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

[PaulyB]

You can ask them at any point to repeat their name and confirm which call centre they are in. Do not believe any agent who tells you they will fix things after you ring off. Occasionally one will, but most will not.

Sadly I have discovered that over the last few months. Well, these last 3 be test cases as I have the centers, names and times...

Of course, silly me to think that I could actually book a flight, make changes and expect it to be smooth and reliable... Qantas MUST know this is damaging their reputation. It's like the Ryan Air of Call center quality...

 

[PaulyB]

Pleased to report that after 4 calls in 3 days (and one call back as promised) I have an updated ticketed booking for 9 months time. Now I need to see what I can do to swap the current Economy from BKK to J, into Sydney next October. What could possibly go wrong! ?

 

[PointsTraveller!]

I've just booked our first leg of an OWA Business Class trip MEL>NRT>FRA on JL business class in November 2023.

My eventual itinerary is to be:
MEL - LCY
MAD (or CAS) - JFK
JFK - CUN
CUN - LAX
SFO - NRT
NRT - MEL

Understanding the issues of having any flight add-ons reticketed my questions are:

1. Am I best to wait until a few flights open up before calling and adding them on? eg. calling and adding FRA>LCY, MAD-JFK, JFK - CUN at the same time? Then in a few months calling again and having added CUN-LAX, SFO-NRT, NRT-MEL
2. OR adding each leg as soon as they come available. (as there is two of us is there a 5,000 per point fee per flight added per person)?
3. OR simply just making individual flight bookings and giving up on the idea of all legs in Business and the 318k points knowing this will cost more points but likely the safest bet.

Appreciate advice on past experiences as I know and am willing to make a few phone calls to make this happen but don't want to risk losing my first leg to FRA already booked.

 

[levelnine]

Appreciate advice on past experiences as I know and am willing to make a few phone calls to make this happen but don't want to risk losing my first leg to FRA already booked.

It is a trade-off between 1 and 2.

If you have a large number of points that you're happy to burn on change fees, option 2 is the safest. If you are tight on points, you may need to gamble and take option 1.

Also remember that flight award availability is scarce and unpredictable. You may struggle to get flights on NRT-MEL for example because QF/JL are not reliably releasing seats into/out of Australia — some days they are, some days they are not.

 

[tooten69]

It is a trade-off between 1 and 2.

If you have a large number of points that you're happy to burn on change fees, option 2 is the safest. If you are tight on points, you may need to gamble and take option 1.

Also remember that flight award availability is scarce and unpredictable. You may struggle to get flights on NRT-MEL for example because QF/JL are not reliably releasing seats into/out of Australia — some days they are, some days they are not.

100% on the NRT-MEL and when they do they don't last long. They release at 12PM I believe and normally go within minutes to hours.

I called at 11:50 when I booked so I had the agent already to snap up the flights when they showed.

Good luck.

 

[vetrade]

I've just booked our first leg of an OWA Business Class trip MEL>NRT>FRA on JL business class in November 2023.

My eventual itinerary is to be:
MEL - LCY
MAD (or CAS) - JFK
JFK - CUN
CUN - LAX
SFO - NRT
NRT - MEL

You might find that award seats into, or out of, CUN are hard to find, so you might have to stay flexible regarding routes and dates. I haven't checked what the present situation is, but when we went to CUN (well before Covid) there weren't any awards on the LAX - CUN route for weeks either side of when we wanted to travel. FWIW, we flew NRT - DFW - CUN and then CUN - MIA - MAD but I recall spending many frustrating hours trying to get our CUN legs to work.

 

[Warragul]

It is a trade-off between 1 and 2.

If you have a large number of points that you're happy to burn on change fees, option 2 is the safest. If you are tight on points, you may need to gamble and take option 1.

Also remember that flight award availability is scarce and unpredictable. You may struggle to get flights on NRT-MEL for example because QF/JL are not reliably releasing seats into/out of Australia — some days they are, some days they are not.

The fewer phone calls you make means fewer chances for stuff ups as well.

