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

[adenda]

I think this may be my situation. Started a conversation on Twitter to convert a current surface sector in my OWA to an award flight thanks to new availability on AA recently appearing. After waiting several hours for a response I was advised that flight could be added to my itinerary for the 5000 points change fee and additional taxes of $1,777.85 per person!!
I asked them to double check and they came back with the same response so I decided to not proceed. (I actually booked a separate partner award flight for the same sector some months ago so am covered anyway)
I decided to do a dummy booking on the AA website for the same flight and the taxes came to a total of US$48.94 (approx. $70) per person. Furthermore to pay full price for a business class seat on the same AA flight would have cost US$991 (AU$1432 or $345 less than the additional taxes)

I seems therefore that Qantas has recalculated taxes for my entire 10 flight itinerary - which was ticketed some months ago - and it appears some operator fees have significantly increased.
What confuses me though is that about a week ago I managed to get one flight in our itinerary changed to exactly 1 hour later to meet MCT requirements and I wasn't charged any change fee or additional taxes yet the itinerary was reticketed.

By the way it appears that the staff who respond to Twitter messages (and I assume Facebook Messenger) appear to be quite competent as compared to O/S based staff - just very slow to respond.

Some interesting developments. Qantas came back via Twitter to advise "it seems that there's been an oversight from our end"
They are now calculating the tax difference as AUD156.93 per person - a lot more like it but still more than I get by dummy booking on AA or ITA Matrix.

 

[Ktan89]

How did you get them to realise this?
So are they going to refund you the difference?

Some interesting developments. Qantas came back via Twitter to advise "it seems that there's been an oversight from our end"
They are now calculating the tax difference as AUD156.93 per person - a lot more like it but still more than I get by dummy booking on AA or ITA Matrix.

 

[adenda]

How did you get them to realise this?
So are they going to refund you the difference?

They just came back - some hours later. I'd already made it clear that I wouldn't be proceeding if it cost that much - the taxes were more than a full fare ticket so clearly wrong. But their initial responses were the standard "that's what the computer says"
No need for a refund as I didn't proceed.

 

[Mr H]

They just came back - some hours later. I'd already made it clear that I wouldn't be proceeding if it cost that much - the taxes were more than a full fare ticket so clearly wrong. But their initial responses were the standard "that's what the computer says"
No need for a refund as I didn't proceed.

Glad you got a result, but as others have explained, adding a flight causes the existing flights also to be repriced as well as adding the cost of the new flight. Therefore it’s not impossible that adding on one shortfall flight onto a mega booking could cost more than the regular full fare for that flight.

 

[Ktan89]

I think in the ops case, he/she was being charged double.
Example:
Say you bpoked 5 flights and the taxes were $500. You add on more flights and they recalculate the original flights, but it becomes $550 + additional taxes from new flight at extra $100. In this case the op should only pay $150 for the difference.

But qfs system is stupid and forgot you had already paid for the original $500 and they want you to pay a total of $650 again.

Is this correct @adenda ?

 

[acinod]

There's an awards flight from SCL-MEL-SYD but no SCL-MEL direct.

Given you need to collect your luggage and go through customs before MEL-SYD, can I simply just leave the airport at MEL and not take the SYD flight?

 

[adenda]

I think in the ops case, he/she was being charged double.
Example:
Say you bpoked 5 flights and the taxes were $500. You add on more flights and they recalculate the original flights, but it becomes $550 + additional taxes from new flight at extra $100. In this case the op should only pay $150 for the difference.

But qfs system is stupid and forgot you had already paid for the original $500 and they want you to pay a total of $650 again.

Is this correct @adenda ?

Don’t think they’re trying to double charge me - just calculating taxes and fees for our 11 flights all over again at current rates and seemingly some operator charges have gone up significantly. Anyway I refused to pay the original exorbitant calculation and surprisingly they came back admitting a mistake and offering a much more reasonable figure.

 

[levelnine]

Given you need to collect your luggage and go through customs before MEL-SYD, can I simply just leave the airport at MEL and not take the SYD flight?

