Can't find one direct premium economy or business award flight sydney to LA or SCL

[brettepi]

Hi there.

Can you tell me why when i search 11-12 months out, i can not find a single premium economy or business class flight direct to LA or Santiago from Sydney with qantas? It seems as though all the time they are making less and less available to the point where the points are useless unless you are prepared to use them for economy flights.

 

[Happy Dude]

Re: Can't find one direct premium economy or business class flight sydney to lA or sa

Yep reward availability stinks on QFi and yep QF points are pretty useless, marginally less so if you have status. Alternatives are also becoming more and more like QF unfortunately.

 

[Spongbob]

Re: Can't find one direct premium economy or business class flight sydney to lA or sa

Your QFF status could be an issue (the higher the more seats open to you), and/or the inflexibility of your preferred travel dates could also be a reason.

 

[NM]

Re: Can't find one direct premium economy or business class flight sydney to lA or sa

[Mod Hat]
Note I have updated the thread title to indicate this is in reference to award redemptions, and moved to Qantas FF forum.
[/Mod Hat]

 

[RichardMEL]

Re: Can't find one direct premium economy or business class flight sydney to lA or sa

You may want to look to see if there's anything on the newly announced LA MEL-SCL route that will run from October year IIRC.

 

[bismarck]

Re: Can't find one direct premium economy or business class flight sydney to lA or sa

Availability does seem quite poor, even searching as WP.

I check this route reasonably regularly and it seems worse than usual so I'd suggest maybe they haven't released any yet. They may be contemplating changes to the route so are holding back award seats.

 

[Quickstatus]

Re: Can't find one direct premium economy or business class flight sydney to lA or sa

Yep reward availability stinks on QFi and yep QF points are pretty useless, marginally less so if you have status. Alternatives are also becoming more and more like QF unfortunately.

And on the competition the award availability is also very poor. QF Status improves it slightly. VA status does not improve availability


About to embark on a 4 passenger 1J 1P, 2U flight to LAX.

P= First award
U = Bizzo award.
J = revenue bizzo

 

[bsb]

Re: Can't find one direct premium economy or business class flight sydney to lA or sa

You may want to look to see if there's anything on the newly announced LA MEL-SCL route that will run from October year IIRC.

good luck redeeming anything on LATAM

 

[bsb]

Re: Can't find one direct premium economy or business award flight sydney to LA or SC

I've never had a problem redeeming on QF but admittedly I'm WP and I've been flexible within a weeks window. I even got 2 J RTW tix with 7 months notice - over (this) XMAS as well.

I've also had to request a second domestic J (partner) reward to BME that wasn't immediately available and got excellent service and in the end, got what I needed.

It pays to be very polite to these people as they (in my experience) really want to help and it must be nicer to deal with polite and grateful people. But it also pays to know what you want and need.

 

[wandersen]

Re: Can't find one direct premium economy or business award flight sydney to LA or SC

Have you tried calling? I don't think Latam flights show online for QF. If you search using BA's tool, you can see J rewards from SYD to SCL most days after about 330 days out. That's the same inventory that QF has access to.

 

[ozflier]

Re: Can't find one direct premium economy or business award flight sydney to LA or SC

I had more luck getting a QF award to AKL and then LAN onto SCL.

 

[ozflier]

Re: Can't find one direct premium economy or business class flight sydney to lA or sa

good luck redeeming anything on LATAM

LATAM is different to a lot of OW carriers in releasing award seats.
Some , eg SCL to Easter Island , are released some 7 months in advance, last for 2-3 days, and then disappear for ever.
The old TAM routes seem to come up much closer to departure date.
SCL-BA never seemed to come up for me anytime.
I never found a set date ahead of the desired date of departure for LATAM.
One reason may be that LATAM constantly change their schedule.
Having said that , the LAN 787s are brilliant in business class.

The previous poster was correct, BAEC is the best way to find availability.

 

[ComeFlyWithMe]

Re: Can't find one direct premium economy or business award flight sydney to LA or SC

We snared some SYD-SCL seats around Easter next year but that was back in July/August I think. 2 x W and 1 x J award return, and I bought a sale J fare for me to get the SCs. I had to request the return J award seat as only W was available at that time. The J sale at $4100 was pretty good value IMHO.

 

[Dr Ralph]

Re: Can't find one direct premium economy or business award flight sydney to LA or SC

brettepi I can see multiple flights available in Dec 2017. Suggest you look again or call Qantas direct.