China Airlines reward seats using Qantas points

[ANstar]

Managed to book my flight to Europe with China Airlines even though the QF call centre said only oneworld partners can be booked with points!

Now... what is the seat and service like? Interested to now given they (and JAL) are some of the only QFF partners releasing J class awards.

 

[jase05]

Managed to book my flight to Europe with China Airlines even though the QF call centre said only oneworld partners can be booked with points!

Now... what is the seat and service like? Interested to now given they (and JAL) are some of the only QFF partners releasing J class awards.

Still haven’t flown with JL but I really do like the CI product. I think the seats are comfortable and always get plenty of sleep. I have found the service friendly and very good even if at times it seems a little clumsy. The food can be hit and miss from my experience but overall I think it’s a really good product

 

[stockmaster]

Question - is anybody able to use the Multi-City tool to locate fares from Taipei to Aus? I'm getting this msg "Taipei (Taoyuan) is not available on the Classic Flight Rewards. Select 'Use money, points or both' to continue."

Searching for rewards seats on the normal flight booking page only shows flights up to Jul 4 - but by searching for a different flight on Multi-City (i.e. NRT to MEL) it shows flights out until Jul 11 on China Airlines..

 

[encryptededdy]

Question - is anybody able to use the Multi-City tool to locate fares from Taipei to Aus? I'm getting this msg "Taipei (Taoyuan) is not available on the Classic Flight Rewards. Select 'Use money, points or both' to continue."

Searching for rewards seats on the normal flight booking page only shows flights up to Jul 4 - but by searching for a different flight on Multi-City (i.e. NRT to MEL) it shows flights out until Jul 11 on China Airlines..

Yeah, AFAIK you cannot book flights originating Taiwan using the multi-city booking system, but the normal booking system doesn't show dates beyond those that Qantas release their own flights.

I feel you used to be able to just search for July 4, tick flexible dates, enable classic rewards only and then scroll beyond, but it looks like this isn't possible anymore.

 

[stockmaster]

Yeah, AFAIK you cannot book flights originating Taiwan using the multi-city booking system, but the normal booking system doesn't show dates beyond those that Qantas release their own flights.

I feel you used to be able to just search for July 4, tick flexible dates, enable classic rewards only and then scroll beyond, but it looks like this isn't possible anymore.

Yep I think you're right - I seem to remember it working in the past, but no longer... A pity as if you're looking to book the flights from TPE to Aus you might miss out if bookings from other destinations get placed before it appears in the bookable window...

 

[jetset]

Just redeemed some flights BNE->LHR next year with China Airlines. Keen to experience the A350

 

[Familyman1]

Just redeemed some flights BNE->LHR next year with China Airlines. Keen to experience the A350

Are you staying in Taipei for more than 24 hrs? A couple of weeks ago when I was trying to book BNE->LHR with China Airlines, it wouldn't work unless I had a stopover in Taipei.

 

[jetset]

Are you staying in Taipei for more than 24 hrs? A couple of weeks ago when I was trying to book BNE->LHR with China Airlines, it wouldn't work unless I had a stopover in Taipei.

No, I booked a through service with connecting flights.

Perhaps the flights you were looking at had fare rules that didn't permit a same-day arrival and departure (transit)?

 

[woodyren]

Just booked 2 x QFF award business class China Airlines tickets. YVR-TPE with a 5 day stopover and then TPE-ICN. May next year. Had a few of the previously mentioned issues with logging into the tickets on the CI website.
Called Qantas and the customer service agent selected our requested seats for both flights. Then after reading the helpful posts on here I was able to use the app and see our tickets and seat displayed.

 

[jetset]

Ohh seat selection. I'm travelling on the A350 in J with a family member. What do you think are the best seats for us? I was thinking two aisle seats

 

[jase05]

Ohh seat selection. I'm travelling on the A350 in J with a family member. What do you think are the best seats for us? I was thinking two aisle seats

I like 12A/K and Mrs Jase will take a seat 1 in front or 1 behind me.
Really though all the window seats are good IMO

 

[jetset]

I like 12A/K and Mrs Jase will take a seat 1 in front or 1 behind me.
Really though all the window seats are good IMO

Ahh ok. I was thinking a pair of D+G might be good if we want to talk.

 

[woodyren]

Our flight is a night flight so we chose the bulkhead seats 10D &10G.

Any issues? I guess there is a chance that we get bumped if there are parents with babies requiring the basinet seats.

 

[jase05]

Ahh ok. I was thinking a pair of D+G might be good if we want to talk.