My experience was to book leg by leg as they became available, though. I had watched the likely flights for a few days or a week before intended travel date to try to get a handle on what becomes available and how long they were lasting. For me the criticial ones (long distance) were disappearing within hours of appearing so thought it safer to get them as soon as.

These were on QF/JL/AT who first release seats around the 350 day mark ( for those lucky to have Status of gold and up), so other carriers like AA weren't in the mix. Naturally something may come up much closer to travel date, but didn't want to take that chance.

I did all the booking in Sept/Oct and didn't get hit with the 5K change fee for adding flights, which the fine print to that offer doesn't say is eligible for the 'free' change. So maybe it is or maybe I had a bit of luck. I don't think there is one 'perfect' way of getting this done, a better web site would help though. I managed to to pretty much get what I wanted and when, a few cities that were not the first choice but places new to us and excited for the journey to commence.

CBR-SYD-JFK
JFK-CMN
CMN-BCN-AMM
AMM-FRA
FRA-NRT
ITM-HND-SYD-CBR

Midnight UTC seems to be when initial availability pops up each day, although I had several contact centre staff they couldn't see the flights for a few hours after that - whether true or user error I don't know.

 

[levelnine]

For anyone looking for those rare business class seats into/out of Australia, Qantas has loaded a heap of award availability on its restarted HKG flights from February 2023.

 

[PaulyB]

Always learning....
Is there any known way around a connected series of flights with JAL on a OWA Business Class booking? I just tried canceling 2 legs that are not needed and have discovered that my entire return journey from Helsinki with JAL would need to be canceled because they are all connected.
I don't mind but getting J out of London/Europe next Oct is not easy!

 

[levelnine]

I just tried canceling 2 legs that are not needed and have discovered that my entire return journey from Helsinki with JAL would need to be canceled because they are all connected.

Sounds like a married segment issue, which means your only option is to cancel the entire leg and hope the segment you need goes back into award inventory. If it is an important part of your trip, I would be extremely reluctant to take that risk because there is a good chance it will not go back into award inventory.

 

[tooten69]

Sounds like a married segment issue, which means your only option is to cancel the entire leg and hope the segment you need goes back into award inventory. If it is an important part of your trip, I would be extremely reluctant to take that risk because there is a good chance it will not go back into award inventory.

Agree!!! However I had this with two CX legs which one agent said it was a married segment and another agent managed to change the one leg I wanted.... changed it from economy to business. But be careful as no guarantee it will go back into availability..

 

[PaulyB]

Sounds like a married segment issue, which means your only option is to cancel the entire leg and hope the segment you need goes back into award inventory. If it is an important part of your trip, I would be extremely reluctant to take that risk because there is a good chance it will not go back into award inventory.

Totally understood. Thank you. One question. If I found an alternative out of London to Tokyo, is there anything stopping me doing the cancel and the new booking at one time even if it was the same airline?

 

[levelnine]

If I found an alternative out of London to Tokyo, is there anything stopping me doing the cancel and the new booking at one time even if it was the same airline?

No. Why would there be? Simply tell the agent you want to make a change to an existing booking, with that change being the removal of one leg and the addition of another.

 

[PaulyB]

No. Why would there be? Simply tell the agent you want to make a change to an existing booking, with that change being the removal of one leg and the addition of another.

Yes. Just double-checking. So many rabbit holes.....

 

[PaulyB]

No. Why would there be? Simply tell the agent you want to make a change to an existing booking, with that change being the removal of one leg and the addition of another.

Just an update. I just booked a homeward-bound trip from Frankfurt to Tokyo direct with JAL in J. Cancelled the married flights. Excellent outcome assuming it is successfully ticketed! Now I have to keep the eagle eyes out for a flight home from Tokyo in either PE or J. It may not happen overnight, but it will happen...

Good fortune to have made the original booking before the end of Sept.

 

[Warragul]

I've found myself in a similar situation, where a SYD-CBR hop was added to the itinerary and received an eticket email. Yet CMT did not have a ticket number for that last flight, all the others did. On closer inspection the eticket number had not changed since the previous change.

