Oneworld Classic Flight Reward Discussion - The Definitive Thread

[cjd600]

So I'm trying to get availability on SYD-JNB J for mid-April next year, which I will most likely not be able to get.

I do, however, have a friend with QFF Platinum. Would they be able to request two seats for me to add to my OW classic award? Or will this not work?

No, I dont believe so

 

[jfl]

No, I dont believe so

Thanks, was worth a try!

 

[cjd600]

Thanks, was worth a try!

I wish it was possible!

 

[daniella39]

Refining my itinerary at the moment and have plenty of flex in dates... have locked in first flights as we are Jan departure.
MEL-SIN -land segment- HKG-LHR -land segment- MAD-EZE, EZE-DFW (transit)-CUN-LAX-MEL

Stops are Singapore, London, Buenos Aires, Cancun, LA.

I'm getting errors on the multi-trip planner so wondering if anyone can see any reasons for this.
Appreciate any input, or the reassurance that others also get errors when there may not be any.

 

[Kiwifruit]

Refining my itinerary at the moment and have plenty of flex in dates... have locked in first flights as we are Jan departure.
MEL-SIN -land segment- HKG-LHR -land segment- MAD-EZE, EZE-DFW (transit)-CUN-LAX-MEL

Stops are Singapore, London, Buenos Aires, Cancun, LA.

I'm getting errors on the multi-trip planner so wondering if anyone can see any reasons for this.
Appreciate any input, or the reassurance that others also get errors when there may not be any.

Your itinerary looks good to me (provided you haven't exceeded the maximum mileage of 35,000 which I haven't checked).

I too find the multi-trip planner to be totally unreliable once you have four or more sectors so my advice is to hold in what you can and then call to add the other sectors. Apparently you can also use SMS to communicate and make changes but have no personal experience on this.

Nice itinerary by the way. I spent almost a month in Buenos Airies in February and loved it.

 

[melbkate]

Hi all

I have read on this forum about buying one Asia fare in order to turn your OWR into two trips.

Would someone kindly give me an example of an itinerary maximising the 280k J into 2 trips?

We are ex MEL travelling only to France/Italy/Spain via SIN or NRT or HKG most likely

Thanks

 

[appaz]

Hi all

I have read on this forum about buying one Asia fare in order to turn your OWR into two trips.

Would someone kindly give me an example of an itinerary maximising the 280k J into 2 trips?

We are ex MEL travelling only to France/Italy/Spain via SIN or NRT or HKG most likely

Thanks

I did
PER-DOH-AMM-ATH // JTR-HEL // ARN-DOH-KUL - trip 1
KUL-HKG-YVR-HKG-PER - trip 2

Europe and Canada, 2 trips 9 months apart. Just had to pay for KUL-PER-KUL (cheap Y) as well as ATH-JTR & HEL-ARN

Will likely book another award next year, definitely going to do 2 trips again

 

[melbkate]

I did
PER-DOH-AMM-ATH // JTR-HEL // ARN-KUL - trip 1
KUL-HKG-YVR-HKG-PER - trip 2

Europe and Canada, 2 trips 9 months apart. Just had to pay for KUL-PER-KUL (cheap Y) as well as ATH-JTR & HEL-ARN

Will likely book another award next year, definitely going to do 2 trips again

Thanks so much appaz, for some reason I find it hard to fathom. If anyone else has any other examples that would be fab.

I read elsewhere to start and end your OWR in an Asian hub was for some reason cheaper.

Kate

 

[appaz]

Thanks so much appaz, for some reason I find it hard to fathom. If anyone else has any other examples that would be fab. Kate

No worries, I forgot DOH on the return from Europe, updated my post.

Essentially for Europe + NA, you need Eastern Europe and the West Coast of NA to make it work.

I'm looking at including NYC in my next one, but that limits me to the Middle East or Asia for the 2nd trip

 

[Kangol]

A very basic example would be:
NRT-HKG-LHR-SYD,
SYD-LAX-NRT. Of course you could have other smaller side trips in Europe, Asia and North America, mileage permitting.

