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

[Oubline]

If in J, BA won't let you preselect without paying (what I think is) a hefty fee. Not sure re F.

British Airways charge for seat selection in business (incredibly!), but not in First where it is free.

 

[Oubline]

So once you've booked on a bunch of random airlines (JL, BA, IB, LAN for me) how do you arrange seat selection? It's not possible on the qantas website or app it seems...

Best way is on the airline's respective websites. You will need to obtain the five letter booking locator for Iberia from Qantas, the Qantas reference number won't work but it should work for at least JL and BA. Not sure about LAN and what booking reference would work with them.

 

[motef]

If in J, BA won't let you preselect without paying (what I think is) a hefty fee. Not sure re F.

For my OWA I have 5 flights on BA and have not had to pay any fee to select seats.

I have QF, UL, AY, QR and BA and haven’t paid any seat selection fees.

 

[DC3]

British Airways charge for seat selection in business (incredibly!), but not in First where it is free.

For my OWA I have 5 flights on BA and have not had to pay any fee to select seats.

I have QF, UL, AY, QR and BA and haven’t paid any seat selection fees.

I can say that I’ve never been asked to pay for seat selection (in Business/First) on BA, QR, EY, CX, EK, JL, QF, AA, and may be some others as well. Actually, I don’t recall paying any airline for this. Not sure whether it was due to class of travel or OW/carrier status.

 

[Oubline]

I can say that I’ve never been asked to pay for seat selection (in Business/First) on BA, QR, EY, CX, EK, JL, QF, AA, and may be some others as well. Actually, I don’t recall paying any airline for this. Not sure whether it was due to class of travel or OW/carrier status.

Sorry, I forgot the caveat that they don't charge for OW elites. Oneworld Sapphire and above can choose for free from the time of booking. Oneworld Ruby can choose for free 7 days out.

 

[knightfall88]

Hi guys,

I have an additional reward booking separate to my oneworld classic reward booking. How simple is it of a process for a Qantas Agent to cancel that reward booking and add it to my oneworld classicreward booking?

 

[exceladdict]

Hi guys,

I have an additional reward booking separate to my oneworld classic reward booking. How simple is it of a process for a Qantas Agent to cancel that reward booking and add it to my oneworld classicreward booking?

I'm not aware that it can be done without cancelling; and when cancelling you risk losing the seat (ie it may not become available again)

 

[knightfall88]

I'm not aware that it can be done without cancelling; and when cancelling you risk losing the seat (ie it may not become available again)

Ok understood. Was hoping that they can cancel, see the seats become available again and then add onto an existing booking.

 

[DC3]

Ok understood. Was hoping that they can cancel, see the seats become available again and then add onto an existing booking.

As exceladdict has posted, the seats may or may not go back into award inventory. Based on my previous cancellations, some are available again within minutes, but others, never. I would not try what you are proposing.

 

[gfraser]

Best way is on the airline's respective websites. You will need to obtain the five letter booking locator for Iberia from Qantas, the Qantas reference number won't work but it should work for at least JL and BA. Not sure about LAN and what booking reference would work with them.

I have got my Iberia booking reference from Qantas but their system doesn't seem to accept it. I want to make seat selection.
For the life of me I can't see any way to contact Iberia other than an international phone call. Does anyone have any suggestions?

 

[cambriamarsh]

I have got my Iberia booking reference from Qantas but their system doesn't seem to accept it. I want to make seat selection.
For the life of me I can't see any way to contact Iberia other than an international phone call. Does anyone have any suggestions?

Try Skype

 

[Oubline]

I have got my Iberia booking reference from Qantas but their system doesn't seem to accept it. I want to make seat selection.
For the life of me I can't see any way to contact Iberia other than an international phone call. Does anyone have any suggestions?

This happened to me too! Then I downloaded the app and it worked there. You could try that?

 

[vetrade]

Forget trying to contact IB for assistance. That will just drive you insane because they'll probably reply to you in Spanish and if you get past that they will reply with info which is totally irrelevant to your question.
In the past (2 - 3 years ago) I have been able to see our IB flights by logging on to our itinerary on the QR website (using your QF PNR to get into MMB) and selecting seats for the IB sectors there. From memory it also works for LAN. Of course that might be useless if you don't have any QR flights in your itinerary, but IIRC it does work even without QR flights.

 

[maaz]

We are looking to book our first J Oneworld Classic Flight Rewards for January 2021 to February 2021.

I have read and researched all the ins and outs and I have a plan but I have a couple of questions.

We are both QFF Gold with >500,000 QFF points each and we are looking at J class to from Perth to Bergen return.

I have researched (and think we can do):

PER-NRT-HEL-ARN-BGO (open jaw and go to AMS and back on KLM, not in the Classic rewards but may use points if possible) - BGO- HEL-NRT-PER

The open jaw paid/points trip to AMS is because it is not Oneworld airlines that go direct from BGO to AMS.

