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

[gilldo]

Did you specifically say to the customer service agent (CSA) that you wanted to book a "Oneworld RTW" if so that's a problem. That is a different product https://www.qantas.com/au/en/book-a-trip/flights/round-the-world.html

I made it clear that I was booking a Oneworld Classic Business Flight Award. He made it clear (nearer the end of the call) that this was his first booking of this type, so someone has to be his first.

It is up to you to do the research and make sure your collection of flights fits the rules and if so the points required for Business (J) will top out at 318K pts per pax

I did my research, and this is part of my problem. I found at least 5 trans-Pacific QF flights (an example below) in mid-September listing as available Business Classic Rewards on the Qantas website. Neither I or the agent was able to book them. I could not find any QF flights to USA in this week that were bookable.

The flights all fitted the rules (airlines, legs, stopovers, etc), although the agent didn't seem to know the rules and was suggesting a third transit at the same airport when I had to redirect him.

The charging of the assistance fee is incorrect and you need to call back to get that removed

Thanks - will do in the next few days.

What is your routing , number of pax and dates you are looking at and people here in the forum are always happy to help out with double checking or advice

ADL-Anchorage-Calgary-Boston-Seattle-Phoenix-ADL (5 stopovers, 14-16 legs in the end)

I've only booked as far as Calgary at this stage, and while Boston legs were showing available, they too were not bookable by the agent.

 

[Matt_01]

I did my research, and this is part of my problem. I found at least 5 trans-Pacific QF flights (an example below) in mid-September listing as available Business Classic Rewards on the Qantas website. Neither I or the agent was able to book them. I could not find any QF flights to USA in this week that were bookable.

I think you are seeing phantom availability and looking at the date you posted above on EF shows zero availability on QF. The 3 days either side of 14 Sep also have zero availability. It is annoying but happens.

 

[motef]

Were you trying to book ADL-DFW or just SYD-DFW?

Interestingly when i search ADL-DFW there is no availability but when i search just SYD-DFW i get availability like you see above.

When i seperate the legs using the multi-city booking tool it is succesful.

Why dont you try to book these first legs yourself online?

 

[gilldo]

I think you are seeing phantom availability and looking at the date you posted above on EF shows zero availability on QF. The 3 days either side of 14 Sep also have zero availability. It is annoying but happens.
View attachment 265031

Annoying is an understatement.

Can you provide me details for the above EF website please? Looks extremely informative!

 

[11sjw]

Annoying is an understatement.

Can you provide me details for the above EF website please? Looks extremely informative!

Expert Flyer Website

 

[gilldo]

Expert Flyer Website

Thanks heaps.

I gather you have to have one of the paid subscriptions to see award seats?

 

[11sjw]

Thanks heaps.

I gather you have to have one of the paid subscriptions to see award seats?

I believe so. They do have 5 day free trial period.

 

[BriarFlyer]

Were you trying to book ADL-DFW or just SYD-DFW?

Interestingly when i search ADL-DFW there is no availability but when i search just SYD-DFW i get availability like you see above.

When i seperate the legs using the multi-city booking tool it is succesful.

My question: is this booking successful right through to payment? I ask because I'm having trouble with booking 2-leg QF flights domestic-international or international-domestic. Using the multi-city tool I can select the 2 flights but it errors out before payment.

I've tried this on several routes and in the end I booked the international flight alone, so I didn't miss the award seats. I thought I'd just call and add the domestic legs later. But nope. Several calls, several operators say that it can't be done. They don't know why, they just can't book it even though the domestic flights are showing as available awards.

Most frustrating.

 

[Matt_01]

I ask because I'm having trouble with booking 2-leg QF flights domestic-international or international-domestic. Using the multi-city tool I can select the 2 flights but it errors out before payment.

Errors just before payment is normally an indication that the seat is not available. When this happens I will normally check EF and if needed will contact QF.

 

[gilldo]

Were you trying to book ADL-DFW or just SYD-DFW?

SYD-DFW was one leg I looked at as part of a multi-city booking.

Even by itself (to prove a point) I couldn't do it.

 

[BriarFlyer]

Errors just before payment is normally an indication that the seat is not available. When this happens I will normally check EF and if needed will contact QF.

EF shows 8 seats available on the domestic flight that QF operators "can't" add to one of my QF international flights, already booked. Sorry if this is off-topic, but it's an indication of the frustrations we face putting together an itinerary. I'm wondering if this is another of those instances where they won't let me add flights during some designated peak-hour time as was alluded to up-thread.