Buy a separate positioning flight to Tokyo to start your first trip and use the return to come home at the end of your second trip.

Or start it out of HKG instead of NRT and position to/from there. You would need to have two oneworld airlines - CX, BA, IB, AA would be the likely options. JL if you also wanted to visit Japan.

 

[jeza]

Hi all

I have read on this forum about buying one Asia fare in order to turn your OWR into two trips.

Would someone kindly give me an example of an itinerary maximising the 280k J into 2 trips?

We are ex MEL travelling only to France/Italy/Spain via SIN or NRT or HKG most likely

Thanks

Hi @melbkate I'm in the process of booking OWA for 2 trips to Europe and am starting in Singapore.

Currently have SIN-HEL, HEL-TXL, AMS-xDOH-PER booked for July/August of this year & PER-HKG, HKG-BCN booked for May 2020. Just waiting now for flights to be released to get back to Singapore for mid June 2020, hoping to nab CDG-xDOH-SIN.

 

[melbkate]

Hi @melbkate I'm in the process of booking OWA for 2 trips to Europe and am starting in Singapore.

Currently have SIN-HEL, HEL-TXL, AMS-xDOH-PER booked for July/August of this year & PER-HKG, HKG-BCN booked for May 2020. Just waiting now for flights to be released to get back to Singapore for mid June 2020, hoping to nab CDG-xDOH-SIN.

That sounds great! I've done 2 OWR in J and it took months. I imagine this will take even more but ostensibly worth it. Say you get back to Perth in May and decide to change a date for 2020 is it possible? I think it is, just seems like a long time between flights which makes me a little nervous.

 

[melbkate]

No worries, I forgot DOH on the return from Europe, updated my post.

Essentially for Europe + NA, you need Eastern Europe and the West Coast of NA to make it work.

I'm looking at including NYC in my next one, but that limits me to the Middle East or Asia for the 2nd trip

I'm actually not sure what you mean. I take it NA is North America and as I only want to go to Western Europe are you saying it is not worth it? Or not workable? Is it the 3 continent rule?

 

[melbkate]

A very basic example would be:
NRT-HKG-LHR-SYD,
SYD-LAX-NRT. Of course you could have other smaller side trips in Europe, Asia and North America, mileage permitting.

Buy a separate positioning flight to Tokyo to start your first trip and use the return to come home at the end of your second trip.

Or start it out of HKG instead of NRT and position to/from there. You would need to have two oneworld airlines - CX, BA, IB, AA would be the likely options. JL if you also wanted to visit Japan.

Thanks kangol. Do you know or anyone know, if there is any benefit in having your long 'stopover' ie the 10 months or whatever, in your home city (like you suggested) or in an Asian hub like appaz's booking above in KUL

 

[exceladdict]

I'll take a shot at these:

That sounds great! I've done 2 OWR in J and it took months. I imagine this will take even more but ostensibly worth it. Say you get back to Perth in May and decide to change a date for 2020 is it possible? I think it is, just seems like a long time between flights which makes me a little nervous.

Yes, but:
1) I think there's a 365 day limit between your first and last flight on an itinerary i.e. it can't span more than a year.
2) You can only book flights so many days out, which can make booking over such a long timeframe difficult. It either means paying a lot of change fees as you book it progressively over the course of a year, or, booking it without such a long horizon, which can mean availability issues. For example if you wanted your itinerary to end in September next year, the latest it can start is September this year, the availability for which will be low because it's only 3 months away.
3) You can change anything prior to departure (on the first flight) by paying a change fee but after you depart it is much more restrictive. I believe you can only change flight dates - for example, if you have a CX flight HKG to PER, you can shift the date (if there's availability) but not the carrier, or add a stopover to HKG-SIN-PER, etc.

