Issue with booking internal USA domestic flights through qantas

[muzza]

Hi everyone, first post in ages so please go easy. Travelling to the USA next year and flights include internal USA domestic flights (Louisville - Miami 07/05/2020, Miami - Las Vegas 16/05/2020). I know AA has direct flights for these, as I can see them on the AA website. But when I try to find them through the Qantas website, the city pairings dont work (ie when I put in Louisville as the origin, it wont let me add Miami as the destination, and likewise with Miami as the origin and las vegas as the destination). It is also giving me an error when I try to put them in a multi city booking with my flights from / to Australia (Brisbane - Dallas 19/04/2020, Louisville - Miami 07/05/2020, Miami - Las Vegas 16/05/2020, Las Vegas - Brisbane 19/05/2020. Does anyone know why this might be? Previously booking the internal domestic flights through Qantas as part of a multi-city gives me free checked luggage, so keen to do it this way again. Thanks in advice, and as this is my first post in ages apologies if this is the wrong spot / terminology.

 

[harvyk]

The QF website only books certain AA flights, typically ones which they have code shares on. The call center can book you onto any AA flight (much like a TA can), but you typically need to ask them to expand their search beyond QF code shares.

You could do an open jaw ticket which does BNE-DFW and then LAS-xLAX-BNE on QF and book the internal's directly with AA. If you have OW status then you'll still get your free checked bags as your QFF number will get you OW? status even if not booked directly with QF.

 

[FrankP]

Agreed the QF website actually isn’t so great at showing all available options. Last trip I was CBR-CLT and back, QF insisted i go via LAX. Which I absolutely didn’t want to do and knew from AA website that better times were had via DFW (my preferred option). But I was also worried about times and seats so I booked flexible economy, secured the bookings then rang straight away and got QF to re-book 5 of 6 flights onto the flights I wanted via DFW, keeping the AA legs under QF flight nbr. All luggage was fine with no re-checking needed, DSC was retained. Yes would’ve been nice to not have to pay extra to get fully flexible, and I had to muck around on the phone more than I’d like, maybe I could’ve done better there? But I got the exact flights+locations I wanted and it made the trip HEAPS easier so I accepted the extra cost. I’m actually pondering whether I’d have been better with an agent in the first place. A bit of advice, I’ll allow more time at DFW next time. AA massively overbooked their flights, I got delayed checkin then the last seat on standby out of CLT. Put my intl connection at risk.