounge access goes, it depends on the lounge. They may require that you produce the card (as per the terms of lounge access via status ) or may let you in with the status reflecting on your boarding pass or may

3) If you qualify and fail to retain status, do you: (i) drop to the immediately lower status; or (ii) drop to the whatever status you have retained on SCs in the relevant year? And if you fail to retain status, do you then have to re-qualify at the full qualification threshold, or merely make it back to the retention threshold?

You drop back one level

4) Finally, have I overlooked anything glaring that might improve or is detracting from making the most of this itinerary?

Depending on what your priority is, status or speding miles, you may like to consider taking a platinum challenge and accruing to AA rather than QF

AA affords status based on distance travelled and this itinerary would not get you Emerald status, however with a challenge you would get AA Platinum status (OW Sapphire) on arrival into SFO (equivalent to QF Gold). Once Platinum you earn 100% miles on the rest of the trip. You would earn over 100,000 spending points from the trip.

As an example on value, you need 20k for a r/t to anywhere in australia/NZ in economy; you would not be far off the 120k needed for a business class return to UK

If you generally do not do a lot of travel and unlkely to maintain status in future, I would consider this

Dave

 

[djfuzz]

Thanks heaps Dave, very sound advice.

I'll be doing a bit of o/s J travel in the following year, just not sure if it would be quite enough to retain WP status. Having said that, the priority for us is to have a good trip and visit the places we want to, thought where it doesn't hurt too much we aren't averse to alternate routing for SC runs.

A couple of extra general questions if anyone has any thoughts -

5) For the LHR-SIN route, would it be preferable to take the QF A380 flight with the new Skybeds or the BA flight with the new Club World?

6) I can't seem to arrange a good connection from HKT to HKG in order to catch QF 30 back to MEL (and get the status bonus). Basically, we have to get in to HKG around midnight on Dragonair, and have nine hours overnight before QF 30 leaves. If a direct check through of baggage can be organised, are there any lounges that are available that late, or is there anything else to do over that time? From my reading, the Wing/Pier/QF lounges appear to be closed, and if we can't get bags checked in the whole way through from HKT I'd imagine we probably can't check in at HKG until a few hours closer to the flight.

Again, thoughts/feedback are very much appreciated.

 

[NM]

5) For the LHR-SIN route, would it be preferable to take the QF A380 flight with the new Skybeds or the BA flight with the new Club World?

This is personal choice. There is mixed views as to which is better. both have lie-flat beds, but different people have different views about which is best. You may like to try both for yourself on different sectors of the trip (say BA trans-Atlantic and QF trans-Pacific or to/from Asia) and make your judgement. The difference often comes down to unpredictable things like the specific crew you get on the day.

6) I can't seem to arrange a good connection from HKT to HKG in order to catch QF 30 back to MEL (and get the status bonus). Basically, we have to get in to HKG around midnight on Dragonair, and have nine hours overnight before QF 30 leaves. If a direct check through of baggage can be organised, are there any lounges that are available that late, or is there anything else to do over that time? From my reading, the Wing/Pier/QF lounges appear to be closed, and if we can't get bags checked in the whole way through from HKT I'd imagine we probably can't check in at HKG until a few hours closer to the flight.

The lounges close when the last flight departs (QF lounge normally around 11pm, CX lounge a little later) and open a few hours before the first flight of the morning (CX Wing lounge opens around 5am I think). So you cannot stay in the lounge overnight. I have used the Novotel Citygate hotel several times for overnight transits. I have a booking for The Regal hotel for August for a transit. The Regal tends to be slightly more expensive but is attached to the terminal so you can walk, while the Novotel requires their courtesy shuttle bus for transfer.

 

[Skyring]

Any reason for SYD-LAX-DFW? SYD-JFK (stopping for refuelling at LAX) is just one sector, so that trans-US leg is a freebie.

Not sure about the DFW-LGA flights neither. Surely there are better legs available?

I'm also inclined to fly with the sun. All else being equal, your departure and arrival times tend to be more civilised.

 

[djfuzz]

Thanks NM and Skyring.

I read your previous posts about flying in the opposite direction, which made a lot of sense - unfortunately, this works better for us for various other reasons too (mostly timing).

We're staying in LA, NY and SF, which is the main reason for not taking QF 107 to JFK. On top of that, I couldn't find any flights from JFK through DFW to backtrack to SFO (for the SC run), the shorter AA flights booking into A class seem to yield better SCs, and LGA is probably better placed for where we want to go any way. Finally, taking QF 107 instead of QF 11 means skipping the A380, which is something we'd rather not do.