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

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I feel that I'm at the end of my tether. As I write, I am yet again waiting on a call.

I communicated with them early on Sunday via sms and booked all my flights. I kept following up throughout Sunday to remind them that I need the tickets to be issued, as all CX flights would disappear, as I have experienced previously.

By Monday morning, 24 hours later, nothing issued! Contacted them via SMS again as I was busy at work. Given assurances that yes, they are seeing to it & have read my previous chats and are according the matter priority.
Well, guess what? Tickets issued early this morning with no CX flights!!!

What do I do?
I hope this has worked out for you.

This happened to me yesterday as well, after I made a small change to my 280k itinerary which of course required the whole ticket to be reissued and threw the whole itinerary ‘on hold’.

Maybe my experience can be useful to others as a datapoint. Please skip if too long.

Despite basically begging in the call when I made the change, when I called back an hour later, and via text, they would not ticket it any faster than the standard 24 hours queue.

Later in the day my MEL-HKG-FRA flights dropped off, cancelled by Cathay Pacific after what would have been about eight hours of ‘on hold’ time.

After 90 minutes on the phone with the call centre (South Africa) they managed to ‘force book’ MEL-LHR on QF9 in a revenue fare bucket with a subsequent connection to Frankfurt on BA. Nothing like this was offered for the first 30 mins or so, with them basically telling me nothing could be done initially.

The itinerary changed again about 10 mins after I hung up, to QF9 on a date a week earlier than I had agreed, back in a U award fare bucket. I don’t really know why this happened.

Another long call ensued whereby a consultant (South Africa) ‘force booked’ availability on QF9 for the right day again as a business class award but insisted I would need to pay the much higher taxes/surcharges now that QF and BA segments were involved, and couldn’t budge on this point.

Luckily I’d researched a back up option for different dates and routings where CX flights were still available as awards, which I changed to instead during the call. I didn’t want to pay hundreds extra in fees for what I see as Qantas’ fault. I was also presented with the option of waiting three days from an answer from a ‘Oneworld desk’ as to whether they could reinstate my original flights but I wasn’t optimistic about follow through on this and so just switched to my alternative instead.

Surprisingly, the consultant still insisted that they couldn’t ticket the itinerary immediately!

I gave it an hour then called back, where finally the helpful consultant was willing to ticket it - it took them over 60 mins of dealing with me over the phone to get it all done still though. I got the strong impression from the number of steps the consultant did that the ticket was never going to issue if I had just left things be.

Even though I was considering adding some further flights and changes down the track, I will definitely not be tweaking this ticket again now and will just live with what I’ve got.

The biggest lessons I got are to do whatever you need to in order to get the itinerary ticketed ASAP, and that there is more that the operators can do to open up availability than they might reveal at first.. so keep pushing!
 
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I hope this has worked out for you.

This happened to me yesterday as well, after I made a small change to my 280k itinerary which of course required the whole ticket to be reissued and threw the whole itinerary ‘on hold’.

Maybe my experience can be useful to others as a datapoint. Please skip if too long.

Despite basically begging in the call when I made the change, when I called back an hour later, and via text, they would not ticket it any faster than the standard 24 hours queue.

Later in the day my MEL-HKG-FRA flights dropped off, cancelled by Cathay Pacific after what would have been about eight hours of ‘on hold’ time.

After 90 minutes on the phone with the call centre (South Africa) they managed to ‘force book’ MEL-LHR on QF9 in a revenue fare bucket with a subsequent connection to Frankfurt on BA. Nothing like this was offered for the first 30 mins or so, with them basically telling me nothing could be done initially.

The itinerary changed again about 10 mins after I hung up, to QF9 on a date a week earlier than I had agreed, back in a U award fare bucket. I don’t really know why this happened.

Another long call ensued whereby a consultant (South Africa) ‘force booked’ availability on QF9 for the right day again as a business class award but insisted I would need to pay the much higher taxes/surcharges now that QF and BA segments were involved, and couldn’t budge on this point.

Luckily I’d researched a back up option for different dates and routings where CX flights were still available as awards, which I changed to instead during the call. I didn’t want to pay hundreds extra in fees for what I see as Qantas’ fault. I was also presented with the option of waiting three days from an answer from a ‘Oneworld desk’ as to whether they could reinstate my original flights but I wasn’t optimistic about follow through on this and so just switched to my alternative instead.

Surprisingly, the consultant still insisted that they couldn’t ticket the itinerary immediately!

I gave it an hour then called back, where finally the helpful consultant was willing to ticket it - it took them over 60 mins of dealing with me over the phone to get it all done still though. I got the strong impression from the number of steps the consultant did that the ticket was never going to issue if I had just left things be.

Even though I was considering adding some further flights and changes down the track, I will definitely not be tweaking this ticket again now and will just live with what I’ve got.

The biggest lessons I got are to do whatever you need to in order to get the itinerary ticketed ASAP, and that there is more that the operators can do to open up availability than they might reveal at first.. so keep pushing!
I was just waiting for finality before providing feedback.
I really don’t know if my issue has been sorted.
I have lost track of the hours that I have been on the phone on calls and Sms since Sunday ( not counting the time prior to that).

