Oneworld Classic Flight Reward Discussion - The Definitive Thread

[Lomandriel]

It looks like you definitely have more than 5 stopovers in this itinerary. I'm seeing 8:

PER-HKG-KIX
KIX-HEL
HEL-ARN
ARN-LHR-KEF
KEF-LHR-OSL
OSL-CPH
CPH-ZRH
ZRH-HKG
HKG-PER

Unless of course you are transiting through a few of those cities in under 24 hours?

Sorry, didn't see the other replies as it went to the next page.

Would a PER-HKG-KIX count as "one stopover", given we search for a Perth to Osaka flight? Or is it to do with whether your transit time is <24 hours that the stop counts as another stopover?

So basically if you are going through a city en-route to your destinatoin, if below 24 hours this flight counts as one stopover correct? So 5 allowed max?

In which case my suspicions above are correct. The issue now is maximising the 5th flight. Assuming the longest business classflights are max value, the above 4 dummy tests leave little room for a 5th long haul. I thought maybe I could do PER-Toronto. Then Toronto-KIX, KIX-HEL, ZRH - HKG, HKG - PER. These would be 5 flights, i.e. stopovers, but the longest hours wise and most value i presume?

However, there just isn't any flights that offer business/work to include Toronto. Not sure if there are any other 'suggestions' on a possible detour to make use of all 5 stopovers?

We would then need to book internal Scandinavian flights - looks like our expenses just rocketed!

And by gosh - I thought australia was expensive - double? The mrs mentioned an igloo resort would set us back lik e500-700 a night, and I thought that was an 'once off' honeymoon experience to see the northern lights haha. maybe she's right - we may need to lessen time in Scandinavia to lower costs. I thought we were there already, lets do the most days in all the Scandinavian destinations (Talinn included).

 

[JohnM]

That's a bundle of connections to get PER-HEL. I can't advise off the top of my head on how it fits the OW Award rules.

I would have thought double for prices in Scandinavia is conservative.

CX flies HKG-YYZ direct. AY/AA flies HEL-YYZ via JFK or ORD. Otherwise BA from LHR.

My advice would be to avoid very tight connections in far N countries at that time of the year. If a blizzard comes through, things could go pear-shaped quickly.

 

[Kiwifruit]

A transfer of less than 24 hours is not counted as a stopover. A stopover is every point at which you break your journey for more than 24 hours.

You should certainly be able to fit in US/Canada within the allowed 35,000 km mileage.

For instance in your itinerary you could subject to availability return from Zurich to New York to Vancouver to Hong Kong to Perth and still come in at less than 35,000 miles.

In the 280k award you are allowed up to 16 flight sectors but have to make sure you restrict your itinerary to no more than five stopovers.

If you want to calculate how many miles you are flying in a proposed itinerary a useful tool is great circle mapper (www.gcmap.com)

 

[levelnine]

Iceland is amazing and well worth doing, but the other commenters are right. It is easily double the cost of Australia, probably more with the way the Australian dollar is heading.

 

[Lomandriel]

My advice would be to avoid very tight connections in far N countries at that time of the year. If a blizzard comes through, things could go pear-shaped quickly.

Regarding connections and europe, and from what i hear cancellations are more common (something us australians are not used to given our climate generally does not hold up flights) - if we are both bookin on the same PNR in general a blizzard or snowstorm would not be so much an issue would it? If a connecting flight or ongoing flight is missed then presumably as you'ved booked all the way is it not something the airlines will rebook you onto the next available flight? Inconvenient though.

For instance in your itinerary you could subject to availability return from Zurich to New York to Vancouver to Hong Kong to Perth and still come in at less than 35,000 miles.

In the 280k award you are allowed up to 16 flight sectors but have to make sure you restrict your itinerary to no more than five stopovers.

