acampbel
Member
- Joined
- Oct 31, 2005
- Posts
- 351
After all my pontificating I nearly turned to the dark side today, and feel I should purge my soul by telling you all about it.
I was trying to book a trip to Kuala Lumpur and Singapore, so I made a start by checking out the options on Qantas.com before I called up the TA. No dice there as Qantas don't believe that Malaysia exists, so next stop was One World and their funky interactive map
Now this was interesting ....they were showing QF383 SYD-KUL direct but with a few caveats. Time to call 131131 and see what gives - and after being put on hold for 5 minutes I was told that it was a Jetstar codeshare flight that could be joined to a JL flight to Singapore and a QF flight home. I was going to quiz her about meals, IFE, and what Qantas would do if it didn't suit Jetstar to fly on the day, but first things first - the price. I mentally prepared a figure in my mind and was a little taken aback when she tripled it. $3678!!! "Err ..... no thanks", says I and back to the net.
I ran the itinerary through mobs such as statravel.com and got the expect SQ and MH offerings, but on a whim tried aa.com who came up with exactly the same OneWorld itinerary but priced it at 1050USD. "What were Qantas on about?", I thought, and penned an email to the ubiquitous Amex TA who has to do all our flights and lodgings. She could do the OneWorld itinerary for about $1400 (that's better!) but with one fatal problem - she could not access the QF codeshare and would have to book it as Jetstar!!!
That's the point at which I came to my senses and realised I was about to ditch a quality Asian airline for a LCC that was actually going to cost me $300 more. All for the sake of gaining a few miles and some status credits that aren't going to get me to Gold anyway. What was I thinking!?!
So does anyone have advice for a long-time Star Alliance recluse? Worth joining any programs when I am likely to return to One World for all future travel? Any possibility of blagging my way into the SQ lounges at SYD, SIN, KUL? Any sympathy for the fact that I am flying out on the 9th with all the APEC terrorists?
Cheers,
Andrew
.
I was trying to book a trip to Kuala Lumpur and Singapore, so I made a start by checking out the options on Qantas.com before I called up the TA. No dice there as Qantas don't believe that Malaysia exists, so next stop was One World and their funky interactive map
Now this was interesting ....they were showing QF383 SYD-KUL direct but with a few caveats. Time to call 131131 and see what gives - and after being put on hold for 5 minutes I was told that it was a Jetstar codeshare flight that could be joined to a JL flight to Singapore and a QF flight home. I was going to quiz her about meals, IFE, and what Qantas would do if it didn't suit Jetstar to fly on the day, but first things first - the price. I mentally prepared a figure in my mind and was a little taken aback when she tripled it. $3678!!! "Err ..... no thanks", says I and back to the net.
I ran the itinerary through mobs such as statravel.com and got the expect SQ and MH offerings, but on a whim tried aa.com who came up with exactly the same OneWorld itinerary but priced it at 1050USD. "What were Qantas on about?", I thought, and penned an email to the ubiquitous Amex TA who has to do all our flights and lodgings. She could do the OneWorld itinerary for about $1400 (that's better!) but with one fatal problem - she could not access the QF codeshare and would have to book it as Jetstar!!!
That's the point at which I came to my senses and realised I was about to ditch a quality Asian airline for a LCC that was actually going to cost me $300 more. All for the sake of gaining a few miles and some status credits that aren't going to get me to Gold anyway. What was I thinking!?!
So does anyone have advice for a long-time Star Alliance recluse? Worth joining any programs when I am likely to return to One World for all future travel? Any possibility of blagging my way into the SQ lounges at SYD, SIN, KUL? Any sympathy for the fact that I am flying out on the 9th with all the APEC terrorists?
Cheers,
Andrew
.