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

[XeroChance]

What are people's experience with having longer than standard layovers? From my many many searches on Qantas and BA, I seem to be prevented from accessing flights where I connect at transit city overnight, and this may or may not result in a Qantas agent screaming at me (from experience about segment stitching).

Might be better if I explain with an example;
I'm hoping to go from YYC (Calgary) - LHR (London) - HEL (Helsinki).
Heading to Helsinki will allow me to experience the various (CX, AA, BA, QF (hopefully open by then)) lounges at Terminal 3 Heathrow.

YYC-LHR BA102 lands in London at 12:10PM, giving me connecting options at 4:10PM, 6:05PM, or 7:25PM on Finnair or British Airways, arriving from 9:00PM-12:05AM.
I know that Finnairs AY1332 departs at 10:30AM is scheduled with an A350-900, which alot better than A321/A320 products that Finnair/BA normally use on European flights.

Landing at 12:10PM, and departing at 10:30AM the next day is a layover of only 21hrs 20mins, just under the 24hr OneWorld layover definition, as well as avoiding a Helsinki arrival at night.

However this connection doesn't come up anywhere. Anyone have any experience with forcing long layovers?

 

[Radio8tiv]

What are people's experience with having longer than standard layovers? From my many many searches on Qantas and BA, I seem to be prevented from accessing flights where I connect at transit city overnight, and this may or may not result in a Qantas agent screaming at me (from experience about segment stitching).

Might be better if I explain with an example;
I'm hoping to go from YYC (Calgary) - LHR (London) - HEL (Helsinki).
Heading to Helsinki will allow me to experience the various (CX, AA, BA, QF (hopefully open by then)) lounges at Terminal 3 Heathrow.

YYC-LHR BA102 lands in London at 12:10PM, giving me connecting options at 4:10PM, 6:05PM, or 7:25PM on Finnair or British Airways, arriving from 9:00PM-12:05AM.
I know that Finnairs AY1332 departs at 10:30AM is scheduled with an A350-900, which alot better than A321/A320 products that Finnair/BA normally use on European flights.

Landing at 12:10PM, and departing at 10:30AM the next day is a layover of only 21hrs 20mins, just under the 24hr OneWorld layover definition, as well as avoiding a Helsinki arrival at night.

However this connection doesn't come up anywhere. Anyone have any experience with forcing long layovers?

I have four <24 hour transits in my upcoming trip (DOH HEL TXL and BNE), I didn't have too many problems with getting them put through although at times I did need to educate the csr about the difference between transits and stopovers. Just put each leg through separately in the multi city tool at Qantas when searching for these flights (and obviously input it as the next day)
Married segment control as far as I'm aware (I'm no expert) does not apply when using different carriers so in your example using BA and AY should be no issue

 

[jaybeedee]

I'm starting to build my itinerary with dummy bookings and I can get a reasonable anount of availability, but if I try and ticket it or go back to change dates I have to re-enter everything.

How do people do the planning - just try dummy bookings for lots of individual segments and take notes, or try and book the full itinerary ?

In terms of changes can one (either through the call centre or through the website) go back and insert intermediate cities. In my case we want to go rome-MAdrid with a couple of weeks in spain and then Athens. I can see availability for FCO-MAD and MAD-ATH, I would like to look at maybe some internal flights within spain but I would prefer to lock in the main legs and then come back and play around with the choices. Is this possible ? I am WP so I think I am only up for the change fee , not the assistance fee.

It seems reasonable availability in J in the northern hemisphere, but I am struggling with QR in and out of Doha (we want to visit my brother and just about every routing offered involves EK). I am assuming getting to and from NZ to the US will be the tightest segments.

Thanks to all the contributors to the thread.

 

[exceladdict]

It seems reasonable availability in J in the northern hemisphere, but I am struggling with QR in and out of Doha (we want to visit my brother and just about every routing offered involves EK). I am assuming getting to and from NZ to the US will be the tightest segments.

Thanks to all the contributors to the thread.

Are you using BA to look for the QR space? Much easier than QF which fills up with EK.

 

[bgenn]

Hi All,

I've been planning out a OWA trip, using plenty of advice and information from this post over some months now (and really very appreciative of the information gleaned from all of you who have posted before me). I'm planning out a 4x140k in Y plan for myself and the whole family for the end of this year and in to January next year with the current plan being (and only recently fairly settled upon):

BNE-LHR, Surface Sector to BCN, BCN-JFK, EWR-DFW-LAX, LAX-SFO, SFO-BNE

It has been challenging and as the trip will finish around 26/1/18 I was interested to see AA availability show up for the US segments on the dates we are looking at, which has been in the last few days.

