Award Flight Pay To Return Best Options

[vlocity160]

Hi there everybody,

The girlfriend and I are going to head over to Europe again next July/August for a few weeks. We're going to use our points to book award flights. There's not that many left so we better act quickly (We're just waiting for her to get a credit card bonus before we can book). We're looking at flying business class over and then paying to come back in some way. We're both silver tier QFF's so the options for the classic award bookings I'm guessing aren't as vast as those in upper tiers? Anyway we were initially looking at booking with EK J MEL > DXB > LHR. The taxes however for EK were in the order of $1200. So we looked around and found MEL > HKG with QF then HKG > LHR with CX for around $600 in taxes. This seems to be the easy part.

We are looking to return though either from LHR or somewhere else in Europe as we'd like to travel around, but starting in London is the most preferred option. We've been looking at flights back in PE mainly as we can't afford to buy a J ticket for the two of us yet don't want to fly economy if we can avoid it. The problem is the flights are so expensive as one ways (Almost as much as a return flight would cost in some circumstances). What is the best way to go about finding some good fares coming back?

Any help is much appreciated!

 

[love_the_life]

Just a thought. Have you considered having one person on award flights for whole trip and one person on a paid fare? You can link the bookings and it should work out much cheaper.

 

[MEL_Traveller]

The other option might be to use your points to/from Asia... either AU-Asia or Asia-Europe. Get those as a round-trip. One way paid fares in premium cabins aren't usually cheap, so by the time you pay QF fuel surcharges on the way there plus pay for the return one ways it might be more economical to split the tickets via Asia. If you are looking for one ways to come back, you're most likely to find those to Asia. You might want to then consider a cheap one way in economy from say Singapore to AU.

 

[vlocity160]

Thanks for the feedback guys! Looks like I might even be able to do MEL > HKG > MEL as a paid return fare for a decent amount. Then I can use points for an award seat from HKG > LHR and then use points from LGW > HKG (As an example) as a return for 30k more points than say going business one way ex MEL. My only question is, if I pay for a flight from MEL > HKG with QF and say it arrives at 1800 and the award flight leaves at 0055 and is with CX what happens if my flight is delayed and I don't make the connection? I know it's a long time for a connection, I'm just thinking worst case scenario? Many thanks!

 

[MEL_Traveller]

Thanks for the feedback guys! Looks like I might even be able to do MEL > HKG > MEL as a paid return fare for a decent amount. Then I can use points for an award seat from HKG > LHR and then use points from LGW > HKG (As an example) as a return for 30k more points than say going business one way ex MEL. My only question is, if I pay for a flight from MEL > HKG with QF and say it arrives at 1800 and the award flight leaves at 0055 and is with CX what happens if my flight is delayed and I don't make the connection? I know it's a long time for a connection, I'm just thinking worst case scenario? Many thanks!

In theory, separate tickets, no protection if the inbound is delayed. Chance of a 5 hour delay on QF? Hard to say. It's not unknown.

Perhaps make a night of it and fly to HKG the day before?

 

[opusman]

You could always buy a return from Europe back to Australia, then you get to go again next year.

 

[vlocity160]

I thought as much MEL, thanks for the comments!

Opus it's just so expensive to pay for 2 x one way tickets. It's ridiculous!

 

[offshore171]

The uk has an additional tax on outbound flights, and the long haul sectors cop it hardest.

If you have the option, you should look at starting the trip back from a city outside the uk. This will avoid the tax slug.

Maybe look at options like Amsterdam.

 

[Pushka]

Qatar doesn’t seem to penalize for one way flights.

 

[Jacques Vert]

My only question is, if I pay for a flight from MEL > HKG with QF and say it arrives at 1800 and the award flight leaves at 0055 and is with CX what happens if my flight is delayed and I don't make the connection? I know it's a long time for a connection, I'm just thinking worst case scenario? Many thanks!

In theory, separate tickets, no protection if the inbound is delayed. Chance of a 5 hour delay on QF? Hard to say. It's not unknown.

Perhaps make a night of it and fly to HKG the day before?

I always allow a night or two when connecting on separate tickets. Why not connect through somewhere you haven't been before and have a look around?

 

[grussellt]

For your return you could look at buying AA miles (or another airline) although prices are no longer as favourable after the $A fall and higher miles charges. A single J ticket from Europe to South Pacific will cost you about $A2100 but if you avoid BA the additional charges are generally reasonable. Lots of advice in the American Airlines threads.

 

[MEL_Traveller]

For your return you could look at buying AA miles (or another airline) although prices are no longer as favourable after the $A fall and higher miles charges. A single J ticket from Europe to South Pacific will cost you about $A2100 but if you avoid BA the additional charges are generally reasonable. Lots of advice in the American Airlines threads.

Or AUD1600 on Lifemiles... although patience is required to book through them these days.