 

[Matt_01]

@BriarFlyer I do understand the frustration as I have recently finished putting together a trip that started out as J however in the process noticed a SYD-SIN F (BA) seat which you do not normally see and was able to be booked so the trip changed to F. In the end I was able to get 4 sectors in F - x2 BA and x2 JL. As a side note if booking F, x4 international sectors (wide body) is the minimum I am after to justify the extra points. During the booking process I often saw phantom availability with BA and also had issues with domestic sectors which QF had to fix. I also ran into issues with agents telling me they could not see availability that I could see. On a couple of occasions the agent said let me try another way and was able to make it work, my take on this is there must be more than one way to add bookings and some agents are just better than others.

 

[adenda]

Yep - had similar experiences with agents checking "another system" to sucessfully find seats that were otherwise unavailable. And only the better agents seemed to know about it.

 

[Danger]

Recent reports here suggest the Qantas booking engine has reached a new low of usefulness.

 

[BillW]

I've posted a separate query in an insurance thread but, relating to this thread it had been my intention to construct a multi city OW Award itinerary that ended in Britain or Europe. But the insurance PDFs I am looking at state that the travel must commence and end in Australia.
Is there a way around this?

 

[Danger]

I've posted a separate query in an insurance thread but, relating to this thread it had been my intention to construct a multi city OW Award itinerary that ended in Britain or Europe. But the insurance PDFs I am looking at state that the travel must commence and end in Australia.
Is there a way around this?

Are you located in Australia? If so, how are you getting to Britain or Europe? I'm very familiar with the ANZ cover and you only need to charge $250 to the card before travel commences, which would be before departing Australia. That doesn't have to be on your actual, big OWA.

 

[MTAB]

I apologise if this is too big an ask but basically I am trying to book a Qantas Oneworld Classic Flight Reward with which has the following basic structure: early March (1 to15) CNS to YUL; 14-16 days in YUL; YUL to SYD; 2/3 days in SYD; SYD to CNS. I want to get one J ticket (for the wife) and one Y ticket (for me).

It has been a very frustrating experience; I chose an itinerary and dates and after the Search Flights function it will often give an error message (indicating one or more of my links has no award flights), I then have to try different dates and/or intermediate airports, etc. One (almost) solution I have found is the one below. As can be seen there are lots of transits and inefficient routings but at least I got the J routing for 318,000 points and $2279.83 and the Y routing for 132,000 points and $1638.53. Unfortunately whenever I try to add the SYD to CNS last flight the whole itinerary has an error message. To me the itinerary looks likes it abides by the rules but I must be missing something. Also inexplicably I can’t get exactly the same combo of flights for Flight 2 — it only offers me QF 553 and CX 138 for Y, not a major problem as there is only an hour gap between the two QF flights.

Flight 1: 14 March QF 713 CNS-BNE
Flight 2: 14 March QF 549 BNE-SYD
CX 138 SYD-HKG
Flight 3: 15 March CX 723 HKG-KUL
QR 849 KUL-DOH
Flight 4: 16 March QR 1397 DOH-CMN
AT 208 CMN-YUL
Flight 5: 30 March BA 94 YUL-LHR
BA2033 LHR-DOH
Flight 6: 1 April QR904 DOH-MEL
QF 486 MEL-SYD

Any insights or suggestions would really be appreciated but I will understand if none are forthcoming, I realise it is a big ask.
I may try and use Award Flight Assist as I sense it may be able to save me time (both planning and travel) and money. I suspect that whatever my final itinerary (if I can find a reasonable one) I’ll need to pay to get it booked as it requires securing both the Y and J sets of flights.

I also apologise if I haven’t posted this in the correct place (one world award...).

 

[MEL_Traveller]

Are you located in Australia? If so, how are you getting to Britain or Europe? I'm very familiar with the ANZ cover and you only need to charge $250 to the card before travel commences, which would be before departing Australia. That doesn't have to be on your actual, big OWA.

YMMV but I specifically asked ANZ’s CC underwriters if they would cover a nested trip and they said ‘no’. Although I didn’t pursue that in writing.

 

[craven morehead]

@Mattg

 

[Matt_01]

@MTAB have you considered flying into the likes of YYZ, JFK, BOS, ORD and getting a revenue set from these locations to YUL. If you could get into YYZ you could catch the train to YUL, from the US to CA flights are quite cheap. Finding flights into major hubs is usually easier and you may have to call QF to get any other sectors you find added to your booking. As for price some of the carriers you are using have high carrier charges. Have a look at the OW thread there is heaps of good information there.