Booking flights then upgrading with points

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NVRENUF

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Hi guys.

If i have missed a thread explaining this please paste link.
Have had a look and cant' seem to find my answer.

I want to book flights soon to Melbourne From Perth.
Would be booking normal Economy Red-E Deals and then upgrade to Business is the plan.

Then use points to upgrade them to business class tickets.

What is the process of this ? As it's the first time i will be doing it i don't really know
how to do it. So worried if i do one step first and the second stage doesn't work then im stuck with
what ever first stage has done.

any suggestions before i ring Qantas for instructions please.

Thanks in Advance .

Tim
 
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What I would personally do is Points + Pay.
What you do will earn base Y status credits.
If you have more than 5k QF FF points, do as I mention above, Points + Pay in J will earn you 80 status credits PER - MEL one way.
Not everyone's cup of tea of course mind you.
Using points to upgrade these days, having paid some disc Y class tickets (not Red E) you have to phone up.
Using all points in J or Points + Pay, you can do it all online.
 
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This method requires basically booking Business class tickets from the beginning correct ?
 
The best method if you don't have any significant status is to first find a flight with U class availability. This is the Qantas business award fare class. Then book the red-e-deal on that flight. Then put in the upgrade request online. With U fare class available the upgrade will/should clear automatically. If it doesn't you need to ring up Qantas to achieve the upgrade.

There is a forum area for help of fare class availability. But you can search for a classic business award on the flight. If a classic business award is available then U fares are available. Try modifying the search to increase the number of seats requirement to give an idea of how many.

Fare availability help desk is here: http://www.australianfrequentflyer....ility-loadings-upgrade-probability-25311.html

I'm also able to do a quick search if you have dates.

What I would personally do is Points + Pay.
What you do will earn base Y status credits.
If you have more than 5k QF FF points, do as I mention above, Points + Pay in J will earn you 80 status credits PER - MEL one way.
Not everyone's cup of tea of course mind you.
Using points to upgrade these days, having paid some disc Y class tickets (not Red E) you have to phone up.
Using all points in J or Points + Pay, you can do it all online.

Points plus pay is mega expensive and only to be used IF status is a requirement. The OP has said nothing about status.

seems more expensive and more use of points this way ?

Exactly. Is status earning an issue for you? If not DO NOT do points plus pay.
 
I don't know about Points + pay. Just buy a Red-E and upgrade (or put in a request) online. No need to phone up that I'm aware of.

But, first ask someone who has an ExpertFlyer subscription (eg. moi) to check for U class availability when you want to fly. That way, you know in advance that UPGs to J are available. How flexible are you?

If there's no U, you can put in a request online and hope but it will possibly be status-dependent. What is your status?

My brother is PS (Pleb Silver), bought a RED-E for himself and SWMBO a few weeks ago for SYD-PER in early March, put in UPG requests online at time of booking. Success on Monday.
 
I don't know about Points + pay. Just buy a Red-E and upgrade (or put in a request) online. No need to phone up that I'm aware of.

There have been a few recent reports, and I have experienced this, of an error in the online system and Upgrades are rejected even with U availability. These have been able to be processed by calling up. I'm not sure if this is still the case but if there is U and the online upgrade doesn't work the next step is to call Qantas, rather than wait and try again.
 
+1 on avoiding points+pay, specially if not too many points in the bank to begin with. it's mucho expensive (points wise) and the paid J fares ex-PER are pretty high.. maybe consider during a domestic J sale (like the one that just finished, but even then the fare was not that great IIRC). If oodles of points then I guess it's an option, but I'm thinking the OP probably doesn't have that luxury.

Agree with finding U on a flight and buying the fare and putting in the request, all of which is easily dont online from manage booking the "upgrade" button is nice and big :)
 
Thanks guy that helps,

I just dont' want to book economy and then get denied on business upgrades and be stuck with the econ tickets with no upgrade.

be nice to do it all in one sweep and grantee and book the seats all in one go .

only having just switched to Qantas from Virgin, I am fresh on the SC, and only sitting on around 80k points

so points wise is enough for upgrades Prth to Melb doing it as an upgrade from what i can see on the charts etc.

about to sign up the lounge access tonight also
 
about to sign up the lounge access tonight also

How do you mean sign up the lounge access?

remembering that if(when :) ) you get your J upgrade you will have lounge access with the J class boarding pass :)
 
I want to book flights soon to Melbourne From Perth.
Would be booking normal Economy Red-E Deals and then upgrade to Business is the plan.