Today I checked in again to make sure what I had found last night was still ok and found that I could no longer see any AA availability, so figuring I had missed out the dates we wanted, I checked around those dates and still nothing, so I started to try things as just single segments just to find what was available. I've now looked at the BCN-JFK (My plan was AA for that), EWR-DFW and DFW-LAX legs and no availability. I've since tried many different dates through May, Jun, July,August etc this year right up until our planned timeline back in mid Jan 2018, I'm not seeing any availability for any AA for any US route I've dreamt up or on any dates. I contacted Qantas for a manual search and they are not showing any availability either, seems to me like all AA seats are not available for booking at all. Even with "Flexible with dates" checked all I get is "We are unable to find recommendations from the airlines we search. Please change your search criteria and resubmit the search. (# 66002)"

I've been searching on and off using various earlier dates just for planning purposes in the last 4-6 months I suppose trying different things, but pretty much all of those contain AA segments and have not come across this before. The CSR I contacted was very much of the mind that "it is what it is" but did suggest she would escalate it internally, which is something I suppose, and I understand that things do change and availability is not guaranteed minute to minute, but with my admittedly very limited knowledge still, it seems like something is amiss.

Not sure if anyone else can see any AA availability or if its just me, or if this is something that happens, or maybe I'm just losing my mind from re-inputting flight details in to the multi-trip form too many times.

Any thoughts or suggestions would be appreciated.

Thanks.

 

[exceladdict]

Any thoughts or suggestions would be appreciated.

Thanks.

Have a look on the AA site for availability. Could be a QF/AA system issue, or AA might be doing some sort of broader change

 

[bgenn]

Have a look on the AA site for availability. Could be a QF/AA system issue, or AA might be doing some sort of broader change

The availability seems fine through the AA site, I'm just hoping to book it all in tonight or tomorrow, which is a bit more difficult with this issue occurring.

 

[jaybeedee]

quick question re transits:
I suddenly realised I was going to fall foul of the 5 stopovers, so having to rejig my trip.
If I book seperate segments with less than 24 hours between arrival/departure is that not counted as a stopover, or is it only segments thathave been put together by the booking engine.
For example we want to go from Tokyo to Doha but would like a day in either Seoul or Taipei.
If I book NRT-ICN and ICN-DOH with less than 24hrs is that not counted as a stopover, - and would I be able to check luggage right through (CX and QR)

 

[There'sOnlyOneJimmy]

quick question re transits:
I suddenly realised I was going to fall foul of the 5 stopovers, so having to rejig my trip.
If I book seperate segments with less than 24 hours between arrival/departure is that not counted as a stopover, or is it only segments thathave been put together by the booking engine.
For example we want to go from Tokyo to Doha but would like a day in either Seoul or Taipei.
If I book NRT-ICN and ICN-DOH with less than 24hrs is that not counted as a stopover, - and would I be able to check luggage right through (CX and QR)

I can only answer the Transit Vs Stopover question (and not the luggage check-through question).
A Transit is a stop that is STRICTLY Less Than 24 hours (ie maximum of 23 Hr 59 Min). A Stopover is any stop of 24 hours or more.

 

[hutch]

I was looking at add an AA flight to my current OWA booking... I've been checking availability often and there was heaps. Now searching today, I get the same error message:

"We are unable to find recommendations from the airlines we search. Please change your search criteria and resubmit the search. (# 66002)"

I have tried other cities (which also had heaps of seats) and the same error comes up. I feel there is some communication issue between AA / QF or they are punishing us for their marriage not being approved.

 

[bgenn]

I was looking at add an AA flight to my current OWA booking... I've been checking availability often and there was heaps. Now searching today, I get the same error message:

"We are unable to find recommendations from the airlines we search. Please change your search criteria and resubmit the search. (# 66002)"

Whilst it doesn't help with the issue, I'm very glad to know its not just me!

 

[serfty]

I can only answer the Transit Vs Stopover question (and not the luggage check-through question).
A Transit is a stop that is STRICTLY Less Than 24 hours (ie maximum of 23 Hr 59 Min). A Stopover is any stop of 24 hours or more.

Are you sure?

I had a scheduled LON transit of into LHR 10am and out of LGW 10am next day.

No APD was assessed.

