"oneworld" award (132.4K/249.6K/318K/455K) Planning - The Definitive Thread

[cambriamarsh]

Are multi city classic award trips easier to construct at the BA site? Or others? Finding QFF frustrating.

You can't use QF points in BA. Also availability can differ between BA and QF. Were you wanting to research or book?

Are multi city classic award trips easier to construct at the BA site? Or others? Finding QFF frustrating.

 

[BillW]

You can't use QF points in BA. Also availability can differ between BA and QF. Were you wanting to research or book?

Research

 

[cambriamarsh]

Research

A number of other posters have suggested the JL site is good for that

 

[Danger]

For the J itinerary I booked that begins PER-SIN and the furthest destination as Toronto, the Qantas website the baggage allowance for each flight as "two pieces". However, the weight of each piece is apparently up to the each individual airline.

Being picky, you need to have spent $250 before any incident that causes you to make a claim - so if you had a medical condition now that prevents travel next June, you would want to have spent the $250 already to trigger the cover.

It's an important distinction.

 

[madrooster]

For the J itinerary I booked that begins PER-SIN and the furthest destination as Toronto, the Qantas website the baggage allowance for each flight as "two pieces". However, the weight of each piece is apparently up to the each individual airline.

All the J flights will be 32kg but if you have anything in Y it'll be 23kg.

 

[gilldo]

Anyone know the hours for the different QFF service centres?

I've just spent an hour on hold, followed by 30 mins in a call without flights getting booked, then the call dropped out! Soul-destroying!

They have service centres in Australia and South Africa, and possibly elsewhere. From experience, I've had better outcomes dealing with more knowledgeable AU service agents, and would prefer to call when AU agents are working.

Any ideas?

 

[DC3]

Anyone know the hours for the different QFF service centres?

Manila (may be operating?), Cape Town and Auckland are 24/7. Hobart is 7.00am-11.00pm AEDT, daily, as far as I can recall.

Who will answer is the luck of the draw, but waiting time seems to be related to QFF status, with P1 and WP most likely to be prioritised for Hobart.

Edited

 

[Matt_01]

@DC3 from what I understand P1 calls are normally routed to a certain number of agents (VIP Team). When booking and changing my OWA flights I often was speaking with the same agents. They all seem to be very good and I have not run into some of the issues others have reported.

 

[DC3]

@DC3 from what I understand P1 calls are normally routed to a certain number of agents (VIP Team). When booking and changing my OWA flights I often was speaking with the same agents. They all seem to be very good and I have not run into some of the issues others have reported.

Something for the rest of us to aim for.

 

[gilldo]

@DC3 from what I understand P1 calls are normally routed to a certain number of agents (VIP Team). When booking and changing my OWA flights I often was speaking with the same agents. They all seem to be very good and I have not run into some of the issues others have reported.

I've called twice today, waited on hold for an hour on each occasion, spoke to operators, with each call dropping out before business was concluded. I warned the second agent at the start of the call and she gave a commitment to callback if the call dropped out.

So far today the volume of phantom availability on QF, AA and even JL has been astonishing.

Amazingly, the second agent found flights I was looking for, reasonably within travel dates. She had held the flights and was pricing the taxes when the call dropped.

What are my chances of a callback?


I think it's great that they encourage people to collect QFF pts ..................................... just so they can go through this mental torture!

 

[vetrade]

IME the majority of drop outs are related to Manilla. Usually the agent doesn't know what to do or doesn't understand OWAs so they put you on hold and after a while the line goes dead. It happened too often to me for it to juat be a coincidence. It seems that you are most likely to get Manilla if you call in the afternoon so I avoid that now. I have been pleasantly surprised with the Sth. Africans - the majority seem to know what OWAs are all about and they generally try to be helpful. No surprises that it's always a pleasure when someone with an Aussie accent answers. FWIW, I've never had an OS call centre agent call me back when they have promissed me they would.

For the least "hang time" I've found calling at around 7 - 8am works best. I usually accept the call back option but if you ring late afternoon or in the evening often you don't get that option offered.

 

[MEL_Traveller]

I've had the Sth Africa team promise a call back once they sorted an issue. Not only did they *not* fix the problem, they didn't call back either This was earlier this week.

 

[flyingchicken]

I've had similar horror stories for the last two weeks trying to construct a OWA for 2022, but my typical wait time on hold was closer to 4 hours, I had 2 convenient drop outs, and three completely different stories about why I couldn't have the flights I wanted. In the end I found a way to circumvent the dreaded generic error on the multi-city planner and re-created the trip myself online. Got the ticket via email literally 20mins after was guaranteed there was no availability anywhere. It's utter madness at this point.

I plan to add some more flights in, but for now I have the following base for my trip: SYD-HKG-CDG, CGD-DOH, DOH-HKG-SYD.

Ultimately to use the multi-city tool I needed to break up my DOH layover into 30ish hours. *this was a battle I decided wasn't worth fighting*. I'm not too fussed about the extra stopover re OWA limits. Due to COVID, we aren't planning on jumping around nearly as much as we were going to pre-covid.

BUT - Does anyone know if I'll be able to just treat it like a long transit, and stay within the airport, check my bags through and skip check in. The Al Mourjan Lounge is there anyway. Is this something people do? I know it's possible to go into Doha, but I'm not sure if I want to.

ALSO - My current booking is in my maiden name, but my passport is in the process of being updated to my married name. Has anyone experienced changing tickets into their married name, and is it a smooth process? Especially in a OWA with so many other carriers involved?

 

[MEL_Traveller]

I think the name change is the easy part - you need to provide Qantas, as the issuing airline, with the documentation showing the change (marriage certificate). They will change the entire booking. You'll need to make sure you also change your frequent flyer name, because if the name on the card and ticket don't match you may not get the points automatically (or other benefits!)

Can't answer much about the DOH layover but there is a transit hotel, in the secure airside area. You could use that for 8 hours. But I think you'd be better off getting your bags and heading out - 30 hours is way too long to spend in an airport, and I'd probably want to have my bags with me rather than potentially getting forgotten in some remote holding pen. If worried about covid you could arrange a private car transfer to a nice hotel and sit by the pool for the day. (Also with such a long layover, check any PCR test requirements are satisfied for entry to Australia.)

 

[Danger]

What is the First award bucket for JAL?

 

[Matt_01]

What is the First award bucket for JAL?

'A', see attached

 

[Danger]

'A', see attached

Interesting. "A" is also a revenue bucket as far as I can tell.

 

[Matt_01]

Interesting. "A" is also a revenue bucket as far as I can tell.

You may be correct and looking at EF A, F and Z are recorded as F codes for JL. My BA F flights are in a Z bucket, who knows how this stuff works and QF Z seems to be Y+ (based on EF). I do not actually care about the fare bucket, if the seat is available, confirmed and can be ticketed in F that is good enough for me.

 

[Mr H]

Interesting. "A" is also a revenue bucket as far as I can tell.

Idiot question - is the A fare bucket a special award label, a QF label or a label in the carrier? I know from ancient memory that the *A award categories are O for First Class but O shows up as an economy revenue class.

 

[cjd600]

Idiot question - is the A fare bucket a special award label, a QF label or a label in the carrier? I know from ancient memory that the *A award categories are O for First Class but O shows up as an economy revenue class.

Carrier I believe.
QF uses 'P' for first class award