One way price too expensive

[Yoz]

I am currently trying to book a trip for my wife and I to Canada next year. I am attempting to fly using QFF in J from SYD to HKG to YVR. This is proving troublesome in itself, however the greater problem seems to be the cost of purchasing a one way ticket on our return from YVR to SYD. Tickets are near enough to the same as return fares. I am happy to fly out of LAX, however this does not seem to make any difference. Is there something I am missing here or are these exorbitant one way prices the norm?

Just realised a similar issue myself and the easiest way around it seems to be using the xASA with Points plus Pay because it seems to play a little nicer with one way fares

 

[Inuniform]

I must say, this whole attempt at QFF redemption has been an incredibly frustrating experience. There just seems to be barriers at every turn. I would be happy to pay for fares and then upgrade with points but I know this is a virtual impossibility. Similarly, a one way reward flight in J seemed like a good idea, yet I am forced to pay an inflated price for the return flight. This has been a learning experience if anything. Thank you all for your suggestions, hopefully I can sort something out before next year.

 

[BD1959]

I must say, this whole attempt at QFF redemption has been an incredibly frustrating experience. There just seems to be barriers at every turn. I would be happy to pay for fares and then upgrade with points but I know this is a virtual impossibility. Similarly, a one way reward flight in J seemed like a good idea, yet I am forced to pay an inflated price for the return flight. This has been a learning experience if anything. Thank you all for your suggestions, hopefully I can sort something out before next year.

Finding the flights you want can be frustrating, sometimes need to be ultra flexible (especially around school holidays)and on premium routes - such as LAX-SYD) book at the 353 day mark. There are also tools to help (Expertflyer, for example, will notify you when a seat becomes available).

Can I suggest posting the precise dates you're looking to travel and the number of points/pax - i'm sure someone here will have a more specific suggestion.

Regards,

BD

 

[browski]

One-way fares ex-Vancouver March 2014

Air New Zealand: YVR-AKL CAD$909
Air New Zealand: YVR-AKL-SYD CAD$1315
China Airlines: YVR-TPE-SYD CAD$1638
Korean Airlines: YVR-ICN-SYD CAD$1278
Eva Airlines: YVR-TPE-Brisbane CAD$1117.00
Air Canada: YVR-SYD CAD$2702
China Eastern: YVR-Shanghai-SYD CAD$1117.00

So.........if it was me, I'd take the Korean Airlines flight. Great connection at ICN, good airline.
(I couldn't pull fares for PAL or JAL)

 

[Inuniform]

Finding the flights you want can be frustrating, sometimes need to be ultra flexible (especially around school holidays)and on premium routes - such as LAX-SYD) book at the 353 day mark. There are also tools to help (Expertflyer, for example, will notify you when a seat becomes available).

Can I suggest posting the precise dates you're looking to travel and the number of points/pax - i'm sure someone here will have a more specific suggestion.

Regards,

BD

Thanks for your suggestion.

We (my wife and I) are quite flexible, in so far as we're looking to fly from SYD - YVR sometime in the middle of next year. We are not frequent flyers and have always travelled in Y. We will have around 300,000 QFF points to redeem. After doing some research and being pretty keen to sample J class for the first time, I found bookings from SYD - HKG - YVR in J for just over 300,000 points. I had hoped to spend 3-4 days in Hong Kong before flying onto Vancouver. I had thought that I would find difficulty in accessing J seats from SYD - HKG, however it looks as though the return one way leg will be quite expensive. If we decided to simply cough up the money for a return flight, the taxes and surcharges of the reward flights as well as the return fare would be higher than simply booking a return fare in Y without spending over 300,000 points.

The multitude of different scenarios and carriers and routes is making my head spin. I've researched through some excellent threads on this forum, yet I still feel like I am far from fully grasping the whole FF redemption possibilities.

I have appreciated the help so far and will persist and hopefully arrive at a favourable outcome.

 

[BD1959]

"Middle of next year" as in: May, June?

 

[Must...Fly!]

How set are you on trying business?

What you could do is get two round the world oneworld awards (140,000pts + tax each) if you have the time. You could make a real trip out of it, visiting Canada, USA, Europe and Asia. Admittedly it's all in economy but if it takes your fancy it might be worth considering.

 

[Joshua]

Could open a can of worms with many more options... unsure of the price range you're wanting to pay but possibly an alternate option would be booking one business return/rtw with points then book the second ticket with cash.

I've seen good award availability on the CX flight from HKG-YVR before so possibly get a cheap economy ticket up to HKG then fly J or F award from there. Plenty of options, if you stick around here long enough you'll end up with a 20 segment itinerary going a very long way

If you were set on getting that one way redemption and using up your points, it could be possible to score SYD-HKG-YVR in F around ~300k points.. would have to hunt for availability though!

 

[wandering_fred]

CX one way fares exUSA (and likely Canada) will beat QFs every day (at least to PER). And most of the time PEY is not that much more expensive than the Y seat and a whole lot more comfortable. To Perth exSFO PEY was half the price compared with QF.

The option of an award ticket to SEasia and a J fare from there to Canada is a viable option. In addition to Manila I would also look at Taipei with CX. A bit further afield is Colombo, but the round trip CMB-HKG_YYZ would likely (re)qualify QF Gold if you already have the 4 ~.

And if you really want to fly in Y and still get large numbers of points, AA does code share on the KUL-LHR/CDG flights where you could continue on with AA to the USA/Canada. Last I checked the prices were VERY attractive. But you have to get to KUL.

Happy wandering.

Fred

 

[JohnK]

Wasn't there a murmur a couple of years ago that Qantas was going to introduce reasonable one-way pricing for international flights not just domestic and to New Zealand?