 

[hutch]

Whilst it doesn't help with the issue, I'm very glad to know its not just me!

Yes, sorry it doesn't help. More just letting you know you're not alone...

 

[hutch]

Are you sure?

I had a scheduled LON transit of into LHR 10am and out of LGW 10am next day.

No APD was assessed.

Perhaps the definition of 'transit' varies for a OWA and the assessment of whether the APD is payable? I have no idea... just putting it out there.

 

[There'sOnlyOneJimmy]

Are you sure?

I had a scheduled LON transit of into LHR 10am and out of LGW 10am next day.

No APD was assessed.

I'm not the GateKeeper on this issue, so I guess I'm not *sure*, but I based my amateur advice on the basis of the following extract from the QFF site Terms & Conditions, Section 2, "Definitions":

" 'Stopover' in relation to:
(a) an Australian domestic Itinerary, means a break of journey at an intermediate point when onward travel does not take place on the same calendar day; and
(b) for all other Itineraries, including those containing a domestic to international connecting flight, means when a passenger arrives at an intermediate point and is not scheduled to depart within 24 hours of arrival;"


I guess it's possible that the rules that govern the APD assessment might differ from the QFF Stopover definition. Or you were just lucky... ;-)

 

[serfty]

It's a rare thing ... I have not come across the exact same hour/minute 24 hours later since.

 

[jaybeedee]

CSR couldn't book some CX sectors even though we could see them.

Success! with a 280K/2Pax at short notice and getting pretty much all we wanted.
AKL-SYD-HND...NRT-HKG-ZCH(in Y+)-MAD ...MAD-DUB...LHR-CPH....CPH-DOH...DOH-DXB-HKG-SYD-AKL

A few more sectors than we wanted [that will teach us for booking at the last minute - for June departure in march] and ended up with one long Prem Economy sector.

On my first call I could see some CX flights showing on the BA site but the CSR couldn't see them at all(HKG-ZCH and HKG-AKL).

We booked what we could .After i had hung up I was played around again and I could see the HKG-ZCH available on the Qantas site as part of a Tokyo-Zurich query so I rang back. The CSR I got this time could see them if she started a new booking but not if she had my one open. She was able to get the seats onto my booking by changing the CX flight from Tokyo to HKG to a JL flight and then she could add the Zurich leg. And it made it cheaper!!

She then had a look at the HKG-AKL leg because I would rather a direct Y+ flight than the longer J(U) via Sydney with stopover and not quite enough time to sleep. Again she could see the seats for a new booking, but couldn't add them to our booking.

Now to hope some more inventory frees up, and in a perfect world QR would release some award seats for DOH-AKL which would be a lot better!

 

[CaptainCurtis]

Managed to book my fare after 3 hours on hold to the call centre. Little bit disappointed that they wouldn't waive the $60 phone booking fee given that I'm flying Malaysia Airlines (which don't show up online), but I guess you have to choose your battles and it just wasn't worth the hassle. Anyway, this is what I ended up booking:

SYD-PER (QF: A330 Business)
PER-KUL-LHR (MH: First leg A330 Economy and Second leg A380 Business)
AMS-LHR-FCO (BA: Both legs A320 Business)
DUS-SFO (AB: A330 Business)
SFO-JFK (AA: B777 Business)
JFK-HKG-SYD (CX: First leg B777 in Business and Second leg A330 Business)

Overall pretty happy with the result. Good value for 280k points in my opinion. A few notes/questions:
1. Is there a way to check if PER-KUL in J becomes available without calling through to the Call Centre everyday? This is the shorter leg, so it's not too serious if I'm stuck in Economy.
2. Cathay seem to offer the A330 and B777 on the HKG-SYD route. Does anyone have any feedback on which aircraft is preferable?
3. AB business apparently has great service, but the seats are somewhat narrow/short. Any other ideas to SFO/LAX?
4. Hoping Qatar becomes available in J from PER-LHR, but doubt I'll have much luck on this.

Just wanted to say thank you for all the feedback and advice that was provided to me on this forum. Couldn't have done it without you. If you have any tips or improvements for next time, please feel free to let me know!

 

[Doctore1003]

I think you can check MH availability on BA. You'll need to give them an overseas address to create a FF account as they don't accept Aussies - just make one up if you need to.

 

[CaptainCurtis]

I think you can check MH availability on BA. You'll need to give them an overseas address to create a FF account as they don't accept Aussies - just make one up if you need to.

Amazing, thank you!