I'm actually not sure what you mean. I take it NA is North America and as I only want to go to Western Europe are you saying it is not worth it? Or not workable? Is it the 3 continent rule?

I think What @appaz getting at is that you will run up against mileage limits if you try otherwise. Going all the way to western europe (LHR) and east coast USA (NYC) (or Southern US such as Texas for that matter) adds on extra miles that get you close to the 35k limit. You might be better off saving the miles for premium travel on your longer legs and paying cash for a fare for example from LAX or SEA to your East Coast USA destinations.

Interestingly being based in Perth, this makes flights into SYD, MEL and BNE harder to justify for me, as adding on the few thousand miles transcon to PER takes quite a chunk out of the 35k allowance. For me it might be better having a stopover in DPS and booking a cheap one way from there.

To clarify, there is no continent rule on a OWR.

Thanks kangol. Do you know or anyone know, if there is any benefit in having your long 'stopover' ie the 10 months or whatever, in your home city (like you suggested) or in an Asian hub like appaz's booking above in KUL

If you do it in your home city, you don't need to pay to book to get home in between. You can also save mileage for your longer legs. However, being from MEL (I assume), this isn't quite as short as it would be for me to pop to DPS, SIN or KUL. You could consider AKL as an interim point. Just keep in mind that you can't return to the city or country where your itinerary started until the end of your award.

 

[exceladdict]

Thanks so much appaz, for some reason I find it hard to fathom. If anyone else has any other examples that would be fab.

I read elsewhere to start and end your OWR in an Asian hub was for some reason cheaper.

Kate

Missed this one sorry. In my research, it is typically always cheaper to start outside Australia, Manila is the ideal location due to particular regulations reducing surcharges on itineraries commencing in the Philippines.

 

[melbkate]

Missed this one sorry. In my research, it is typically always cheaper to start outside Australia, Manila is the ideal location due to particular regulations reducing surcharges on itineraries commencing in the Philippines.

Thanks so much kangol Just mustering up the energy to start another spreadsheet! Hmm, Manilla and Auckland food for thought thanks I need to jump on a milage calculator

 

[Kangol]

Thanks kangol. Do you know or anyone know, if there is any benefit in having your long 'stopover' ie the 10 months or whatever, in your home city (like you suggested) or in an Asian hub like appaz's booking above in KUL

Besides the surcharge regulations in certain ports, the benefit would be related to the logistics in how you plan your trip, which would be dependent on your individual circumstances.
eg. if you wanted to go to Europe on trip 1 followed by USA on trip 2, starting it in an Asian port means you have to finish there. So if you wanted to come home nonstop LAX-SYD (for whatever reason), you wouldn't be able to do that - you would have to go LAX-Asian port-SYD.
In the same example, if you start in Australia, have the 10 month stopover in Asia, you would be able to do the nonstop LAX-SYD on the way home.
Your positioning flights Australia-Asia could either be right before the OWA and right after - meaning you have to keep the 12 month rule in mind if buying a cheap(er) revenue ticket, or, have the positioning flights in the middle of the award, which would not be subject to the 12 month rule.

There is some discussion on surcharges here:

High Fuel Surcharges Returning to Hong Kong?

26 May, 2018

www.australianfrequentflyer.com.au

 

[melbkate]

Could someone answer one more question re the 2 trips in one scenario please?

Are you able to transit through your departure city?

Ie. sin-bkk-hel-fco-doh-mel-sin-cdg-hel-sin or would you have to do it like this for example

sin-bkk-hel-fco-doh-mel-hkg-cdg-hel-sin

 

[jeza]

Could someone answer one more question re the 2 trips in one scenario please?

Are you able to transit through your departure city?

Ie. sin-bkk-hel-fco-doh-mel-sin-cdg-hel-sin or would you have to do it like this for example

sin-bkk-hel-fco-doh-mel-hkg-cdg-hel-sin

I'm pretty sure even a transit through the origin city is not permitted under the OWA rules.