 

[ozbeachbabe]

FJ have a fare YVR/SYD via LAX & NAN for CAD840.00 with the YVR/LAX on Alaskan then the LAX/NAN/SYD on FJ metal on their A330 a/c but there is a transit in NAN of 3.5 hours so maybe a one night stopover in NAN may be an option.

Matrix - ITA Software

 

[Inuniform]

This does sound quite tempting and it would eliminate quite a few of the hurdles we're being confronted with. I'll start looking into this. Do you know if you can upgrade certain legs or are you locked into economy the whole trip?

 

[grussellt]

Hi pweekes and welcome aboard AFF. There is lots to learn but rewards are plenty. I faced your problem last year but finished up with a RTW trip (half-business) for under $2000 per person. It included SYD-NRT (JL)-LHR-CDG (BA) in J, for a great start to the holiday, and booked with purchased AA miles. Return was a rather circuitous CDG-JFK-MIA (stopover just less than 24h)-LAX-NAN-BNE-SYD as a QF 64,000pts award. You have to plan 12 months ahead and be aware of miles purchases with bonuses (AA or other) as well as multi-city awards on QF (including all the options) but there's lots of help on AFF. Happy travelling!

 

[BD1959]

Hi again pweekes,

OK, I'm starting to share your frustration! I think there's an issue with the Award engine.

Requesting SYD-YVR at various times - with fexlible dates - returns me a quote - and then doesn't! At the times it doesn't, even requesting a multi-city via HKG reveals nothing. If you then select availability between SYD and HKG and then between HKG and YVR, presto! it appears again.

What I have been able to glean - there is J availability next May/June via HKG. Booked as separate legs it comes in at 60,000 + $202 and 112,000 + HK$1019 per person. Now I'm pretty sure at one stage I managed to get SYD-YVR in J at 139,000 but I couldn't refind and couldn't confirm fees. An alternative - with availability - is SYD-DFW-YVR, again on separate tickets, this comes in at 112,000 + $459 and 36,000 + US2.50 (yes!) respectively. The issue with separate tickets is that, strictly speakinmg, you're not covered in the event of a misconnect.

I'd be tempted to look at the various dates as separate legs, decide which dates you want, and then phone QF and ask why you can't at least book this as a multi-leg. They *may* offer to waive the booking fee if you can prove that the system is not allowing you to perform a booking that they can - there have been varying degrees of success/failure noted here and eslewhere.

You can then take the various pieces of advice with respect to Y legs back again.

Good Luck!

Regards,

BD

 

[travelbird]

I figure SYD-HKG-YVR in J will burn 152000 points per person.

Have you considered redeeming SYD-HNL-SYD in J class for 144 000 points per person, and then buying a fare or an airpass ex Hnl into Canada or the States? If you can handle 5.5 hours in economy class (flight time HNL-YVR) you've got fares from as little as US$458 return with AA. That gives you some pretty serious change to use on quality land content in Canada instead....the Canadian Fairmont hotels are awesome, and for the money you'd get a heck of a lot longer in them than in an aircraft.

Just a thought.

 

[harvyk]

I figure SYD-HKG-YVR in J will burn 152000 points per person.

Have you considered redeeming SYD-HNL-SYD in J class for 144 000 points per person, and then buying a fare or an airpass ex Hnl into Canada or the States? If you can handle 5.5 hours in economy class (flight time HNL-YVR) you've got fares from as little as US$458 return with AA. That gives you some pretty serious change to use on quality land content in Canada instead....the Canadian Fairmont hotels are awesome, and for the money you'd get a heck of a lot longer in them than in an aircraft.

Just a thought.

Prob with that is SYD-HNL-SYD is hardly a good J flight with QF. All the expense of international J, with a product which would not look out of place on a SYD-MEL run.

There are many complaints on this forum about ppl doing SYD-HNL flights in J and complaining that they are nothing like the international J they where expecting thanks to the use of the older B767 aircraft.

 

[travelbird]

Prob with that is SYD-HNL-SYD is hardly a good J flight with QF. All the expense of international J, with a product which would not look out of place on a SYD-MEL run.

There are many complaints on this forum about ppl doing SYD-HNL flights in J and complaining that they are nothing like the international J they where expecting thanks to the use of the older B767 aircraft.

Thanks....good to know.

 

[travelbird]

Ok...here's another idea.

Buy a oneway Y ticket SYD-HKG.
(Stopover HKG)
Fly HKG-YVR J class redemption 92 000 points per person.
(Arrive into YVR in good shape after J class flight)
Fly YVR-SEA-HNL Y class redemption 28 000 points per person.
Stopover HNL.
Fly HNL-SYD Y class redemption 36000 points per person.

Total points would be 156 000 points per person. (If you're short you'd be close enough to buy top-up points.)
Y class fare SYD-HKG (flying MH) approx $505 pp incl taxes.

 

[RAM]

There are some peculiarities at the moment with Q.

I booked Jan 14 one way from INN to SYD for $400-500 approx less than available for any combination of SYD to London (not just LHR), MUC, or identical to INN - flying Q but using code share flights on Emirates and BA.

Using non-code share for leg to Dubai put price up $200 and still left saving of $200-300.

If flying time not major issue then once Malaysian is fully on-board (not all flights come up in searches yet) then consider detour via KUL - get extra status credits & points and should save.

If prepared to 'chance it' then do KUL-SYD in AirAsiaX and use optiontown asap to try and lock in prem+ near flat (according to who's review) seat. From people I've found who used it were very happy.

 

[horseman]

Some of the suggestions here are brilliant! I'd never have the imagination to think of these combinations and they result in some good looking fares!