How exactly would one fit in 16 flight sectors with only 5 stopovers however? Regarding flight sectors and where you land in one city using one world, then fly using your own money, then fly out again using one world - how do they count the flight sectors where you took your own flights? Say you landed in London. ANd from there you flew to multiple cities e.g. Paris, Zurich etc. If you then took the one world out of another European city would it count just one additional flight sector on the assumption that you count London to this other European city as one sector, even though you may have taken 2 or 3 or more internal flights via your own money during the intermediate time?

The suggested Zurich-New York to Vancouver to HK etc. sounds like a great experience, but detouring to the America or Canada from Scandinavia is a fair distance to cover isn't it? Physically alot more out of the way than say exploring southern Europe - spain, france etc given these have much clsoer proximity to Scandinavian countries?

For those who are saying Iceland was lovely what exactly did you do there? For how many days would you recommend as a decent middle ground stint for a traveller? A workmate mentioned it was a nice place albeit he ran out of things worth doing fairly quickly, and so there 'wasn't much there' from a typical tourist pov to warrant longe stays at Iceland (of say 5 days or more). Do others agree with this?

 

[ozflier]

All , just wondering what I am doing wrong? I ‘tested’ the multi city given I had only found business class seats through one way flights… I get to flight 6 of 8 and I run into the following errors (says max 12 flights so why can’t i?)

Please review the following items

The requested cabin class is full or not available in at least one of the options listed below. (5003)
A maximum of 12 segments can be included in your itinerary. Please modify your last availability request or use the Back button to select another flight.
Start again


The 5003 error was there from the very start but I could click through my first 5 flights with no issue. Is this the whole issue that people mention you can’t book longer itineraries through the online multi city? If so what is the best way to book? Others mentioned they’ve “fb chatted” an dbooked it, but is this secure and safe? I mean room for errors when using facebook chat? Seems quite ‘casual’ for a first timer than the official website.

The live chat last time I logged in at 1:40pm at work at queue 48 and wasn’t served until 4:45pm…. At which time I noticed it at 4:56pm and was kicked out already. So this seems like a long way to book… again my worry is room for error? Or do you get a complete itinerary to review and cooling off period incase of any noticed erros with booking?


1Perth to Osaka (Kansai) [1 stop via Hong Kong]
Departs
23:55
Arrives
15:00 Fri
Flight Duration
14h 05m
Flights QF8237, JL7052 are operated by Cathay Pacific
BUSINESS

2.
Osaka (Kansai) to Helsinki
Departs
11:45
Arrives
15:00
Flight Duration
10h 15m
Flight AY78 is operated by Finnair
BUSINESS

3
Helsinki to Stockholm (Arlanda)
Departs
10:40
Arrives
10:40
Flight Duration
1h 00m
Flight AY805 is operated by Finnair
BUSINESS

4
Stockholm (Arlanda) to Reykjavik (Keflavik International) [1 stop via London – this is one of the worst ones as it arrives in 9:45pm to London but the flight out to Iceland is 8:15am the next morning. Is there no way to do this same flight but perhaps have the London to Iceland 2nd leg delayed one or two days later? Might as well see London for the first time if this is possible]
Departs
20:15
Arrives
11:30 Wed
Flight Duration
16h 15m
Flights BA783, BA894 are operated by British Airways
BUSINESS

5
Reykjavik (Keflavik International) to Oslo [1 stop via London again]
Departs
15:15
Arrives
23:00
Flight Duration
6h 45m
Flights BA801, BA770 are operated by British Airways
BUSINESS

6
Oslo to Copenhagen
Tuesday, 10 March 2020

[This is where I can’t pick the business class seats that show up and proceed to the next 3 bookings below].

7
Copenhagen to Zurich

8
Zurich to Hong Kong

9
Hong Kong to Perth

I have found this an issue as well .
Often,I can only get a maximum of 4 sectors and then the page comes up with an error message .
This happens with google chrome but I have better luck with microsoft edge.

 

[ozflier]

Transfer of points should be instantaneous, just do it.

If you have separate bookings, you may not get to sit together; but more importantly, one of you may get offloaded while the other continues on.

