Airfares to LHR November 2011

[Hammer]

Hi All,

My wife and I have a trip planned for Nov 2011 to London and need some advice on when is the best time to actually purchase the tickets.

Doing some research I have worked out that on Qantas at least, November is a reasonably cheap time to go as fares are often 50% of the peak times such as July.

The caveat is that as I am SG, I ideally want to be able to upgrade both fares to Business and have plenty of points in the 'bank'to do it.

So - say in December 2010 fares are released for for November 2011 travel to London at price $x,xx_ - do I want to purchase this fare and request an upgrade to business (knowing that you won't be confirmed until 24hrs before) right then?

Or - wait until cheaper fares are released 'on sale', make sure the fare I purchase is upgradable and send in my upgrade request.

So I suppose in essence - is my chance at upgrading the same regardless when I purchase the ticket or does it depend on:
a - first in best dressed
b - class of fare purchased
c- the 'sale' price of the fare purchased

Many thanks!

 

[medhead]

I'm not too familiar with how pricing and sale prices go over the year for flights to London. However, there are always the earlybird fares that come out before the end of the year.

In terms of upgrades, it is dependent on a combination of factors including those you mention. But the important factors are status and then time of request. So Platinum flyers will get the upgrade before you regardless of time of request, but you should get and upgrade before a gold or lower flyer who requested the upgrade after you.

 

[JetLagged]

Is using points + pay a viable alternative for you - by this means you purchase a return J class fare, spend as much as you would on the Y tickets, and then use points to meet the rest of the cost?

 

[Hammer]

Jetlagged - I haven't considered points plus+pay...I might see how it rolls up based on Nov 2010 fares.
Having a look at qantas.com - 2x return J fares to LHR in early November is about $23k (11.5ea) - using 500k points this reduces to $17k or to be really harsh 2m points for $4k economy! Not really the reduction I was looking for but I suppose that is the price you pay for guaranteed J seats.
An outright return upgrade from Y is 60k each way, so for 2 people thats 240,000 points - a massive difference, but no guarantees!

 

[JetLagged]

A possible suggestion for you, which is what I did in March:

Y+ Sydney to Singapore - booked with AU portal
J Singapore to LHR - booked through Singapore portal

I then used points to upgrade the long haul to LHR in F and had a really fantastic nights sleep!

Ended up a few thousand dollars cheaper than all the way through. Mind you, not nearly as good as flying LHR-SYD-LHR which you can get for about $8000AU - such a difference!

 

[Travel Guru]

If you're wanting to upgrade using points, waiting for a sale fare (in economy) isn't going to help as all sale fares are generally booked into non-upgradeable booking classes (usually O).

Likewise, waiting for the earlybird season isn't going to prove beneficial as those will also be booked into non-upgradeable booking classes.

Fares in the upgradeable classes tend to be fairly stable year round so if you know what you want to do and definitely are prepared to pay a premium to enter the upgrade lottery, then booking early is going to be (in my opinion anyway, as a high end travel advisor) the best course of action.

Hope that helps

TG

 

[dajop]

Having a look at qantas.com - 2x return J fares to LHR in early November is about $23k (11.5ea) - using 500k points this reduces to $17k or to be really harsh 2m points for $4k economy! Not really the reduction I was looking for but I suppose that is the price you pay for guaranteed J seats.

You could do two one world award J seats for 565 K points - which gives you a heap of options other than flying QF so J awards a bit easier to come by as you can be more creative in your routing and allows five stops.

And for $8.5K per pax I am reasonably confident you could find away to get Europe in J (with either angled or fully lie flat seats) or even F for that on other carriers without having to fork out 500,000 pts!


You also have to ask, if you can get classic award seats for 2 for 512K return (and you have the pts), is it worth playing the upgrade lottery to save 128K pts (as upgrades in both directions will cost 384K for two)?

 

[digga]

Hi All,

My wife and I have a trip planned for Nov 2011 to London ... So - say in December 2010 fares are released for for November 2011 travel to London at price $x,xx_ - do I want to purchase this fare and request an upgrade to business (knowing that you won't be confirmed until 24hrs before) right then?

