Hidden City Award?

[corrad]

Hi folks,

a newbie here. apologize if this may have been discussed before.

I was looking for a J class award SYD - HKG for a certain date, and Qantas is telling me that there are no seats available on QF metal (seat is available on CX). So I decided to play around a bit, and found that if I search for SYD - BKK, the award seat is available on QF #127 between SYD - HKG on the same date (and HKG - BKK on CX). In addition, it would have only cost 56,000 points.

So is this more likely a technical glitch or is Qantas playing with Hidden City Award?

 

[TheInsider]

Qantas (like all airlines) only sell a limited amount of award flights, it is most likely that direct flight has sold out of those avail 'seats'.

 

[samh004]

Welcome to AFF!

Not sure if this would be applicable, but there is also an issue with classic award seats right now having vanished nearly everywhere, it is a glitch though and when it’s fixed the availability might change.

I also know that CX award seats don’t often show up on QF’s systems, so if you were actually looking for a CX flight, you’d have to ring them up usually.

 

[oz_mark]

Hi folks,

a newbie here. apologize if this may have been discussed before.

I was looking for a J class award SYD - HKG for a certain date, and Qantas is telling me that there are no seats available on QF metal (seat is available on CX). So I decided to play around a bit, and found that if I search for SYD - BKK, the award seat is available on QF #127 between SYD - HKG on the same date (and HKG - BKK on CX). In addition, it would have only cost 56,000 points.

Which date is this for?

(and are you sure the QF flight is in J? :shock Look after the selection page, and I am almost willing to wager it is in Y.

(as samh004 noted J awards seem to have vanished at the moment)

 

[TheInsider]

Which date is this for?


(as samh004 noted J awards seem to have vanished at the moment)

Someone on the news.com.au qantas comments section has also mentioned this. Who was it here?!

 

[corrad]

Welcome to AFF!

Not sure if this would be applicable, but there is also an issue with classic award seats right now having vanished nearly everywhere, it is a glitch though and when it’s fixed the availability might change.

I also know that CX award seats don’t often show up on QF’s systems, so if you were actually looking for a CX flight, you’d have to ring them up usually.

I was looking for a QF for SYD - HKG. Wasn't available directly, but is as part of SYD - HKG - BKK

 

[corrad]

Which date is this for?

(and are you sure the QF flight is in J? :shock Look after the selection page, and I am almost willing to wager it is in Y.

(as samh004 noted J awards seem to have vanished at the moment)

Screen shots taken from last night. Didn't try after the selection page.

 

[oz_mark]

I can get that for Tue 26, and QF127 is in Economy

 

[serfty]

Going by the images as posted, that most definitely is "hidden City".

i.e. Business awards are not available on QF127 for SYD-HKG bookings, but are available using that same QF127 on the same date if you wish to travel to BKK.

 

[oz_mark]

Try it. You'll get:

 

[Mal]

Try it. You'll get:

A Qantas "hidden fare class" surprise.

 

[dajop]

Didn't know QF did this, could this be a case of "married segments"'? I know SQ do this for awards (different availability depending on start and end ports of trip) and have been advised of similar when QF agent was having difficulty making a CX booking.

 

[serfty]

AFAIK, "Married Segments" are things like QF9 MEL-LHR availability when compared with that of QF9 MEL-SIN and QF9 SIN-LHR.

I do believe Hidden city is more often used in relation to situations like, say, it's $120 for MEL-SYD but $80 for MEL-xSYD-CBR.

I'll further my research ...

 

[AnonymousCoward]

Didn't know QF did this

Yeah, they do. Either here or FlyerTalk, someone was recently complaining about a J booking to somewhere in the US. The AUS-US leg ended up booking in Y - only the ongoing AA flight was in J (or F)

 

[mosanator]

Yeah I noticed the same thing. I was just playing around looking at CBR - ABZ.

Got what I thought was a J classic award for 82000 points one way. When I went all the way to the review page I found the only leg that was actually J was LHR - ABZ, gee thanks for that 1 hr out of 24 hours!