You want to be on the same PNR.

While I agree with the general concept , I have found that in "hard to get" sectors , there can be advantages using separate pnrs for a couple travelling.
I believe that if you have 2 pax in one pnr, and you are after business seats , then you need 2 reward J seats to become available . Only "one" cannot be used for only one pax in a double pnr.
For example, if there was only one J seat BNE-SIN and plenty of Ys, with separate pnrs , you could snag one J and one Y and hope another J comes up later.
Otherwise, in that situation , you would be forced to take 2 Ys .
I understand that separate pnrs can be " linked" by QF agents - not sure what that entails but it does seem to create some kind of connection between the separate pnrs.
Maybe the above info is outdated and I am too happy to be corrected.

 

[jfl]

How exactly would one fit in 16 flight sectors with only 5 stopovers however? Regarding flight sectors and where you land in one city using one world, then fly using your own money, then fly out again using one world - how do they count the flight sectors where you took your own flights? Say you landed in London. ANd from there you flew to multiple cities e.g. Paris, Zurich etc. If you then took the one world out of another European city would it count just one additional flight sector on the assumption that you count London to this other European city as one sector, even though you may have taken 2 or 3 or more internal flights via your own money during the intermediate time?

You could do multiple sectors, then stay in a location for under 24 hours. For example, my recent OW award that I've booked is:

HKG-NRT - Stopover for 3 weeks
HND-SYD - Stopover for 6 months
SYD-JNB - Stopover for 2 weeks
JNB-LHR - Stopover for 4 weeks
MXP-DOH-SIN - Stopover for 2 days
SIN-SYD - Last stop, tacking on the mileage from SYD-HKG (but not taking the trip) to finish the award.

This puts me at 5 stopovers and 9 segments. I'm sure I could've easily added Taiwan for 23 hours or Kuala Lumpur for 23 hours as well to bring the segments up.

For the mileage between cities on your own dime, just count the mileage between where you land and where you depart from (ie. for me it was LHR-MXP).

For those who are saying Iceland was lovely what exactly did you do there? For how many days would you recommend as a decent middle ground stint for a traveller? A workmate mentioned it was a nice place albeit he ran out of things worth doing fairly quickly, and so there 'wasn't much there' from a typical tourist pov to warrant longe stays at Iceland (of say 5 days or more). Do others agree with this?

Wife and I hired a campervan and drove around the entire ring road. Highlights were horses on Vik i Myrdal, Nature Baths at Myvatn, whale watching at Husavik, Thingvellir national park, camping in Hofn and the general peace and quiet.

 

[JohnM]

Wife and I hired a campervan and drove around the entire ring road. Highlights were horses on Vik i Myrdal, Nature Baths at Myvatn, whale watching at Husavik, Thingvellir national park, camping in Hofn and the general peace and quiet.

At risk of straying OT.

I also drove the full circuit and it is indeed a great drive. I did it in autumn and places were beginning to shut down for winter.

The OP is planning to go in February. The drive could be challenging if not well-equipped and sightseeing, off the highway at least, hampered by weather and the short days.

 

[jfl]

At risk of straying OT.

I also drove the full circuit and it is indeed a great drive. I did it in autumn and places were beginning to shut down for winter.

The OP is planning to go in February. The drive could be challenging if not well-equipped and sightseeing, off the highway at least, hampered by weather and the short days.

Agreed, I would probably avoid driving there in February as there will be lots of snow and ice, which we don't get so much here in Australia.

We went in September so it was fine, albeit cold.

