Award flight to lax - what happens if it changes to SFO?

[Flying mermaid]

At the moment I am consulting on J awards to Lax for a friend (actually Mr FM's cousin). It is looking like booking on one of the 747 flights out of Sydney or Mel is going to be most likely, given his day and time constraints. We will be booking next week hopefully for July 2016. However some of these flights will end up being shifted to SFO I assume. So how will Qantas handle this - will he end up having to go to SFO, be shifted to another day, or will they shift him to an A380?

I realise this is hard to know, but hope others will have experience of this sort of thing. He has no status.

thanks.

 

[BD1959]

Hi FM,

No personal experience, however there's plenty of anecdotal evidence...

Don't view this as a different destination for the piece of metal, but as a reduction in flight frequency to LAX.

Previously, when QF have reduced frequency on a destination (or stopped flying there temporarily per LHR occasionally) they have rebooked on a different flight on the same day, offered alternative routing to same destination (think BNE-SIn via SYD rather than direct) or offered alternate carrier (think BA for SIN-LHR).

I'd book in complete confidence that QF will honor LAX but -as others have found- should the cancellation eventuate, call QF immediately with preferred option rather than waiting for QF to offer the spoils.

Regards,

BD

 

[moa999]

suspect you will be rebooked on the other flight (or maybe on AA)

assume the 747 qf17/18 flights are the ones most likely to shift, albeit there might be overall timetable rejig

 

[Alanslegal]

So how will Qantas handle this - will he end up having to go to SFO, be shifted to another day, or will they shift him to an A380?

I realise this is hard to know, but hope others will have experience of this sort of thing. He has no status.

How they will handle it? Reading your recent issues, it will likely be handled terrible, so I hope they send you flowers weekly from now through to July 2016 to apologize in advance that they will stuff up and not resolve it. Sad but probably true. However seriously if you were going to book, I would be definitely 'baby-sitting' the booking so that if and when changes happen, you can call Qantas first to resolve any timing issues.

 

[Flying mermaid]

Thanks everyone - good idea about watching the booking. I will get his password off him and do that for him, as he has a lot less time than I do. Hopefully he is a lot less jinxed than I am, so things will flow for him. He wouldn't mind flying a different route or different carrier, as long as he gets to Lax on the day he is supposed to, as he will have other arrangements.

He has only flown in J once before on MH and I would like him to experience QF, but I am sure AA would be fine as well.

 

[parsonstrish]

Based on my experience aa 777-300er in j, Dfw-Lhr return, this is same type flying lax-syd, I would hope to be in aa j.

 

[Flying mermaid]

I successfully helped my friend book a J award from Canberra to Lax via Melbourne on a 747 on 1 July 2016. Great excitement on his part. Now to wait and see what happens with schedules (and also to try and get him back again - hopefully in F although I haven't told him yet, that that is what I am going to try!)

 

[plugster2011]

Saw on Ausbt that the SFO flights have gone on sale. Checked Expert Flyer to see good availability of U class seats on many days in March. So booked a speculative return trip around Easter next year. Good opportunity for people to pick up seats less than 355 days out. Didn't check other dates yet.

 

[amaroo]

Got all excited this morning when I saw "Qantas Flight Change Notification" popup this morning. Meh, it was only to advise that our QF17 will be departing 5 minutes earlier in 11 months time lol

Since when does QF12 fly JFK-LAX ... that was the other change I got this morning.

 

[madrooster]

Got all excited this morning when I saw "Qantas Flight Change Notification" popup this morning. Meh, it was only to advise that our QF17 will be departing 5 minutes earlier in 11 months time lol

Since when does QF12 fly JFK-LAX ... that was the other change I got this morning.

They've moved the QF15/93/11 timings forward for AU-LAX. That means they can move QF11 LAX-JFK forward and JFK-LAX forward. This now means that JFK-LAX can actually meet the first SYD flight (QF12) and so they renamed QF18 JFK-LAX to QF12.