re: Has anyone had success with the call-up method for "Marginal" xASA's?
I've been saving my points for a while to take my wife and kids to HKG for a holiday (only in Y unfortunately ...).
The dates I am after will open up shortly, so I did a dummy booking for the School holidays leading up to the ones I am after ...
Cash - $3200
Classic - 240,000 points + $1387
Points + Pay - 240,000 points + $1380 (this looks very much like an ASA at classic rate!)
I then rang the "special" number, apologised for taking their time and explained I was doing a dummy booking to see what it was going to cost me in a couple of weeks when the seats I wanted opened up.
Interesting fact #1 ... the operator has to put in dummy names and go through to the final booking step to see the cost
Interesting fact #2 ... the operator needed my PIN number, so I'm guessing they are logging into our accounts and going to the old booking engine which is hidden from us
Then she came back with the price (I asked for it at the 60K points per person rate to make comparisons easy) ... 240,000 points + $1964
I thanked her and hung up ... I am totally confused, might as well just book a the points plus pay rate online, which is cheaper!
I also have one final comparison to add to the mix:
Booking the flights by redeeming Qantas travel vouchers and paying for a retail fare with the same cash component of $1380:
voucher value required = $3200 - $1380 = $1,820
Vouchers are 13,500 points per $100 = 243,000 points
So total cost would be 243,000 + $1400 or almost exactly the same as points + pay