 

[Lomandriel]

You could do multiple sectors, then stay in a location for under 24 hours. For example, my recent OW award that I've booked is:

HKG-NRT - Stopover for 3 weeks
HND-SYD - Stopover for 6 months
SYD-JNB - Stopover for 2 weeks
JNB-LHR - Stopover for 4 weeks
MXP-DOH-SIN - Stopover for 2 days
SIN-SYD - Last stop, tacking on the mileage from SYD-HKG (but not taking the trip) to finish the awar

That's an interesting itinerary. I don't know if your retired and actually staying in locations fort hat long e.g. JNB 2 weeks followed by LHR for 4 weeks, however I assume your Sydney based and so the 6 month stop over is essentially you staying back home until your next holiday to JNB? If so I never considered such a plan. To me booking the one world award was for "one holiday" block e.g. this whole 5 weeks... but in reality one could split up 2 or 3 holidays in a year and utilise the oneworld award , correct?

Is there a time limit?Rather than booking for the sake of booking a 5th stopover in Feb-March 2020, could I do the 4 stopovers, pay for all the internal Scandinavian flights, then rebook a 5th "stopover" flight say mid or end of 2020 for say Perth-NZ, or the like?

Given I will already be using as part of my 4 stopovers :
PER-KIX,
KIX-HEL
(Scandinavian out of pocket flights in this part)
ZRH-HKG
HKG-PER.


Or because you have gone through Perth and back, flying back out from Perth later in 2020 would fall foul of the rules of not going through an airport more than twice?

Perhaps in future awards redemption I could break up into 2 or 3 seperate holidays (requires alot of forward planning with leave and where oyu want to go though)?

Agreed, I would probably avoid driving there in February as there will be lots of snow and ice, which we don't get so much here in Australia.

We are also WA based. So have no idea how to attach snow chains, and have never driven in ice so potentially a risk for us, albeit I'm a decent driver with zero experience on that type of surface.

However, i presume unlike Japan there isn't an easy bullet train option from major capital cities to the snow fields, or a bus, and the mode of transport is usually to drive there direct?

When people say things were shutting down in autumn already -what specifically starts to shut in winter? ON a trip advisor forum locals in Sweden mentioned the light is affected but generally tourist locations still did the 9-5pm etc. THe mrs reckons we should 'push on' and just do it, and at least for 5 weeks we're already there, tick it all off, enjoy and relax indoors with dining to experience the culture/places if need be (she doesn't seem to be phased. Perhaps for me a holidays means ticking off alot of the 'outdoor' atractions and landmarks, so winter and low light affects me more?)

 

[jfl]

That's an interesting itinerary. I don't know if your retired and actually staying in locations fort hat long e.g. JNB 2 weeks followed by LHR for 4 weeks, however I assume your Sydney based and so the 6 month stop over is essentially you staying back home until your next holiday to JNB? If so I never considered such a plan.

Far from it - early 30's. By starting the award from overseas in HKG, Sydney counts as a "stopover", even though it is where we live. This way we can split the award in to two holidays and accumulate enough leave

Is there a time limit?Rather than booking for the sake of booking a 5th stopover in Feb-March 2020, could I do the 4 stopovers, pay for all the internal Scandinavian flights, then rebook a 5th "stopover" flight say mid or end of 2020 for say Perth-NZ, or the like?

Yes - you get 12 months between first and last flight.

Or because you have gone through Perth and back, flying back out from Perth later in 2020 would fall foul of the rules of not going through an airport more than twice?

Correct. Hence why we are not returning to HKG until the very end of our award.

One potential two-trip itinerary would be:

MEL-KIX
KIX-HEL
HEL-ZRH (ground segment)
ZRH-HKG-PER
PER-AKL
AKL-PER
PER-MEL (ground segment)

By starting from Melbourne and splitting in two, you would get a bonus NZ trip as the total mineage is 29,000 (less than 35,000).

We are also WA based. So have no idea how to attach snow chains, and have never driven in ice so potentially a risk for us, albeit I'm a decent driver with zero experience on that type of surface.

However, i presume unlike Japan there isn't an easy bullet train option from major capital cities to the snow fields, or a bus, and the mode of transport is usually to drive there direct?

Public transport in Iceland is basically just a few bus routes. The easiest way around is by car, or by tour group. If you are uncomfortable driving in the snow or ice, I would recommend you do a tour instead.

