Hawaii holiday

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edwinaw

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Have being reading posts on this board for some time now and gained some valuable information. Thanks for sharing. I wanted to go to Hawaii for a couple of weeks sometime in the second half of the year. Managed to get two F/F J class tickets on 5/10 but could not get a return in J class until 28/11 so just booked the outward leg. As much as I would like to stay for that long.... I am now trying to figure out the best way to get back. My thoughts are , book return in economy and then apply for an upgrade again using my points. I am Gold status so I would ask for exit row seats (in case we are stuck with them) . We would be flexible with coming back probably on a Thursday but as there are only 3 flights a week I imagine they might always be full. These days I really don't want to fly any more than 3 hours in cattle class. Do any of you flying gurus have any pointers?
 
If you can get an award flight back on the 28/11, why not change your outbound date to another day ; e.g. QF3 has 2 award business class seats available on 9/11 and 16/11 which gives 12 or 19 days

Another option would be to purchase a ticket back, but I suspect that that will cost more than buying a r/t from Sydney.e.g. A OW from HNL-SYD costs AUD1123 plus taxes and fuel fines, whilst a RT SYD-HNL costs AUD916 plus taxes and fines. Personally, rather than buy the OW, I would purchase a r/t and try for an upgrade each way; saves points and dollars

Do be aware that as a lowly gold member , you cannot pre-reserve exit row seats on the flights, that benefit is restricted to Platinum / CL members

Dave
 
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Thanks Dave for your almost instant reply. The Qantas site is still down so I rang them to see about th seats you mentioned. The girl said that there was only availability in economy on the 16/11 and only one ticket left in J on the return journey on the 28th. Bugger! When I looked the other day the return fare in economy was something like $894 but this must have been an internet only fare as the Qantas girl quoted $1200. I was also disappointed to learn that the Gold status can't even get you an exit row seat. :cry: You work so hard to get those status points. Thanks for your help.
 
edwinaw said:
Thanks Dave for your almost instant reply.

No worries

edwinaw said:
The Qantas site is still down so I rang them to see about th seats you mentioned. The girl said that there was only availability in economy on the 16/11 and only one ticket left in J on the return journey on the 28th.

It isn't down; I looked on there to find the availabilities I mentioned

edwinaw said:
Bugger! When I looked the other day the return fare in economy was something like $894 but this must have been an internet only fare as the Qantas girl quoted $1200. I was also disappointed to learn that the Gold status can't even get you an exit row seat. :cry: You work so hard to get those status points. Thanks for your help.

The lowest published fare is $916 + taxes r/t which is what the QF site is quoting ( 916 plus 151.18 taxes and $165 fuel fines )... btw, for any potential candy thieves, this fare ( if booked on the AA codeshare from AA in V class will complete a Platinum Candy Thief challenge )

Checking again at 13:22 , I can get 2 J seats on the award booking website on the 16th

Coming back, I can find 2 seats 20th in economy on FJ, 21st,23rd,25th and 28th in Y on QF.

Since there is 1J seat available on the 28th, you could book 1J and 1Y award for the trip back and then check closer to the date to see if any more seats open up and just pay the change fee.

Dave
 
Another option is to take an economy reward seat that is available now on the date you want. This is easy now that awards are all one-way flights.

Then keep watching (use a tool like FrequentFlyerFriend or manually through ExpertFlyer or KVS or the QF web site) for business class seats to become available. Then pay the 5000 point penalty to have them changed later. So it will cost you a total of 10,000 points more, and there is no guarantee that the business class seats will appear, but at least you know you have a return seat booked.

Note that FF award seat availability changes, especially close to the flight date. Keep ehceking even after arriving into HNL and even as close as the day before the return flight. Last minute availability is common.
 
Thanks both for the valuable information. This is almost like a full time job. Last year we had 7 week around the world with 10 flights in all. One ticket paid for J and one FF ticket. It seemed so much easier to organise that than this pitsy little trip to Hawaii! Still I must admit I love it.
 
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