Depending on whether you want to earn Y or J SC and points you have a number of options.

1. You are happy to earn Y SC and Points. You book Y (red E deal) fares and use points to upgrade to J. This will earn SC and points at Y level (20 SC one-way). To do this you make the usual booking for Y Red E deal but first check that the flight has Classic J award seats available. If it does then once the Y booking is ticketed you can go into My Bookings and select Upgrade. From MEL to PER this will cost you 20,000 points one-way. (if you book a Flex Y fare the upgrade cost is only 10,000 points and you earn SC at Y Flex level (40 SC one way). You can then choose your J cabin seats.

If you booked a flight where there was no J Classic award seat available then you have to wait for Qantas to release one or upgrade with points in the Lounge just before your flight. This may not work as the SG, WP and P1s will be ahead of you in the queue.

2. If you want to earn J SC and points you have 2 choices

(a) pay for a J fare with cash or credit card and you are done.
(b) use Points + Pay or book an Any Seat Award in J. The latter two are not good value as far as I am concerned but both will earn SC and Points at the J level.
Either way you will earn 80SC for the one-way flight.

Only you know if you are chasing status or just want the cheapest J seat.

Hope this helps.
 
Booked PER - MEL in May for myself and wife, $205 each plus 20000 points for upgrade. Great value in my book considering J cash fares in excess of $1600.

Booked flight then immediately did upgrade request and almost immediately received confirmation.

Hope this helps OP.
 
Earning SC, I don't think is much of an issue, Especially when only in reference to a single flight.
Most of my flights work related are all Econ, So i will be earning my SC on all those flights. For this
one flight i want to take the wife. I figured I woudl like to use points to upgrade to B/Class,
If i don't earn points or SC on that flight as much or at all isn't an issue. As its
a one off or one every now and then.


I am to much of a Organised and want to be prepared person to be playing a gamble on the day hoping to get an upgrade.
I want to have it booked and in concrete that i have picked my seats.

Sounds like buying econ tickets and upgrading but pre looking to make sure seats are available is my most economical method.
Just bit of home work or phone calls to make sure it comes off, sounds like is needed.

in reference to the lounge. As most of my flights are standard economy, that's where it's handy to have.

Tim
 
Booked PER - MEL in May for myself and wife, $205 each plus 20000 points for upgrade. Great value in my book considering J cash fares in excess of $1600.

Booked flight then immediately did upgrade request and almost immediately received confirmation.

Hope this helps OP.


Excellent thanks mate, That's exactly what i will probably do.

did you do any looking to see that J seats were free before you booked ?
 
Excellent thanks mate, That's exactly what i will probably do.

did you do any looking to see that J seats were free before you booked ?

No I didn't but I did notice that classic award J seats were available so I took a punt based on info that I'd gained from within the AFF forum. The $205 Y seats were booked on sale and I think may have gone back up.

Good luck with it. Post back with how you went.
 
Excellent thanks mate, That's exactly what i will probably do.

did you do any looking to see that J seats were free before you booked ?

It's not free J seats you are looking for; it's U class. J is full Business.

If you post or PM me your dates and desired flights, I'll check whether there's any U.
 
It's not free J seats you are looking for; it's U class. J is full Business.

If you post or PM me your dates and desired flights, I'll check whether there's any U.


Sorry for the silly question. But what is the difference between J and U . So if you upgrade to a U seat I thought business, You still don't get the full business features ?
 
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There are 4 business fare classes used by Qantas. J, D and I are all cash fare classes. U is the business award fare class. All get business services and features. It is just a way of control the price for the business seats on a flight.

Upgrades to business for domestic flights can use the U fare class. If U is available the upgrade will/should process automatically on line.
 
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