On calling Qantas, went through the process of putting the booking on the 'ticketing queue' and wait 48 hours, did this several times while keeping watch on the other flights (on AT/RJ and JL) with no new eticket issued. Received various reassurances that all is good and reasons as to what was happening and why - including a re price requiring 167000 points payment, didn't proceed with that option. After about 10 days no new eticket, but all the other flights are intact and ticketed (status on JL website is 'ticketed', the AT and RJ website still have the ticket number listed), an agent mentioned that unticketed status of the SYD-CBR flight will not affect the non QF flights and that the new eticket will be issued 'soon'. Who knows how accurate that is.

Anyway that was Monday and it is around 2 weeks since the last flight was booked. I'm giving it a little while before calling again, while being eagle eyed for changes on the other flights. None have changed to date..

FWIW, RJ changed some flight times last night which required ticket re-issue which prompted the SYD-CBR leg to be ticketed as well within 15 minutes of me confirming the changes, unexpected bonus.

 

[PaulyB]

FWIW, RJ changed some flight times last night which required ticket re-issue which prompted the SYD-CBR leg to be ticketed as well within 15 minutes of me confirming the changes, unexpected bonus.

That has been quite the journey.

 

[Warragul]

Indeed, can't wait fo the Northern Summer schedule changes to see how many tweaks are made.The drama involved with these bookings should not be there, many are due to lack of knowledge or experience of staff. If I hadn't read this thread prior to booking then I would have given up very soon noting some of the dodgy advice from call centre staff. Being on long term leave allowed the time to be consistently on the phone on the booking days.

 

[QFFBNE]

My recent experience with a very simple booking mirror's others on here. I wanted to book 2 x J BNE/LHR or SYD/LHR return for late next year. Started looking at availability about a month before flights are released to get an idea of what might be possible and it was VERY slim pickings. I was looking at any routing (eg SIN, HKG, Tokyo etc) so long as I could to LHR and home again. There was and still is almost no J availability on Qantas itself. Plenty of CX. JAL and some BA but simply no Qantas business class award seats. QF1/2 never appeared once in the multi-city tool.

Ended up booking BA15 on line as soon as they were released, and getting the return BA16 legs a month later by calling and booking over the phone at 10.02am on the day they were released. BA not my first preference due to outdated J cabin but third world problem; any layflat is better than the alternative. Was a bit surprised to say the least that after 'securing' the return seats the customer rep said she didn't need to take payment for the new flights (I asked) and that was it and hung up. The booking appeared in my FF app and online but of course, no E-ticket appeared so I rang again a couple of days later to be assured that it was all OK, the seats were booked, it would be ticketed in 3-4 business days, and I could pay the extra charges then (?) and was again hung up on. Quite how this was going to happen wasn't explained so, to my complete lack of surprise, the promised E-tickets again failed to turn up.
I rang again two days later and found a gem of a customer rep. She spent considerable time (45mins +) sorting it out, calculating correct points and charges (and taking payment this time) and double checking the booking allocation. This time I had my E-tickets within 5 hours.

In the end I have my 2 x J SYD/LHR return with BA, just over $3,000 in fees and charges (ouch) and on the days I wanted so it worked out pretty well. But ONLY because I spent a fair amount of time looking at what flights and routes might be available when seats opened up, and then followed up after the warnings on here. about ticket fails. 3 years ago I had no trouble booking 2 x J RTW, 5 airlines, 6 stopovers. This year I was relieved to get a booking using just one airline and one stopover. It's a lot harder than it use to be and less reliable, with a LOT less availability but still do-able. Double-check everything and ring every day until your tickets actually arrive.

 

[PaulyB]

Fact check please!
I made some changes yesterday and the booking had been sent off for ticketing.

After hanging up I noticed a better flight was available that I hadn't previously spotted. I rang back but was informed that I couldn't make the change until the original booking was ticketed.

Is that actually correct? I am sure I have done it before but perhaps I am mistaken. It was a while ago.

Thanks!