Yes, but if you have any subsequent flights on the ticket, they will be cancelled. And you probably don't want to make a habit of it — airlines tend not to look favourably at people who skip legs of tickets (called hidden city ticketing or skiplagging).

 

[gda380]

Phone and ask for it to be ticketed immediately. Keep trying until someone agrees to do it.

I contacted Qantas and the call was answered quickly. I think I got to the Manila call centre and they put me on hold for a few mins and said it will be ticketed in 24-48 hrs. I think they were fobbing me off, when I told her that the replacement flight doesn't have three reward seats she said I don't have to worry about that!

Needless to say I haven't received an updated e-ticket. No response to the email I sent to [email protected] either. I am concerned calling again and again as the booking as other flights which are perfectly fine and I don't want them to ruin everything.

 

[Mr H]

I contacted Qantas and the call was answered quickly. I think I got to the Manila call centre and they put me on hold for a few mins and said it will be ticketed in 24-48 hrs. I think they were fobbing me off, when I told her that the replacement flight doesn't have three reward seats she said I don't have to worry about that!

Needless to say I haven't received an updated e-ticket. No response to the email I sent to [email protected] either. I am concerned calling again and again as the booking as other flights which are perfectly fine and I don't want them to ruin everything.

Yes, the 24-48 hours is fobbing you off.

You did the right thing emailing the escalations email address. It seems that replies are often in the form of action rather than return emails.

But you are not right about avoiding calling so as to protect your other flights on the booking. If the booking is not ticketed, you risk what seem to be the 'good' flights being auto-cancelled. Inaction is likely to be more damageous than repeated calls. In particular, if you have concerns about the availability of the new flight, this could lead the ticketing process to fail and nobody would tell you that it had failed. You would just sit in the too-hard basket until your flights auto-cancel. Hang up and call again.

 

[sid21]

Hi,
I have a ticketed RTW journey in business class however 2 of my segments have disappeared (Cathay Pacific flights). When advising Qantas of the issue, I have been told that Qantas can not re-instate the flights back without approval from Cathay. This has not proven successful. Qantas are claiming that they can not help further until a reward seat opens up even though the flight was ticketed. I believe Qantas should provide me with an alternative route or open an award seat on Qantas metal. After numerous phone calls and messages through social media, Qantas still have not been helpful (it has been about 3 weeks). I have attempted to contact the new RTW award booking email however am yet to hear back from them. Is there anything else I can do?

 

[gda380]

Hi,
I have a ticketed RTW journey in business class however 2 of my segments have disappeared (Cathay Pacific flights). When advising Qantas of the issue, I have been told that Qantas can not re-instate the flights back without approval from Cathay. This has not proven successful. Qantas are claiming that they can not help further until a reward seat opens up even though the flight was ticketed. I believe Qantas should provide me with an alternative route or open an award seat on Qantas metal. After numerous phone calls and messages through social media, Qantas still have not been helpful (it has been about 3 weeks). I have attempted to contact the new RTW award booking email however am yet to hear back from them. Is there anything else I can do?

I am in the same boat as you. probably worse as the cancelled flight is with Sri Lankan between Colombo and Paris. Qantas don't even fly this route to open award seats. I am hoping Qantas liaise with Sri Lankan to open three J seats on the new flight.

Good Luck.

 

[Mr H]

I am in the same boat as you. probably worse as the cancelled flight is with Sri Lankan between Colombo and Paris. Qantas don't even fly this route to open award seats. I am hoping Qantas liaise with Sri Lankan to open three J seats on the new flight.

Good Luck.

If it is a comfort to you, I had the situation of ticketed UL flights being cancelled due to delays in ticketing a change. The Lahore to Colombo seat did not return to the award bucket. QF put in a request for UL to reinstate the ticket and they eventually did.

My learnings from this:

1. when the call centre say they have emailed for reinstatement, they usually haven't. Check by calling back and seeing whether another agent can tell you the date the reinstatement was sought.

2. it takes time, during which your other flight are liable to auto-cancel. Monitor this severaltimes a day using CMT so you can spring into action the moment it happens.

