Family of 4 booking with half the points

[Sallyanna]

testing

 

[RB]

Looks like it worked . Welcome to the forum

 

[Sallyanna]

Hi everyone

It's my first time booking a frequent flyer booking and I have a few questions.
We are a family of 4 (two adults, 2 children). We will only have enough points to book 2 adults in economy to USA return (multi city see below) from Australia leaving in October 2019.

Obviously we will need to pay for the two children's tickets age 10. We are going on Fiji Airways.
How do I make sure all the family are on the same plane all sitting together when I need to do two separate bookings (one classic rewards freq. flyer for x2 adults and one for the two children without freq. flyer points.

If I ring the freq. flyer for assistance I thought they take some of your points (Qantas)

Once again I'm new to this and have always booked airtickets with cash together .

We will be booking under the multi city as going from Australia to USA via Honolulu and Fiji .

Australia-Fiji (six hour layover)
Fiji- Honolulu (one week there)
Honolulu- LA (one month there)
Return:
LA-Fiji (layover)
Fiji-Australia

Thanks for your help
Sallyanna

 

[odysseus]

When the bookings are made you can contact Fiji airways customer service to link them. That said, booking children alone will be difficult as they are minors and it's also international so it's quite likely you'll need to call to make their booking rather than just booking them online separately. Thus, there may be a fee for that i.e. for the booking itself, not just for linking them. It may be better to book one adult and one child rewards and one cash to work around this assuming cost is the same.

Once all bookings are made i.e. I'd suggest booking FF first, you can call customer service to reserve seats in line with Fiji's seat reservation policy.

 

[harvyk]

My advice, save your points, wait for a sale fare. Economy bookings are really bad value for points (as they will still charge you "fees and taxes"), and some of the sale fares that airlines offer are incredible, especially when you factor kids into the mix.

I take my family OS every so often (family of 2 adults 4 kids), and I'd never do it with points. Instead I keep an eye out on those "book by midnight" type sale fares which QF emails around. Make some dummy bookings online so you know roughly how much it'll cost, and then as soon as you next see a "book by midnight" email, start putting in those dates and flight combinations.

 

[Buzzard]

Hi @Sallyanna, exactly what @harvyk said but to add you could contact one of the AFF travel agents and talk prices. They might even be able to let you know when something comes up. Just be loyal to the TA.

 

[Quickstatus]

Save your points. I try never book economy (Y) with points. Remember you still have to pay the taxes and surcharges in cash. (Don’t pay taxes and surcharges with points either).

 

[andye]

I do try to redeem for premium but as someone who has been points-rich and cash-poor, economy does sometimes make sense. This is particularly the case during school holidays when flights are likely to be expensive-of course there aren't many award seats around at that time either so you need to get in early. Airlines with low taxes are of course better (Eg VA for now).
The other aspect is that many families only go on holiday together and it can be v tough to find over 2 award flights in premium (Cathay used to be good but has become less so)

 

[Sallyanna]

Thank you for your quick responses.

I agree with andye that I'm points rich and cash poor so I need to use the points as we don't go away every year O/S. Also we are restricted with the month we can travel and need to organise this to give notice to work and get someone to look after our pets. I agree points are better value business or above class but being a bronze member flying to the USA doesn't give out many point seats so I have to unfortunately go Economy class.

 

[harvyk]

Thank you for your quick responses.

I agree with andye that I'm points rich and cash poor so I need to use the points as we don't go away every year O/S. Also we are restricted with the month we can travel and need to organise this to give notice to work and get someone to look after our pets. I agree points are better value business or above class but being a bronze member flying to the USA doesn't give out many point seats so I have to unfortunately go Economy class.

I have all the same problems, finding sale fares is still the cheapst by a long shot.

My normal saving sits around $2000 - $3000 off normal prices. Only real catch is when the sale is released you need to act immediately.

 

[MEL_Traveller]

Thank you for your quick responses.

I agree with andye that I'm points rich and cash poor so I need to use the points as we don't go away every year O/S. Also we are restricted with the month we can travel and need to organise this to give notice to work and get someone to look after our pets. I agree points are better value business or above class but being a bronze member flying to the USA doesn't give out many point seats so I have to unfortunately go Economy class.

It will be interesting to see the cost of the child fares compared to the taxes fees and charges levied on the adult fares, and the cost saving through using points! Let us know how you go

 

[jetpack]

I think points are ok value in this instance because FJ has low or no fuel surcharges. I would also guess that cash fares would be higher than usual because it will be a mixed FJ/AA itinerary.

Back to the original question, I think it's unavoidable to have two separate bookings. If you can't allocate all 4 seats together in advance for whatever reason then the worst case is you get 2 x 2 seats. One parent can sit with one child.

