Oneworld Classic Flight Reward Discussion - The Definitive Thread

[There'sOnlyOneJimmy]

Any Qantas flights?

QF flights are not required for a OWA...

 

[There'sOnlyOneJimmy]

I have worked out the first section of my oneworld award and went to book the flights, however the Qantas website calculated a total points value of 347,000 - much higher than expected.

My itinerary for the first section is:
BKK-xDOH-ATH – QR (stop)
ATH-xDOH-LHR – QR (stop)
LON-KEF – Revenue
KEF-xLHR-xLGW-xHKG-SYD – BA & CA (stop)

Any ideas to why the points value is higher than expected?

Is Air China in the OneWorld Alliance?

 

[wingtip626]

An update on my booking. I spoke to Qantas for about 1h 20m this afternoon which finally resulted in booking this itinerary for 280k.

The first agent I spoke to blamed the issue on the route not being around the world. Despite informing them this was not a requirement, they were unwavering. HUACA.

The second agent I spoke with was the epitome of great customer service, by far the best agent I've ever spoken with at QF. He worked through the itinerary and discovered a few issues. There was a married-segment issue with the ATH-DOH (QR) and DOH-LHR (QR) segments. Whilst unfortunately we where unable to resolve this, there was availability on the BA DOH-LHR flight on the same date. Secondly, the KEF-LHR (BA) and LGW-xHKG-SYD (CX) caused issues when adding the flights in sequential order. To resolve this, he added the CX flights first, followed by the BA flight.

All up, 280k points and $984.80 AUD in taxes. No doubt the BA and QR segments have added to the cost.

Hopefully all will be okay when I add the second section of the trip later this year.

Is Air China in the OneWorld Alliance?

My mistake, should be CX rather than CA. Corrected in OP

 

[rock86]

In one of the other threads about the site maintenance that happened earlier this week someone said that awards flights aren't pricing correctly on the website at the moment. Looks like that is still the case, you'll have to give them a call it seems.

Yep, as I noted in the other thread it's adding points for each separate segment since the 'update'. Even if you've got a transit (<24hrs) it is adding each segment points rather then marrying them together.

Seriously it's been nearly a week and there are still major issues, Qantas needs to have a good hard look at how they implement their IT upgrades as this stuff isn't isolated.

 

[ellen10]

An update on my booking. I spoke to Qantas for about 1h 20m this afternoon which finally resulted in booking this itinerary for 280k.

The first agent I spoke to blamed the issue on the route not being around the world. Despite informing them this was not a requirement, they were unwavering. HUACA.

The second agent I spoke with was the epitome of great customer service, by far the best agent I've ever spoken with at QF. He worked through the itinerary and discovered a few issues. There was a married-segment issue with the ATH-DOH (QR) and DOH-LHR (QR) segments. Whilst unfortunately we where unable to resolve this, there was availability on the BA DOH-LHR flight on the same date. Secondly, the KEF-LHR (BA) and LGW-xHKG-SYD (CX) caused issues when adding the flights in sequential order. To resolve this, he added the CX flights first, followed by the BA flight.

All up, 280k points and $984.80 AUD in taxes. No doubt the BA and QR segments have added to the cost.

Thats a great result, well done. How far ahead did you booked these flights?

 

[wingtip626]

Thats a great result, well done. How far ahead did you booked these flights?

330-354 days in advance. Flights are in Apr 2019.

 

[ellen10]

330-354 days in advance. Flights are in Apr 2019.

Thanks I will be looking at booking our J trip in September for the following year and am worried that I will have trouble. I think I will book my out going leg first, to lock it in and then add the other flights later.

 

[Jacques Vert]

A question for the brains trust.

We are currently on our way home from Lima on a medical repatriation after +1 spent 6 nights in hospital with pneumonia. We had completed the first couple of flights of a One World Classic Award. Normally, once you take your first flight you can not change the routing although I believe you can change the date or time of subsequent flights. If you miss a flight then the remainder of the itinerary is cancelled.

Does any one have any knowledge or experience as to what happens when you can't/don't complete a sector due to medical reasons? I will wait until returning to Oz before ringing QF as being on hold from Lima for an hour would be very costly.

Thanks in advance for any comments and advice.

 

[Daver6]

A question for the brains trust.

We are currently on our way home from Lima on a medical repatriation after +1 spent 6 nights in hospital with pneumonia. We had completed the first couple of flights of a One World Classic Award. Normally, once you take your first flight you can not change the routing although I believe you can change the date or time of subsequent flights. If you miss a flight then the remainder of the itinerary is cancelled.

Does any one have any knowledge or experience as to what happens when you can't/don't complete a sector due to medical reasons? I will wait until returning to Oz before ringing QF as being on hold from Lima for an hour would be very costly.

Thanks in advance for any comments and advice.

Sorry to hear about your +1's misfortune.

Similar happened to myself and MrsDaver6. Contact QF as soon as possible, especially before missing any flights, which is what we did. Qantas were good enough to refund the points for unused sectors and the taxes too.

 

[kylebb]

Hoping someone can confirm that a surface sector is counted as a transit rather than a stopover? ie. if I was to fly into WAW and out of FRA is this considered one of the 5 stopovers or just a transit?

 

[madrooster]

Into airport A and out of airport B is counted as a stopover, except when a city has co-terminals eg. Tokyo has HND and NRT. The surface segment itself also counts as 1 segment out of the max of 16.