3. do not rely on QF to tell you the reinstatement has been approved - keep calling and also check on the Multi City Tool to see whether the seat has become available again.

4. when you get someone telling you the flight has been approved for reinstatement, insist that it be processed immediately and ticketed. If they refuse to ticket immediately, beg them to email it to ticketing as a priority.

 

[djkelly69]

Not sure if this is necessarily the right place to post this, but a FB FF group post indicates a bunch of QF J seats for SYD-LAX in Australian winter have been loaded up today.

 

[gda380]

Yes, the 24-48 hours is fobbing you off.

You did the right thing emailing the escalations email address. It seems that replies are often in the form of action rather than return emails.

But you are not right about avoiding calling so as to protect your other flights on the booking. If the booking is not ticketed, you risk what seem to be the 'good' flights being auto-cancelled. Inaction is likely to be more damageous than repeated calls. In particular, if you have concerns about the availability of the new flight, this could lead the ticketing process to fail and nobody would tell you that it had failed. You would just sit in the too-hard basket until your flights auto-cancel. Hang up and call again.

Thank you @Mr H.

I called them again, this time got Fiji (I think).
They saw what the previous agent had done, but said ticketing raised an error which is now resolved (they waited until I called again to fix the error!).
Again was told to wait 24-48 hrs, I insisted that I am happy to wait he put me on hold for a while but then said no one is available from ticketing and I need to wait for the email.

He mentioned that I don't see availability because the seats are allocated to me. He said I have three J seats confirmed on the new flight. Old flight UL563 had 3+ seat availability across almost all flights, I can't see the same with the new flight UL501 which seems to have a maximum of 1 x J seat on some flights (Cathay, BA show contradictory information). New flight certainly looks less generous, but hope I have a case since I did have three seats ticketed on the old flight.

Will keep you posted on this one.

 

[blu]

Not sure if this is necessarily the right place to post this, but a FB FF group post indicates a bunch of QF J seats for SYD-LAX in Australian winter have been loaded up today.

Thanks for posting, always good to know.

Post automatically merged: Feb 8, 2023

Anyone had issues paying for seat selection on British Airways?

 

[Mr H]

Anyone had issues paying for seat selection on British Airways?

Only resentment at having to do it. I am a BAEC member so I would have done it while logged in. I don’t know whether that makes a difference.

 

[cjd600]

Anyone had issues paying for seat selection on British Airways?

I have issues with the requirement, so I don't do it

 

[Roundtheworld123]

Quick question. I think I have now had all my flights booked for a OWA flight. But it doesn't look like all the points have been taken. I remember seeing that sometimes this may happen? How can I confirm that my flights are all booked/ticketed/confirmed?
I have downloaded the app - Check my Trip like suggested on this forum. When I go into this I can see the flights and they all have a Booking Status : CONFIRMED. I also went onto the Qantas FF site and they are all in there as well.
There is a lot of talk on the site around when flights get changed that you need to ensure they are re-ticketed and you can see this in 'Checkmytrip' and if there are changes.
Any assistance would be great. I have had SOoooooo much drama booking these flights I just want to be certain they are actually booked.
I even went into the one Qantas flight that is on the ticket and was able to select seats. That kind of looks like its confirmed then?
Thanks!

 

[flapper]

Hi,
I have a ticketed RTW journey in business class however 2 of my segments have disappeared (Cathay Pacific flights). When advising Qantas of the issue, I have been told that Qantas can not re-instate the flights back without approval from Cathay. This has not proven successful. Qantas are claiming that they can not help further until a reward seat opens up even though the flight was ticketed. I believe Qantas should provide me with an alternative route or open an award seat on Qantas metal. After numerous phone calls and messages through social media, Qantas still have not been helpful (it has been about 3 weeks). I have attempted to contact the new RTW award booking email however am yet to hear back from them. Is there anything else I can do?

I think you need to email Markus Svensson all the details. What is the new award bookings email address? I'm only aware of the new rewards ticketing escalations email but they only deal with ticketing and not bookings.