mixing FF seats and purchased seats

[andywill]

Hi,

My family of 2 adults and 2 children are planning on travelling to Europe in October/November next year (2009). We wont have enough qantas FF points to fly all of us to europe and back with a stopover in singapore on the way over.

What is the best why to get ff seats x 2 and purchase 2 seats and ensure we all fly together, and gain maximum ff point benefit.

If we pay the adult tickets and use points to get the childrens tickets we gain more points for the paid tickets but this will only work if we can sit 1 adult with 1 child and all go on the same flight.

Is this easy to orgainse and can we do it on line or do we need to use an agent.

All comments and tips will be greatfully accepted.

Thanks
Andrew

 

[serfty]

Welcome to AFF! .

I have done this; purchased two revenue fares MEL-HKG return for myself and SWMBO, 2 award tix for mini serfty and niece.

A simple call to Qantas sorted out seating; all together in premium zone. (while my wife and I have status, there was none for mini and niece. However having them allocated in the front of WHY with us was easy).

 

[NM]

Check out the FF award seat availability and be flexible. One option may be to look for 4 x awards say HKG-LHR-HKG and purchase 4 x revenue tickets Aus-HKG-Aus. Could also work for any Asia stopover point.

Look for which is cheaper to purchase with cash (4 x Aus-Asia-Aus, 4 x Asia-Europe-Asia, or 2 x Aus-Europe), and what is available from FF on the days you want to travel.

 

[acampbel]

I've done the 2 + 2 to Europe 3 times so far (yet to travel on the last one) and only had one hiccup when BA didn't link the itineraries and walked the aisle to ensure that a 4 and 6-year-old weren't travelling on their own.

We book the adults via points and pay for the kids as that way we get a 25% discount on the paid fares. Points redeeming and earning are at the same rate for either, so the kids get the points and then they generously transfer them to daddy later!

Because the Kangaroo route is very high demand, I book the award flights as soon as they become available and then add the paid tickets later. There can be some stress if the early-bird fares are snapped up, and for the upcoming trip I had to do some fine-tuning by phone with Qantas and cop a 10,000 point penalty.

The alternate idea to split the trip into points/paid for all sounds safer, but getting 4 award seats will be tough and you get better points value out of longer legs.


Cheers,

Andrew

 

[serfty]

duplicated

 

[serfty]

... We book the adults via points and pay for the kids as that way we get a 25% discount on the paid fares. Points redeeming and earning are at the same rate for either, so the kids get the points and then they generously transfer them to daddy later!
...

In my example above, there was no discount for kids on the sale fare paid so the adults had the revenue fare and the kids on award.

It did help that myself (as a WP) and mrs serfty (as a PG) scored an additional 14,400+ QFF points due to Status Bonii.

 

[simongr]

A good point is only made better by repeating it if you are consistent with your advice

 

[DTM1]

We book the adults via points and pay for the kids as that way we get a 25% discount on the paid fares. Points redeeming and earning are at the same rate for either, so the kids get the points and then they generously transfer them to daddy later!

That is on the assumption that neither parent has status (and FF point bonuses. If so, then you need to do the maths on the value of the points versus the 25% saving. Also necessary to take into account whether staus credits would be relevant/necessary to maintain/improve status).

cheers

 

[simongr]

I really think that perhaps we are guilty of over thinking this... most people just get on a plane...

 

[serfty]

But it's nice when Elite status gives two 23J/K preallocation on an A333 and your bronze daughter and niece (14yo & 13yo) co-pax on a separate booking, initially get none.

A quick call sorted them into 24J/K and all was happy.