 

[VPS]

I’ll run it by the mrs and see what she says… I think we had our heart set on the whole area… after all you’re already there why not do all of it sort of thing? Perhaps if she agrees we only cover part of Scandinavia would other parts of Europe (say Switzerland, spain and the like) be a lot more light friendly in winter in that feb-march period? How about Canada?

I guess our thinking was – we’re already there, and all countries are alongside one another so why not? That said we have no experience of the weather or light so would take heed if most travellers are saying 4 weeks of all the Scandinavian countries would be tiring?

The one reason we figured not mixing hot and cold is needing multiple clothing themes e.g. summer and winter gear. Seemed far easier sticking to the winter cold theme. Bringing snow gear for snowboarding, thermals etc and not worrying about packing the shorts.

Although it does sound concerning with the warnings of spending lengthy times there….and yeah I did hear it is very expensive , one of the more expensive areas. Supposed Canada brings in northern lights too? Wonder if that is too far off the current itinerary to modify.. it just seems like we’d finally found a workable itinerary….

Slightly OT but have a look at @amaroo TR Impulsive Christmas Trip where he was in Spain in winter last year

 

[JohnM]

May I suggest that asking so much about what to do at a destination is taking this thread way OT. Best peel that off to a new thread.

 

[bookworm]

Well I've finally booked my OWA for this Aug-Dec after nearly 8 months of research and planning. Wifey and I are doing the following in Y:

MEL-SYD-xSIN-LHR (QF)
LHR-BCN (surface sector around Europe)
BCN-MAD-JFK (IB)
JFK-YYZ (AA)
YYZ-YYC, YYC-YVR (WS - not on OWA)
YVR-SFO (surface sector down the US west coast)
SFO-DFW-SCL (AA)
SCL-PNT, PNT-SCL (LA - not on OWA)
SCL-SYD-MEL (QF)

Ended up only costing $1500 total in taxes and surcharges which I think was a good outcome. We avoided BA for the Europe-USA leg which would have added a couple of hundred $. We tried to get the Patagonia leg on the OWA with LATAM but A) PNT doesn't exist in the QF booking system and B) when I called the QF service centre they couldn't see any award availability on those flights. Also wanted the SCL-MEL direct flight with LATAM but they're not releasing award seats during Dec-Jan, so we're stuck with QF home via SYD. At least we can use the lounges as I'm Gold FF.

Wow, this is so awesome.
I’d love to read your entire itinerary.

 

[Lomandriel]

Correct. Hence why we are not returning to HKG until the very end of our award.

One potential two-trip itinerary would be:

MEL-KIX
KIX-HEL
HEL-ZRH (ground segment)
ZRH-HKG-PER
PER-AKL
AKL-PER
PER-MEL (ground segment)

By starting from Melbourne and splitting in two, you would get a bonus NZ trip as the total mineage is 29,000 (less than 35,000).

Public transport in Iceland is basically just a few bus routes. The easiest way around is by car, or by tour group. If you are uncomfortable driving in the snow or ice, I would recommend you do a tour instead.

At this stage upon discussions rather than 'maximising't he value of the points the mrs has decided we'll just book our flights on the basis of not having to pay for business to/from scandinavia, even though we aren't 'maximising' per se our flights by going through longer haul routes like say via canada, america etc?

We did manage to find a Zurich - Doha - Perth flight back earlier this week but it has since disappeared! What a pain! We searched up Qatar's website and there are clearly business class flights left still for those flights? Is there only availability specifically for classic reward flights that is not correlated to whether business class seats are even available on the carrier's direct website?

The other option is our Zurich - Doha flight if we take the 8am /early morning one we get to Doha before dinner, and we leave Doha to Perth on the same flight at 2am the next morning. So it would be the same flight except catching an earlier one into Doha. Results in leaving Zurich in the AM rather than after lunch, and so you're in Doha for transit from 4-5pm until the 2am Flight.

Any other suggestions? Or is it easy to tour Doha for the 4 or so hours transit inbetween?