 

[Sallyanna]

Maybe I may have to leave the points and get a sale airfare because it is cheaper to get sale deals. Who has used web jet for their airfare deals? If so are they any good?.
Could you recommend other sites for good airfares to the US

How about using these points on car rental in the US? I don't want to keep paying out cash for everything when we have points to use.

We have decided to bypass Honolulu so it would be a straight return fare from Sydney to LA for the four of us.

Thanks again for all your advice

 

[MEL_Traveller]

Maybe I may have to leave the points and get a sale airfare because it is cheaper to get sale deals. Who has used web jet for their airfare deals? If so are they any good?.
Could you recommend other sites for good airfares to the US

How about using these points on car rental in the US? I don't want to keep paying out cash for everything when we have points to use.

We have decided to bypass Honolulu so it would be a straight return fare from Sydney to LA for the four of us.

Thanks again for all your advice

You need to look at the points + any carrier charges vs the outright airfare. Sometimes the fees and charges can be $500-600 a ticket. And economy calss can be as little as $800. So for $300 you might be gaining a lot more flexibility (for example the dates you want, no issues finding four awards seats on a flight together, and possibly better and quicker flights). But it all comes down to the math.

Don't know about using points for cars. Maybe look at hotels. But again, it's the cost you pay for those vs the points required. Car hire in the US can be as little as $20 a day. Hotels are more expensive for something decent.

Webjet - they are good for finding cheap flights but I would NEVER book through them. The price they show you does not include all the extras they charge such as a 'fare lock' guarantee and 'booking charge'. This can add a lot of money on to the price they show. Friends last year got stung buying tickets through webjet that was the same price as buying through Lufthansa direct... BUT the webjet ticket didn't include baggage! If they had booked through lufthansa they would have got luggage for free ($40 Aussie it cost them at the airport), and avoided the extra $60 in webjet booking fees. A very expensive lesson for a one hour flight

If you find a good fare on webjet you can go to any other agency or to the airline direct and book there. Without all the fees added on. A 'fare lock' supposedly protects you if the fare you see on webjet is no longer available between you seeing it and paying for it (all of one minute). I can't see any advantage of this. Just go to a site that sells tickets in real time (lie the airline direct).

Skyscanner is another good resource to find cheap tickets.

 

[Haplo]

I would recommend you to continue to save up the points with aim to redeem them for higher value. Even domestic economy during christmas represents great redemption value which should not be overlooked.

 

[Bell21]

Sallyanna, I'm not sure if my input will add much to the advice you've already received above, but it's basically a 'points value' decision, as well as how using points impacts cost of overall holiday. we (2 adults, 4 kids) are going syd-nadi-hnl-(via nadi)melb-syd at xmas, and we are travelling Fiji airways. We did syd-nadi as paid flights because you can generally get cheap flights, as well as melb-syd (virgin actually), but used Qantas Points for nadi-hnl-melb (4 in economy, 2 in business) --- I was new to points at the time of booking, but the points value was decent, partly because of 2 in business, partly because of Xmas fare costs and mostly because taxes and charges on Fiji are very low --- eg we routed back through Melbourne on Fiji to see friends and family rather than direct Qantas flight to Sydney, as it saved $2500 in taxes.

I respect the views re sales fares but I wasn't confident I'd find them at xmas but you may well in October.

Other tip is once booking made through Qantas is to go to Fiji airways website and book seats there when seating opens

 

[Bell21]

Ps I just noticed you're now probably only looking at syd-la return - last Dec, Qantas ran a '50 per cent Point discount' sale which can make economy flights to US better value (I can't recall how far ahead you could book flights but if you check pointhacks.com.au for relevant article it should give you that info as well as history of similar deals) - something to possibly wait for if looking at Oct 19

 

[offshore171]

Rather than pay for the child seats both ways, book all 4 seats with points in one direction.

Pay for 4 seats in the other direction.

That way everyone is together.

We did precisely this recently.

 

[Quickstatus]

Good point @offshore171
HNL is one of those QF/JQ destination where a one way ticket is priced like a domestic one way and not more than a return ticket.

And similarly HNL to USA can be bought a 2 x one ways

 

[ozbeachbabe]

Rather than pay for the child seats both ways, book all 4 seats with points in one direction.

Pay for 4 seats in the other direction.

That way everyone is together.

We did precisely this recently.

It may work for JQ destinations eg HNL however a lot of the time a one way fare USA to Australia would be more that a return fare in AUD ex AU.

A one way points ticket on QF ex AU will have a cheaper co-payment for the extras than a one way points on on QF ex USA - in fact a lot of one way award ticket ex USA have a co-payment higher than a return award ticket ex AU.

Personally I would second Odysseus' about paying for 1 adult and one child as a paid ticket then one adult and one child as an award ticket but again like others have said compare a sale airfare ex AU return to the USA versus an award ticket and there probably won't be too much difference.
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