Is there a change with the time QF awards are loaded?

[sanne]

I have been trying unsuccessfully to get 2 J awards back from Barcelona or London next Oct 17.

I discovered it's school holidays so that seems to be the problem. But what is interesting is that QF no longer seems to load the awards at 10am Brisbane time. When I checked this morning at 6 am and again at 11am the results were the same. I looked again at 4 pm, still the same date as 6 am this morning. Has anyone else noticed this?

I am am trying to get the 2 J awards on 4th Oct 17. If anyone can help with suggestions I'd be very grateful. I have the flights to LHR and am trying to do this on a one world 280000 award which I managed to successfully do this year thanks to all the help and advise on this site.

 

[madrooster]

Generally, F/J is only released to golds and above at midnight GMT these days. What's leftover is then made visible to bronze/silver members a few weeks later.

I'd recommend looking at using CX, BA or QR and lock something in as what you're after on QF may not eventuate unless you have status.

 

[sanne]

Sorry I should have mentioned that we are Gold QF. And having booked many long haul flights to Europe and the US over many years I have never had the problem I'm having now. I am looking at BA and CX as QF is just not happening. QR doesn't seem to be available either. We live near BNE.

When did the time change from 10 am to midnight. I haven't seen it mentioned here, maybe I've missed it.

 

[Aus ATC]

When did the time change from 10 am to midnight. I haven't seen it mentioned here, maybe I've missed it.

Midnight GMT/UTC is 10am BNE time. So no change on that front.

 

[ozbeachbabe]

I signed up for JAL Mileagebank for the ability to search for CX award seats which you can't do on Expert Flyer. This (JL MB) site will actually tell you how many 'U' class seats are available so once you find a flight that has two or more seats you can then go to the QF site to do the booking.

 

[sanne]

I signed up for JAL Mileagebank for the ability to search for CX award seats which you can't do on Expert Flyer. This (JL MB) site will actually tell you how many 'U' class seats are available so once you find a flight that has two or more seats you can then go to the QF site to do the booking.

There seems no problem with searching for award CX flights on QF web site, trouble is there are non available on the days that I need to book.

The other issue is that whereas Qantas used to load the new awards at 10am Brisbane time it appears to be loading them earlier than 6am which is when I have first looked in the morning. i.e. at 10 pm last night 4th Oct 17 was showing, this morning at 6am 5 Oct is showing. I was asking if anyone else had seen this as I used to log in at 10am and get first pick at the new award flights that were loaded. I'm hoping this is just a glitch and not permanent.

 

[sdhog2002]

Having a similar problem. I am WP and have onward flights ending in DXB in October 2017. Looking for 2J seats DXB - MEL. They just don't seem to be appearing and when I phone to put in a request I get a different story from each customer service agent I speak to, varying from "that day's not loaded yet, try again tomorrow" to "they are taken already" (D-352/3) and "you won't get a reward seat" to "there is a delay in them being loaded, try regularly". Today's answer was "we are having issues with the system, phone back in two days". There is good availability MEL DXB at the time. I have been told that flights are not loaded at a particular time.

There is a 26 page thread about a similar issue (the putting up of award flights for non-high status QFF members) which was started earlier in the year but unfortunately there does not appear to be any way to get an accurate answer as to award seat availability.

 

[BriarFlyer]

A month or so back I was checking for reward availability many times a day, trying to work out when each new day's LHR-SYD loaded into the calendar. My research indicated early hours of the morning as well -- as in, not available midnight, available first attempt in the morning. I did ask a rep, when I called about something else, and was told "after midnight" which I took to mean our time. Despite my vigilance, I couldn't find any availability and ended up booking with SQ.

 

[sanne]

I am relieved that it wasn't just me. Things have definitely changed. I was not able to get any award J flights back to Australia from Europe within a few days of needing them so have had to cancelled my outbound booking as no point if I can't get a return. Very disappointing, never had this happen before.

I will be WP at the end of this month so will be interesting for me to see if I get more options next time I book J awards.

 

[BriarFlyer]

Sorry to hear you've had to cancel. I was searching for September/October dates, while trying to avoid school holidays in case that influenced availability. No trouble finding options ex-SYD but the return was not so easy. From memory, the only option was EK 2-stop (via BKK) which only showed by doing a multi-city search LHR-DXB and then DXB-SYD. Found a better date/time/transit option with SQ and was thankful I had enough VA points.

 

[serfty]

I most recently looked mid October and seats were still appearing for my WP QFF account after 11am DS time in MEL 353 days out - they were not showin 2 minutes before.

These seats are not showing on Expert Flyer - so I presume the availability was for Statused PAX.

 

[sdhog2002]

Yes, serfty, I have also been checking on a daily basis and no QF10 J seats come up at all, hence my calling the premium desk (I'm WP too) on a daily basis since D-353 with no luck. Interesting that there is a huge gap in Y availability too in the first half of October. Cannot figure what that period indicates with regards peak demand.

 

[trippin_the_rift]

Yes, serfty, I have also been checking on a daily basis and no QF10 J seats come up at all, hence my calling the premium desk (I'm WP too) on a daily basis since D-353 with no luck. Interesting that there is a huge gap in Y availability too in the first half of October. Cannot figure what that period indicates with regards peak demand.

Seats may well appear, but they can disappear quickly too.
There are services out there which are excellent at sniping seats the second they become available.

Essentially award seats are a distribution channel for the airline to sell seats. If the airline thinks they'll sell the seat - no reason to listed it on QFF inventory at a discounted rate!

 

[serfty]

Yes, serfty, I have also been checking on a daily basis and no QF10 J seats come up at all, hence my calling the premium desk (I'm WP too) on a daily basis since D-353 with no luck. Interesting that there is a huge gap in Y availability too in the first half of October. Cannot figure what that period indicates with regards peak demand.

The 353 is a hard figure - I presume enforced by Amadeus. Once upon a time there was a way to see availability on E/F at up to 356 days (blocked these days) but they could not be booked.

If the reward bucket has not been loaded at 353 then that is what is being seen.

I will review my searching methods to look for patterns as what these posts indicate qantas are doing things differently.

 

[tgh]

I have just completed a J ret booking bne>jfk.
There were glitches for both inbound and outbound target dates, outbound had been listing every day until my target day and just..stopped.. for days.
So I booked out a day early
Return target day 5 weeks later and there are no seats , well there were no seats jfk>Lax , lax>bne was fine.
Target day +1 and no seats released so booked a day earlier ok.

It's all a lottery, Gold status is imperative , Silvers and bronzes are nowhere and the challenge of locking in fly days a year out is a primary pita.
Add to all this the annoyance of point gathering with increasingly parsimonious card providers and it's a miss for me in the future.