Thanks for all the other suggestions and as John mentioned perhaps will take this outside so at to not go off topic regarding the oneworld award.

If anyone has any other suggestions on getting back to Perth, happy to take it. One alternative route was getting to Prague, or even going to Spain. This all means we would miss out on ending the trip at Switzerland (and getting my snowboarding fix) before flying home though Although arguably some have mentioned Spain are much more affordable, particularly for snowboarding. With Switzerland and being there 7 or 8 days, even if 3 nights are at a snow resort I presume this would add up to hundreds per person easily...

 

[ozflier]

I am having a senior moment here.
I am planning a OWA trip
Currently , I’ve booked
BNE-HKG-TLV
5 days TLV stopover
Surface segment TLV-AMM
4 days AMM
Amm- cai flight
CAI stopover 6 days
I recognise that the distance TLV-AMM counts towards maximum mileage
Am I looking at a total of 2 stopovers so far?

 

[jfl]

At this stage upon discussions rather than 'maximising't he value of the points the mrs has decided we'll just book our flights on the basis of not having to pay for business to/from scandinavia, even though we aren't 'maximising' per se our flights by going through longer haul routes like say via canada, america etc?

There is no right answer to this, you can fly as much or as little as you like

We did manage to find a Zurich - Doha - Perth flight back earlier this week but it has since disappeared! What a pain! We searched up Qatar's website and there are clearly business class flights left still for those flights? Is there only availability specifically for classic reward flights that is not correlated to whether business class seats are even available on the carrier's direct website?

Correct, award availability does not correlate with standard business fare availability.

 

[Kangol]

I am having a senior moment here.
I am planning a OWA trip
Currently , I’ve booked
BNE-HKG-TLV
5 days TLV stopover
Surface segment TLV-AMM
4 days AMM
Amm- cai flight
CAI stopover 6 days
I recognise that the distance TLV-AMM counts towards maximum mileage
Am I looking at a total of 2 stopovers so far?

Yes, two stops in TLV and CAI.
Although I recall some reports that some agents believe a surface segment also counts as a stop - easily resolved by HUACA apparently.

 

[JohnM]

At this stage upon discussions rather than 'maximising't he value of the points the mrs has decided we'll just book our flights on the basis of not having to pay for business to/from scandinavia, even though we aren't 'maximising' per se our flights by going through longer haul routes like say via canada, america etc?

We did manage to find a Zurich - Doha - Perth flight back earlier this week but it has since disappeared! What a pain! We searched up Qatar's website and there are clearly business class flights left still for those flights? Is there only availability specifically for classic reward flights that is not correlated to whether business class seats are even available on the carrier's direct website?

The other option is our Zurich - Doha flight if we take the 8am /early morning one we get to Doha before dinner, and we leave Doha to Perth on the same flight at 2am the next morning. So it would be the same flight except catching an earlier one into Doha. Results in leaving Zurich in the AM rather than after lunch, and so you're in Doha for transit from 4-5pm until the 2am Flight.

Any other suggestions? Or is it easy to tour Doha for the 4 or so hours transit inbetween?

Thanks for all the other suggestions and as John mentioned perhaps will take this outside so at to not go off topic regarding the oneworld award.

If anyone has any other suggestions on getting back to Perth, happy to take it. One alternative route was getting to Prague, or even going to Spain. This all means we would miss out on ending the trip at Switzerland (and getting my snowboarding fix) before flying home though Although arguably some have mentioned Spain are much more affordable, particularly for snowboarding. With Switzerland and being there 7 or 8 days, even if 3 nights are at a snow resort I presume this would add up to hundreds per person easily...

You learnt the hard way about seeing suitable flights and hoping they'd still be there when you look again! Searching well ahead, flexibility and decisiveness are key!

Best start a new thread if asking for detailed advice on what other things to do, but if you haven't been to Doha before and want a quick look, a couple of hours in a cab and a quick stop at the souk would be enough. It's far from the most enthralling place on earth IMO.