Or - wait until cheaper fares are released 'on sale', make sure the fare I purchase is upgradable and send in my upgrade request....

Just bear in mind that you can only request an upgrade at T-90 days, so it's irrelevant whether you purchase the tickets before then - your upgrade request will only be added to the queue when made, at some point in the 90 days before departure.

 

[Worldtraveller8888]

Just bear in mind that you can only request an upgrade at T-90 days, so it's irrelevant whether you purchase the tickets before then - your upgrade request will only be added to the queue when made, at some point in the 90 days before departure.

That was my understanding too. And I didn't think it mattered when you requested the upgrade as your chances are dependent on status and fare class. But not 100% sure on that.

WT

 

[digga]

That was my understanding too. And I didn't think it mattered when you requested the upgrade as your chances are dependent on status and fare class. But not 100% on that.

WT

I don't know the details of the calculation, but like for like (2 PS requests, for example), the earlier request will presumably get preference over the older one. Or you can just hope they screw it up, then run into a super amazing lounge dude while waiting to fly out who'll take care of everything, in which case none of the above count.

Ah Peter from Melbourne, you are amazing ...

 

[serfty]

I don't know the details of the calculation, but like for like (2 PS requests, for example), the earlier request will presumably get preference over the older one. ...

Some years ago, "Status" followed by "Time of request" was the published order, but these days only status remains published.

There is further evidence that time of request is no longer important. See here:

http://www.frequentflyer.com.au/com...rades-the-pecking-order-14811.html#post194270

My understanding is that QF do Y-J international points upgrades as follows:

(1) Chairman's Lounge - they start with passenger on highest fare bucket - ie W working their way down through T, then Y, then B etc down to the lowest upgradeable economy class.

(2) They will then work through the platinums in fare bucket order, then Golds in fare bucket order, then silvers down the fare buckets , then bronzes down the fare buckets, then non QFF members down the fare buckets.

(3) If there is a tie at one of the fare buckets - for example two Silver members both with a B class economy seat wishing to upgrade to J (and only one upgradeable seat left), they will give the upgrade to the member who first joined the Qantas Frequent Flyer system - ie the lower of the membership numbers. The date of upgrade request is irrelevant - the upgrade request simply needs to be made between 90 days and 24 hours before the flight leaves its first port.

NOTE:

(1) It is a matter of debate whether status of account from which points are coming is the decider. Qantas says it is not but the evidence as gathered on this site is that it is the status of the member requesting the upgrade. My own personal view based on upgrades on the busy Pacific route and from talking to Qantas staff is that the upgrade is ordered on the status of the requesting account.

Therefore, for the present request if the upgrade request comes out of your account, it will be based on your status (Gold).

I would assume that if while working down the request order Qantas gets to a 3 seat request such as yours and there are only 2 upgradeable seats at that point, they would skip you and move down to the next request.

(2) I note that your question refers to a Y-PE upgrade request but I have no reason to think that principles which QF would apply would be different to a Y-J request - ie QF would work down members' QFF status and fare buckets.

 

[Batesy]

Maybe look at another carrier in J. You can get Thai, Malaysian and others for much cheaper than QF to Europe. look at Zuji now and it ill give you some ideas.

 

[digga]

Thanks for the details serfty. Next time I can avoid the 90-day panic ... and just relax.

 

[fjc]

A possible suggestion for you, which is what I did in March:

Y+ Sydney to Singapore - booked with AU portal
J Singapore to LHR - booked through Singapore portal

I then used points to upgrade the long haul to LHR in F and had a really fantastic nights sleep!

Ended up a few thousand dollars cheaper than all the way through. Mind you, not nearly as good as flying LHR-SYD-LHR which you can get for about $8000AU - such a difference!

I loath flying at night. My next trip Sydney / LHR will be via Hong Kong. Fly direct there, have a sleep (there was a discussion sometime ago about pubs close to the airport), then fly Hong Kong / LHR on QF029 - daylight flight. Leaves 8.00am arrives 3.30pm.

 

[Worldtraveller8888]

I loath flying at night.

I am with you on that one!

WT