For the first time ever, I managed to reach someone on Tues afternoon who appeared to know a wee bit about an award booking. He found me flights ( I dropped the return CX and changed my itinerary) and took my card details.
All flights showed up upon log in but same problem as you, no tickets issued by Wednesday morning.
Back to calling and texting. Finally by late yesterday afternoon, they said tickets are issued and , we finally received the email with the tickets.

But!!!! Credit card not been debited as yet and when I go on CX website to manage booking and choose seats etc, it’s giving the warning about tickets not being issued and that flights will be cancelled.

My points are sorted correctly at 280K plus change fees.
I have received refund on credit card for some cancelled flights.

But I will remain stressed out until credit card has been debited and CX site removes the warning.
 
... card not been debited as yet and when I go on CX website to manage booking and choose seats etc, it’s giving the warning about tickets not being issued and that flights will be cancelled ...

This is not normal in my experience. These are red flags.

The CX bookings can drop off within hours if not confirmed.

More phone calls needed I believe, and soon.
 
This is not normal in my experience. These are red flags.

The CX bookings can drop off within hours if not confirmed.

More phone calls needed I believe, and soon.

I definitely agree with this! That is the warning you see when it hasn’t been finalised properly yet. As soon as it was properly ticketed that message disappeared from the CX websitr.

Did the ticket numbers on the latest email from Qantas actually change from the one you had been given most recently beforehand?
 
...Did the ticket numbers on the latest email from Qantas actually change from the one you had been given most recently beforehand?
Good pickup, as each re-ticketing of the itinerary will produce a new ticket number.
 
Thank you for that, I've been unable to call, but communicated via SMS ,they've assured me (yet again) that it's being processed.
I will look at the ticket numbers and compare, thank you all so very much.
 
Thank you for that, I've been unable to call, but communicated via SMS ,they've assured me (yet again) that it's being processed.
I will look at the ticket numbers and compare, thank you all so very much.
Just adding that’s there’s not usually anything to be “processed”. If you have a straight-forward itinerary, then it’s computer generated and takes only minutes to reissue in my experience.

I would be concerned at such a response from the Call Centre.

Edit: This may mean that it won’t be reissued without intervention. Sometimes due to incorrect data entry, or something omitted, by the booking agent and some flights (especially CX) may fall off.
 
I've checked, ticket numbers are not the same. I'll update, hopefully some good news soon.

I do have one leg on economy and I'm just dreading if I need to change, assuming business class availability shows up.
 
Can anyone say whether the destinations/stops on a OneWorld Award ticket can be changed after the trip has started? Thanks in advance.
 
We're going to be impacted by announcement by JAL this week on airport changes in Tokyo, taking advantage of additional slots at Haneda Airport.


We're currently booked LAX-NRT-SYD as part of a Classic OWA in Business. We've got a 2.5 hour transit in NRT

The above press release indicates that our NRT-SYD leg will be one of those moved to operate out of HND, which is fine. But our LAX-NRT service isn't being replaced, but an LAX-HND service is being added, and we should logically move to that. The new LAX-HND service will become a 4 class (First/Bus/PEcon/Econ) while the LAX-NRT service will become Bus/Econ only. With both flights via HND, we'd be down to a 2 hour transit.

The LAX flight changes aren't bookable until Nov 26, but the SYD changes don't come into effect until another week later.

Any ideas on the best way to ensure we end up on both flights via HND? Will JAL logically move us on both flights?
 
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You should get a notice/email from QF that your flight has changed. That's the time to get on the phone and make sure you are happy with the new arrangements.
 
You should get a notice/email from QF that your flight has changed. That's the time to get on the phone and make sure you are happy with the new arrangements.
Yeh that was what I was planning, but I'm more concerned that by the time they get around to us (which won't be until at least a week after the LAX-HND flight goes on sale, as that when the HND-SYD flights go on sale), that Business reward seats may be all gone.
 
Just adding that’s there’s not usually anything to be “processed”. If you have a straight-forward itinerary, then it’s computer generated and takes only minutes to reissue in my experience.

I would be concerned at such a response from the Call Centre.

Edit: This may mean that it won’t be reissued without intervention. Sometimes due to incorrect data entry, or something omitted, by the booking agent and some flights (especially CX) may fall off.

Finally some positive feedback.

DC3 and others on the forum, thank you very much , you have been most helpful. I am truly in awe of people who take the time to assist.

I have finally managed to achieve some success via South African call centre this am, the consultant immediately realised that there were only 2 flights ticketed, ran through the entire itinerary with me, and confirmed all the flights that needed to be added on the ticket.
She debited my credit card and issued the tickets immediately.
I received the tickets soon in my after in my inbox, and have verified that my credit card reflects the charges.

Furthermore, CX website immediately removed the warning about tickets not being issued and that flights would be cancelled.
 
So I was revising my potential plans and was thinking the following (end of 2020):

SYD-SIN
SIN-HND
HND/NRT-LAX
LAX-EZE
(EZE-USH-EZE separate ticket)
EZE-SCL
SCL-SYD

However with the departure of LATAM in Oct 2020 I don't think this is doable any longer... will I have to purchase a separate leg for EZE-SCL instead? I do see that KLM does a 5th freedom route on this that seems quite competitively priced...
 
To fulfill OWA conditions, we need a third airline, so we chose JL
To be clear - these oneworld Awards can be done using as few as two oneworld airlines.

It is not necessary to have any Qantas segments.

However if Qantas is booked for one or more segments then travel on at least two other oneworld airlines is needed.
 

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