 

[AndyGoodyear]

Hi All

So I'm making progress with planning my trip for next year in Feb/Mar/April - doing the 280K business award. I'm trying as much to minimise the fuel surcharges and excessive taxes flying JAL and Finnair - avoiding BA, Iberia and QR. Unfortunately I cannot avoid going to London as I'm visiting family as part of the trip, but if it saves to not fly out of Londo

The image below is what I have researched using the cost breakdown on ITA Matrix as suggested by an AFF article. It comes in at almost $3000 taxes and surcharges. A couple of the legs have huge taxes, namely LHR-LIM (via JFK), LIM-EZE (I cant believe it is $415 just for this flight) and EZE-SYD (via MIA and LAX).

What has thrown me though is looking at the One World Explorer tool online, which calculates the exact same flights at $1730 taxes and surcharges.

Just wondering if anyone can see a glaringly obvious way I can reduce the taxes or why the ITA and OWE are showing so different (and which to trust).

 

[Danger]

Hi All

So I'm making progress with planning my trip for next year in Feb/Mar/April - doing the 280K business award. I'm trying as much to minimise the fuel surcharges and excessive taxes flying JAL and Finnair - avoiding BA, Iberia and QR. Unfortunately I cannot avoid going to London as I'm visiting family as part of the trip, but if it saves to not fly out of Londo

A couple of the legs have huge taxes, namely LHR-LIM (via JFK), LIM-EZE (I cant believe it is $415 just for this flight) and EZE-SYD (via MIA and LAX). The image below is what I have researched using the cost breakdown on ITA Matrix. Just wondering if anyone can see a glaringly obvious way I can reduce the taxes as they come in total at almost $3000.

PS. Obviously its still a really good deal as this sort of trip in business would be $13,000 (ish) in cash (according to OWE online actually $15K). But I've also seen that people manage to get the taxes around the $1500 mark for these.

My suggestion would be to substitute LHR for PAR and take the Eurostar between Paris and London. It would also allow you to fly CDG-xJFK-EZE on AA. Another option would be ZRH instead of LHR and take a separate flight. Even a separate flight to LHR from HEL might work.

As for LIM-EZE, it would seem Peru charges a AUD376 sales tax. You may find that because you're not purchasing in Peru that tax may not be applicable. For example, if I search for SCL-xLIM-EZE, the sales tax doesn't show on Matrix.

 

[geoffshaw]

Hi All

So I'm making progress with planning my trip for next year in Feb/Mar/April - doing the 280K business award. I'm trying as much to minimise the fuel surcharges and excessive taxes flying JAL and Finnair - avoiding BA, Iberia and QR. Unfortunately I cannot avoid going to London as I'm visiting family as part of the trip, but if it saves to not fly out of Londo

The image below is what I have researched using the cost breakdown on ITA Matrix as suggested by an AFF article. It comes in at almost $3000 taxes and surcharges. A couple of the legs have huge taxes, namely LHR-LIM (via JFK), LIM-EZE (I cant believe it is $415 just for this flight) and EZE-SYD (via MIA and LAX).

What has thrown me though is looking at the One World Explorer tool online, which calculates the exact same flights at $1730 taxes and surcharges.

Just wondering if anyone can see a glaringly obvious way I can reduce the taxes or why the ITA and OWE are showing so different (and which to trust).

You're over 35000 miles, according to GC Mapper it's 35614. If you go straight from BER to LHR you'll get under. Don't worry about BA surcharges on Europe flights, they aren't much. It's only the long haul ones where they sting you.

 

[AndyGoodyear]

You're over 35000 miles, according to GC Mapper it's 35614. If you go straight from BER to LHR you'll get under. Don't worry about BA surcharges on Europe flights, they aren't much. It's only the long haul ones where they sting you.

Ah I didn't realise, great tip. I'll go straight to Lon rather than via HEL. Is it worth departing CDG though as mentioned above to save the huge departure tax?

 

[AndyGoodyear]

Just another quick question for the brains - is the availability of the award tickets on the other OW airlines super limited as well (just as with QF)? I ask because I have researched these flights using the OWE tool online, but in the QF multi city search, some of them (such as the SYD - NRT and the NRT/HEL - ARN) dont show up. Not sure if this is just the multi-city tool being rubbish, or award availability being super low. Business class is available on all of the flights as paid seats.

 

[geoffshaw]

Ah I didn't realise, great tip. I'll go straight to Lon rather than via HEL. Is it worth departing CDG though as mentioned above to save the huge departure tax?

Definitely.

 

[AndyGoodyear]

Definitely.

Thanks Jeff, I love Paris anyway so good excuse to stop there.

My suggestion would be to substitute LHR for PAR and take the Eurostar between Paris and London. It would also allow you to fly CDG-xJFK-EZE on AA. Another option would be ZRH instead of LHR and take a separate flight. Even a separate flight to LHR from HEL might work.

Thanks Danger - I'm purposely stopping in Lima as I'm off to do the Inca Trail

 

[AndyGoodyear]

Definitely.

To be honest, using the OWE tool online, when substituting London for Paris so going BER-CDG (via LON) and then CDG-LIM - it only saved around $50 AUD on taxes and surcharges. If the OWE is the one to be trusted and not ITA?

 

[Danger]

Thanks Danger - I'm purposely stopping in Lima as I'm off to do the Inca Trail

Sorry. I wasn't suggesting you don't stop in LIM. I was just using the SCL-xLIM-EZE as an example of the "Peru sales tax" not being applicable when the ticket isn't purchased in Peru to suggest that maybe you won't get slugged that sales tax because the fare you're purchasing isn't actually being sold in Peru.