Oneworld Classic Flight Reward Discussion - The Definitive Thread

[EestiTiger]

I have had the most torrid week when I stupidly decided to add one more final flight to my OWA booking. Started last Monday, spoke to phone agents every day until Friday trying to get things ticketed. Watched on weekend as a couple of flights dropped off and another went to 'wait-listed'.

Then before I could go into battle this morning, everything sorted itself out. I saw the 2 flights that disappearred added back in, then the waitlisted flight was re-confirmed, then FINALLY I was ticketed. I am not sure who I have to thank - twitter team, facebook team or the escalations mailbox team.

Absolutely put through the wringer this past week. I have done over half a dozen OWA over the years with no major issues and you'd really think things would be getting better not worse!

Serenity now.

 

[PointsTraveller!]

I really like flight connections, but have paid for the yearly membership which can show airports/routes by alliance, and you can multi-select airlines to display. Granted sometimes the site is a bit glitchy, but I think it's worth it. I haven't found anything which is as useful.

Try flightsfrom.com for a free service.

 

[sqrt()]

Try flightsfrom.com for a free service.

Thanks, good resource!

 

[Mr H]

I have had the most torrid week when I stupidly decided to add one more final flight to my OWA booking. Started last Monday, spoke to phone agents every day until Friday trying to get things ticketed. Watched on weekend as a couple of flights dropped off and another went to 'wait-listed'.

Then before I could go into battle this morning, everything sorted itself out. I saw the 2 flights that disappearred added back in, then the waitlisted flight was re-confirmed, then FINALLY I was ticketed. I am not sure who I have to thank - twitter team, facebook team or the escalations mailbox team.

Absolutely put through the wringer this past week. I have done over half a dozen OWA over the years with no major issues and you'd really think things would be getting better not worse!

Serenity now.

Almost certainly it was the escalations team that sorted t for you.

My impression is that the ticketing team is getting worse, not better. This started about a year ago with a few bookings going astray. It was rare enough to cause shock. Now, almost every award booking/award change is not being ticketed in time and requires rescuing.

I am still waiting for a booking made nine days ago to be ticketed. Three EK flights - nothing out of the ordinary - and the combination of the booking team and ticketing team is simply unable to ticket it, despite multiple phone calls and being told they have now spotted the problem and fixed it.

 

[Lynda2475]

The escalation team did nothing to get my OW ticketed I had to keep calling until I got a competent person (or one that cared to keep pushing ticketing to do it).

 

[cloudsurfer]

Hi All - a couple of Q's:
1/ In calculating 35,000 miles use the great circle mapper for a OWA is it statute or nautical miles I'm after?
2/ I've used the Oneworld interactive map/planner in the past to discover where I could fly on Oneworld airlines (e.g. trying to find ways to get from JNB to SYD via wherever) but it seems to have gone, and Flight Connections doesn't seem as good. Any alternatives?

I really like flight connections, but have paid for the yearly membership which can show airports/routes by alliance, and you can multi-select airlines to display. Granted sometimes the site is a bit glitchy, but I think it's worth it. I haven't found anything which is as useful.

Thanks @sqrt() and @Symesy9
Anyone able to answer my Q above about which type of miles is used?

And if a want to fly direct but the award ads a connection (that ads miles) do I have to include that stopover in my 35kmiles calculation?

Am trying to fit an Asia/Europe/South Africa/NW USA award into 35K miles

 

[Lynda2475]

In calculating 35,000 miles use the great circle mapper for a OWA is it statute or nautical miles I'm after

I've never been sure so always made sure my routing came under 35k on both statute and nautical miles.

 

[Mr H]

Thanks @sqrt() and @Symesy9
Anyone able to answer my Q above about which type of miles is used?

And if a want to fly direct but the award ads a connection (that ads miles) do I have to include that stopover in my 35kmiles calculation?

Am trying to fit an Asia/Europe/South Africa/NW USA award into 35K miles

The miles seem to be whatever gcmap.com uses. You will need to add the miles for each flight within your itinerary. The exception may be if you have a single flight number that goes via somewhere else - where you would be given a single boarding pass that covers the end to end journey. For example, last year the first part of my itinerary was MEL-CMB-DEL. MEL-CMB touched down in SYD for a technical stop (they merged flights). The miles were calculated as direct MEL-CMB plus CMB-DEL, even though the actual routing was significantly longer. Similarly, the route only counted as two of my permissible 16 flights even though I had three take-offs and landings.

Good luck with fitting Asia, Europe, South Africa and the US in a 35k routing originating from Australia. Plugging in the most mileage friendly destinations into GC Map shows 32,000 miles - and that is if direct connections between these cities existed, which most of them don't.

 

[There'sOnlyOneJimmy]

1/ In calculating 35,000 miles use the great circle mapper for a OWA is it statute or nautical miles I'm after?

They’re regular miles (not Nautical), equivalent to 56,315 Km.

 

[flapper]

The escalation team did nothing to get my OW ticketed I had to keep calling until I got a competent person (or one that cared to keep pushing ticketing to do it).

FYI the auto response from the ticketing escalations team says: "This inbox is dedicated to customers who hold a Classic Flight Reward booking on a partner airline flight, which has been cancelled or had a schedule change."
Unfortunatley it doesn't mention they will reticket if you make a change, which is what I thought it was for.
I agree with others the reticketing seems to have gotten worse not better. Recently I had to email Markus Svensson to get it done.
I changed some flights to make a OWA with the big release of rewards seats on Friday. I was all day on the phone Sat trying to get it reticketed. Every time they have to fix something. One needed my credit card again, another all the APIS info which was already on the booking, told it will be an hour, never arrived. Sunday I tried one of the many other Qantas numbers I have, I couldn't believe it was answered by Qantas ticketing. They took literally 30 secs to ticket it. At first they refused because my flights weren't imminent but then relented and voila. I'm sure it's one of those numbers they change regularly, so not sure it will work again.