That’s probably perfect for couples but we are both window seat people and hate the middle seats so always sit apart

 

[aspro2]

I'm going to add a few bits which mostly repeat/confirm what others have said in various posts/threads, but hey, all in one place

I made two J redemptions a few days ago, reasonable value TPE-YVR and then YVR-TPE-MEL. It's really hard to avoid the extremely long daytime layover in TPE because of the waves of longhaul landings (morning) and departures (late evening). If I had been able to position myself better in North America, I'd have gone for LAX-TPE-MEL as it's one of the few short-transit connections. Note that QF might not show the correct final miles until the booking process begins (it showed 175k approx for the longer redemption when searching but then reduced it to the correct 159k ).

Nonetheless, while a stop in TPE is long, Taipei is easily accessible (once the MRT starts! ... arriving from Australia at about 4am is not the best way to start (did that earlier this year, it's 2.5hrs until the MRT opens) and an easy place to explore (though preferably not too actively in hot and sticky summer, which can be April to November if you're unlucky ). You could even spend the day doing a modest hike in various nearby hills/mountains.

The T2 basement CI lounge is rather standard ... small food/beverage selection (the fresh beef noodle soup and a few other items are the modest highlight), not particularly great atmosphere but not terrible (it feels more pleasant than the really packed parts of the new SilverKris SQ lounges at Changi). There are showers. (* See end note about showers)

In the air, J and PE food tends to be fairly good, especially on the non-Western side of the menu. Service is friendly but not very proactive. The cabin aesthetic is really very nice, and seat comfort is excellent as long as you aren't very tall I think. The entertainment range is pretty poor (in all languages), and if you like watching animated movies as a nice way to zone-out in-flight, they're only in low-res and look terrible (and it has been like that since at least 2018). Given I have three longish flights with CI, I'll be taking additional entertainment!

My booking didn't go totally smoothly: one redemption ticketed within minutes, while the longer had done nothing after five hours, so as it was the most important part of my trip, I called QF at midnight and got through to South Africa and they claimed the credit card payment for the YVR-TPE-MEL redemption had been declined (it hadn't, the charge was clearly pending in my account, just like the other one that had been ticketed). There was a bit of discussion about this, and eventually some sort of "manual resubmission" was done and I was told to wait 48 hours and call back if necessary. Thankfully the ticket for that arrived about 15 hours later. Note that I was also told that the auto-cancellation window for unticketed awards on CI was 10 days.

So far it has been impossible to access the bookings for seat selection purposes on the China Airlines website (under Manage>Seats) but as noted by others, access via the app works as long as you include first and middle name (if applicable) together (sometimes without space) in the Given Name field. I have previously been able to use the website as well for other QF redemptions on CI, so we'll see...

(*Showers at T2: 1. in the lounge if you have access, you register at the front desk, and then they come looking for you downstairs when one of the few cubicles becomes available. 2. There are two free shower cubicles in the airside baggage arrivals area, on the far lefthand side. I have no idea how much use they get. 3. There are free showers in airside departures 4F and landside 5F. I've used the former and there was no functional queuing system so it can be a bit irritating (plus I pressed a random button in the shower and then only had cold water therafter ).)

 

[Goaty]

Hi all
I have booked a flight with CI useing Qantas points .BNE-TPE-TPE-ROME with a overnight stop over in Taiwan.. In my excitement of finding the 2nd leg and it actually working I forgot about the fact I would require our luggage after the 1st leg … yes stupid I now … suggestions Anybody as I presume our luggage will be checked through as it’s on one booking …It was also the only way to snag the 2 nd leg due to the website not allowing Taipei to Rome booked on its own…I have also read it’s difficult booking seat requests .. I have got the CI app and it still doesn’t acknowledge the E ticket or the Qantas booking number .. Thanks if anyone could answer

 

[aspro2]

I have also read it’s difficult booking seat requests .. I have got the CI app and it still doesn’t acknowledge the E ticket or the Qantas booking number .. Thanks if anyone could answer

See my post paragraph above regarding seat reservation. It's usually not hard to *do*, just hard to log in! .

Other AFF members can hopefully advise re your luggage.

 

[Goaty]

See my post paragraph above regarding seat reservation. It's usually not hard to *do*, just hard to log in! .

Other AFF members can hopefully advise re your luggage.

Thanks Aspro.. I read your post so which prompted me to get the App.. I will continue to try it otherwise it is going to be something stronger than Aspro !

 

[celsioraus]

My father is flying on CI0075 from Taipei to Rome now in J after being on a cancelled J Finnair flight in HK, finnair rebooked him flying EVA air to Taipei and CI onto rome.

 

[BriarFlyer]

I have the app and, thanks to all the posts re using FirstnameMiddlename, had no issues with bringing up the QF reservation. I can see SEAT with a pencil, presumably for editing, for each passenger but when I click on that I get a "deserializing error". Am I doing this correctly or missing a vital step in the process? Tried emailing the local CI office and was told that QF bookings can't select seats.