We will stopover at HEL, ARN and BGO on the way over (3 Stopovers). Cruise out of Bergen and then back to Bergen.

We would transit in NRT (overnight <24 hours each way, 2 transits) and HEL (2 transits).

My questions are:

• If we go BGO-AMS-HEL instead of BGO-AMS-BGO (this I think is an open jaw section) would that make 3 x transits in HEL and therefore not satisfy the rules? (I have also looked at AMS via Doha but cannot find any decent flights.)
• The first leg of the trip PER-NRT-HEL is available now but the rest of the trip is not available yet. Can I book each leg as it comes up and then get them “Stitched” together by Qantas later (I know there is a 5,000 fee each time you change)?

I have done a dummy run for these flights for a month earlier and they are OK but not as good as the ones which are available for our outgoing flight as of today.

Thank you for any advice.

 

[exceladdict]

• If we go BGO-AMS-HEL instead of BGO-AMS-BGO (this I think is an open jaw section) would that make 3 x transits in HEL and therefore not satisfy the rules? (I have also looked at AMS via Doha but cannot find any decent flights.)

I'm a little confused but as long as you don't stay in HEL again for more than 24hrs, you'd only be on 1 stop and 1 transit? IIRC you're allowed two transits and a stop in a city.

i.e. PER-NRT-HEL-ARN-BGO-AMS-HEL-NRT-PER is only one stop and one transit in HEL

But if you only have 3 stopovers, would you want to add a stop so you can enjoy tokyo in one of the directions too? allowed 5 stops in total.

Also, as there's no oneworld direct PER-NRT, suggest you put the full itinerary on here so that others can help you comment on legality - i.e. total mileage (i think you'll easily be fine), number of sector totals, etc. PER-MEL-NRT is longer than PER-SIN-NRT for example.

[*]The first leg of the trip PER-NRT-HEL is available now but the rest of the trip is not available yet. Can I book each leg as it comes up and then get them “Stitched” together by Qantas later (I know there is a 5,000 fee each time you change)?
[/LIST]

Yes, this is the suggested method of booking these flights, as otherwise the availability will likely dissapear

 

[maaz]

Thanks for your reply exceladdict.
Sorry I did miss out a bit:
PER-MEL-NRT (T)-HEL(T)-ARN (S )-BGO (S)-HEL (S)-NRT (T/S)-HKG (T/S)-PER
Yes we may Stopover in NRT and/or HKG but we are time restricted too.
(AMS excluded because it is not part of the OneWorld Classic Rewards)

 

[Captain Halliday]

Thanks for your reply exceladdict.
Sorry I did miss out a bit:
PER-MEL-NRT (T)-HEL(T)-ARN (S )-BGO (S)-HEL (S)-NRT (T/S)-HKG (T/S)-PER
Yes we may Stopover in NRT and/or HKG but we are time restricted too.
(AMS excluded because it is not part of the OneWorld Classic Rewards)


View attachment 204934

CX fly HKG-AMS if you want to include AMS.

 

[Hamole]

I can't say the booking process was pleasant but ultimate very happy with my first effort booking one of these rewards.

Traveling
Melbourne -> Manchester via QF9
London -> Santiago
Santiago -> Quito
Medellin -> Washington
Chicago -> San Francisco
Los Angeles -> Melbourne

All business except London to Manchester in economy and Santiago to Quito in premium economy.

With land sectors just scrapes in under the 35,000 miles

Lots of useful resources in this thread, helped a lot.

 

[Danger]

Thanks for your reply exceladdict.
Sorry I did miss out a bit:
PER-MEL-NRT (T)-HEL(T)-ARN (S )-BGO (S)-HEL (S)-NRT (T/S)-HKG (T/S)-PER
Yes we may Stopover in NRT and/or HKG but we are time restricted too.
(AMS excluded because it is not part of the OneWorld Classic Rewards)

You have a huge amount of mileage up your sleeve and as you're flying premium, I'd be looking to fill the void with a few more mid to long haul flights (although I note you are time restricted). I think you'd probably be able to come home via North America and still be within your mileage.

Don't forget also that you can connect to BGO from AMS via HEL on AY.

 

[adenda]

I have got my Iberia booking reference from Qantas but their system doesn't seem to accept it. I want to make seat selection.
For the life of me I can't see any way to contact Iberia other than an international phone call. Does anyone have any suggestions?

Try using Mange My Booking on Royal Jordanian's website (rj.com) using the QF booking reference.

After booking our IB flights had some strange seats preselected for my wife and I - on opposite sides of the cabin and in different rows - and I too couldn't change them on IB's website. But I found the RJ website worked fine. Only thing I couldn't do is select seats for our BA flights - presumably due to BA charging for seat selection.