 

[Lynda2475]

FYI the auto response from the ticketing escalations team says: "This inbox is dedicated to customers who hold a Classic Flight Reward booking on a partner airline flight, which has been cancelled or had a schedule change."
Unfortunatley it doesn't mention they will reticket if you make a change, which is what I thought it was for.

I had both chnages I made and a Partner AIrline changing schedule - still no help. BUt thankfully all sorted now.

 

[PaulyB]

At first they refused because my flights weren't imminent

I find that when I wait a few hours - say 6 and call and say.... " I am deeply concerned because delaying the ticketing can mean the tickets drop off the other airlines, as you know...." works quite well....

 

[Mr H]

I find that when I wait a few hours - say 6 and call and say.... " I am deeply concerned because delaying the ticketing can mean the tickets drop off the other airlines, as you know...." works quite well....

This has not been working for me of late. I either get a "that won't happen" or a "yes I know but that's life" type responses. On the phone again to them now and on hold. They have not yet asked for the booking reference which makes me think they are only pretending to be looking at stuff.

 

[Mr H]

They have not yet asked for the booking reference which makes me think they are only pretending to be looking at stuff.

And I did the agent a disservice. She had to go off shift after three hours of failing to get a response from the ticketing team but did call me back to tell me. She has promised to call again tomorrow. When she does, she will be able to give me the good news that after nine and a half days, I now have an eticket.

 

[cloudsurfer]

The miles seem to be whatever gcmap.com uses. You will need to add the miles for each flight within your itinerary. The exception may be if you have a single flight number that goes via somewhere else - where you would be given a single boarding pass that covers the end to end journey. For example, last year the first part of my itinerary was MEL-CMB-DEL. MEL-CMB touched down in SYD for a technical stop (they merged flights). The miles were calculated as direct MEL-CMB plus CMB-DEL, even though the actual routing was significantly longer. Similarly, the route only counted as two of my permissible 16 flights even though I had three take-offs and landings.

Good luck with fitting Asia, Europe, South Africa and the US in a 35k routing originating from Australia. Plugging in the most mileage friendly destinations into GC Map shows 32,000 miles - and that is if direct connections between these cities existed, which most of them don't.

View attachment 317682

OK so if I'm searching for an award flight, for example, from MAD-JNB and it routes via LHR because it's on BA metal - do I need to calculate MAD-LHR-JNB even though I only want MAD-JNB?
I had been trying to start the award from overseas but my choices seem too far and wide, particularly if nautical miles are void (Great Circle Mapper showed that option but it wasn't default).

 

[Mr H]

OK so if I'm searching for an award flight, for example, from MAD-JNB and it routes via LHR because it's on BA metal - do I need to calculate MAD-LHR-JNB even though I only want MAD-JNB?
I had been trying to start the award from overseas but my choices seem too far and wide, particularly if nautical miles are void (Great Circle Mapper showed that option but it wasn't default).

Yes, you need to do the mileage MAD-LHR plus LHR-JNB because these are two different flights with different flight numbers and you would get two different boarding passes. It will also count as two sectors towards your permitted maximum of sixteen.

You should also note that if you start overseas and finish in Sydney, you will need to add the miles from Sydney to your staring point, even though you would not be flying it.

 

[flapper]

And I did the agent a disservice. She had to go off shift after three hours of failing to get a response from the ticketing team but did call me back to tell me. She has promised to call again tomorrow. When she does, she will be able to give me the good news that after nine and a half days, I now have an eticket.

That is one of the problems with the OS call centres, they have to wait 2 hours to get through to ticketing and inevitably the call drops out and they don't call back, I've had that happen so many times. HBA & AKL can get through to their ticketing in 15 mins. QF also need to invest in areas like ticketing.
Does anyone know why OWA bookings can't be reticketed automatically? Does even QF know? When I got through to the Australian ticketing line the other day, it seemed like they literally just pressed a button it was that fast.

 

[Kiwiash]

I've recently had some success with the escalations email address to push through ticketing of a change made by an agent in Hobart. They picked up the email within a couple of hours, replied and said it had been sent to ticketing. I immediately replied saying that nothing yet had been received and to my surprise I got another response saying to wait as it was queued and would be done. E-ticket received that night. It's quite possible that because the alteration was done by a Hobart agent, it was in fact a simple reticket and the booking wasn't royally mucked up it was an easy one for the team to resolve. Maybe the escalations which involve more manual interventions are being reviewed, but because of the sheer number of issues the team is overwhelmed - but I'd be guessing at this point.

 

[Phoenix-1]

Has anyone experienced the "flight is only available to new bookings" when trying to change the date for a flight on an OWCA? It's a QF flight from HND to MEL. Not connecting to anything - flight arriving to HND is 2 weeks earlier.

I received this response on Twitter. If anyone's been able to get around this with HUACA I'll give it a go, but from what I understand Twitter/FB agents seem to be more competent.

edit: Called up and an agent in Suva was able to change the dates with no issue. New e-ticket received as well.

 

[Danger]

Has anyone experienced the "flight is only available to new bookings" when trying to change the date for a flight on an OWCA? It's a QF flight from HND to MEL. Not connecting to anything - flight arriving to HND is 2 weeks earlier ...

Yes. It's a common refrain in recent months.