Here's a good option for F travel from EU to AUS via Asia

[Croupier]

Just a heads up to let people know that I was able to price out a single F award with 80'000 AA miles from Europe to Australia via Asia 1 and 2.

CX FRA-HKG HKG-HND, JL NRT-SYD.
I was surprised that it priced out OK with a 4th region.
80'000 miles and approximately $160 AUD in taxes.

I probably could have found a JL direct to Tokyo from EU but I really want to try CX in F and their Cabanas in their F lounge in HK.

 

[Princess Fiona]

Nice work

 

[Dr Ralph]

Total travel time?

 

[Croupier]

Depart
Frankfurt to Sydney
Saturday, March 5, 2016
288 Cathay Pacific Airways
12:50 PM
FRA
arr
6:50 AM
HKG
Travel time
11h 0m
Aircraft
77W
Cabin
First
Seats
— —
Inflight — —
542 Cathay Pacific Airways
4:20 PM
HKG
arr
9:05 PM
HND
Travel time
3h 45m
Aircraft
744
Cabin
First
Seats
— —
Inflight — —
771 Japan Airlines
7:30 PM
NRT
arrow
7:15 AM
SYD
Travel time
9h 45m
Aircraft
773
Cabin
First
Seats
— —
Inflight

24hrs flying and 19 in transit.
Fine for me in F but no way would I do it in economy.
We could have shaved more time off if we didn't want to experience the CX lounge or have a night in Tokyo.

For us it's more the First Class experience rather than getting from point A to B

 

[Isochronous]

This must have been done over the phone since the AA engine doesn't show CX flights

 

[vantage03]

Nice find. CX lounge is nice but you only need 30min in a cabana. You can't take alcohol in there FYI..!

 

[jarradbrown]

I've been looking for similar routing mid 2016 but it appears that there is no JAL F after March 25th 2016 into Syd.

How did you find the CX availability?

 

[Croupier]

Nice find. CX lounge is nice but you only need 30min in a cabana. You can't take alcohol in there FYI..!

I'm definitely going to have a long bath and make use of the pressing service , probably be a bit to early for drinking but hey champagne breakfast
Will probably take the MRT into the city to catch up with friends for yum cha.
I would have loved to do a layover but the early arrival kills the chance of a > 24hr stop.

I've been looking for similar routing mid 2016 but it appears that there is no JAL F after March 25th 2016 into Syd.

How did you find the CX availability?

I used the BA award search website, Qantas is just to slow, clunky and non user friendly.

 

[jarradbrown]

Thanks. I'll check it out.

 

[MEL_Traveller]

I'm definitely going to have a long bath and make use of the pressing service , probably be a bit to early for drinking but hey champagne breakfast 
Will probably take the MRT into the city to catch up with friends for yum cha.
I would have loved to do a layover but the early arrival kills the chance of a > 24hr stop.

Just beware if you are going to use the air-side lounge before heading into Hong Kong, while it's still possible at the moment, it is somewhat frowned upon as it takes up staff time. Without a good reason it's not a guaranteed service (the other option being to use the arrivals lounge).

 

[Franky]

I used the BA award search website, Qantas is just to slow, clunky and non user friendly.[/QUOTE]

Hear, hear to the last line...

 

[Spizz]

I used the BA award search website, Qantas is just to slow, clunky and non user friendly.

Hear, hear to the last line...[/QUOTE]

Just signed up to use the BA engine and I must be doing something wrong as it only shows a day at a time availability for me with me having to click on the next day to see availability on non BA flights, whereas Qantas can show an entire month.

 

[MEL_Traveller]

Hear, hear to the last line...

Just signed up to use the BA engine and I must be doing something wrong as it only shows a day at a time availability for me with me having to click on the next day to see availability on non BA flights, whereas Qantas can show an entire month.[/QUOTE]

That's about right for the BA tool. If there are any non-BA flights available, they should show under the BA ones (or lack of them).

The benefit of the BA tool is that you don't have to constantly select each additional class of service every time you change your search (they will all display), and it's easy to enter in the origin and destination (you don't get a message saying 'no cities match your search, do you want to select award booking partners'). And you don't get any '!' messages where 99% of the flight is in economy, but the hop from DXB-DOH happens to be in First class. And the BA tool shows a lot more airlines. Not limited to QF/CX/AA.

The downside is that it only displays 7 days at a time. Although that is fairly quick to move between, or do a new search.

 

[Spizz]

Thanks MEL_Traveller. Interesting that the BA availability is showing more than what is show on the QF website. Might have to call QF to see if they can see the same availability over the phone.

 

[MEL_Traveller]

Thanks MEL_Traveller. Interesting that the BA availability is showing more than what is show on the QF website. Might have to call QF to see if they can see the same availability over the phone.

Theoretically every OW airline has award availability - most programs only show a selection of partners, but some have a lot more than others. QF doesn't show Finnair on line for example, and there can sometimes be ok availability out of Aisa in business class. You can only find that out by calling QF.

 

[Croupier]

The AA award booking site is a good option for searching Finnair availability if needed.

 

[_TheTraveller_]

I'm really surprised they actually let you do that.. I thought they would have asked you to take the most direct routing. Did you take them step by step for the routing?

 

[Croupier]

I'm really surprised they actually let you do that.. I thought they would have asked you to take the most direct routing. Did you take them step by step for the routing?

My original booking booking was for 70k miles FRA-HKG-HND I had a Qantas award from NRT-SYD for 114K Qantas points, so I cancelled the QF award and added the same flight and class to my AA award for 10K extra.
But yeah the AA agent had to cancel the whole first itinerary and redo it with all the flights spoon fed to him.

 

[ecst]

Nice work! I previously found the queue for the cabanas a bit of hit-and-miss, with the lines thinning out in the afternoon. However the dim sum is only available in the morning so might be worth waiting it out with food in hand

 

[Croupier]

Nice work! I previously found the queue for the cabanas a bit of hit-and-miss, with the lines thinning out in the afternoon. However the dim sum is only available in the morning so might be worth waiting it out with food in hand

I'm sure I'll be impressed as the best I've ever done is the small Qantas Business Class lounge in BKK