Oneworld Classic Flight Reward Discussion - The Definitive Thread

[logos 01]

There's also RUH instead of DXB as a transit point (both RJ and CX fly to Riyadh). Whether you want to transit at Saudi (personally i think its fine) is your choice though.

Looks like no luck with DXB but RUH is an option. Anything I should know about transiting through RUH? (Looks like no visa required if connection is 12 hours or so less).

 

[elanshin]

Looks like no luck with DXB but RUH is an option. Anything I should know about transiting through RUH? (Looks like no visa required if connection is 12 hours or so less).

Personally haven't gone through yet but there is a Saudi Theead or two about visiting Saudi

Thread 'Saudi Arabia and Saudi Airlines'

Feb 6, 2025

I'm looking to visit Saudi Arabia in December. This will be my third time there, but the other two were for business in 1994 . We self-drove:



I'm now looking for any tips, esp in the tourist area of anyone whose been 'on the ground' there recently. Planning to visit historic sites per: Destinations

Possibly not spending THIS much money!

The St. Regis Red Sea Resort

Explore the Red Sea Project, a collection of untouched islands surrounded by water. Experience sustainable, world-class dining, adventure and entertainment.

www.visitsaudi.com

I’m with Virgin Atlantic Flying Club and have found them to be ok. Obviously they have the SkyTeam alliance members...

• RooFlyer
• Replies: 39
• Forum: Destination Guides, Tips & Questions

• 

 

[logos 01]

Thanks elanshin, I'll have a read

 

[ozflier]

Looking to book another OWA but dates are going to be tight .
I’m trying to clarify what are the Award “blackout “ dates .
I'm sure that they are not definitely fixed but in the past , I’ve had Hobart agents just say outright there are no award seats available for certain dates .

These are my general recollections of blackout dates- I accept there will be exceptions for high level members and requests closer to the time.

Any suggestions and additions ?

January

Easter

School Term holidays.

Specific regions

Europe June, July and August

USA July

 

[logos 01]

Hi everyone, wonder if someone might sense check my Oneworld award itinerary, confirm I haven't made any obvious errors (Stops TFU, ARN, MAD, IST, HKG).
1 MEL-HKG (CX)
2 HKG-TFU (CX) stop 1 (ground segment)
3 PVG-HEL (AY)
4 HEL-ARN (AY) stop 2 (ground segment)
5 FRA-MAD (IB) stop 3
6 MAD-AMM (RJ)
7 AMM-IST (RJ) stop 4
8 IST-AMM (RJ)
9 AMM-ARN (RJ)
10 ARN-HEL (AY)
11 HEL-MAN (AY)
12 MAN-HKG (CX) stop 5
13 HKG-NRT (JP)
14 NRT-MEL (QF)
Total 33,110 miles.

I rang QF to book the remainder of my trip (as amended via RUH thanks to elanshin).
I had MEL-HKG, PVG-HEL-ARN already booked.
Rang to add the rest FRA-MAD, MAD-AMM-IST, IST-AMM-RUH-HKG, HKG-NRT-MEL) but the agent couldn't find the Iberia flight from FRA to MAD. She could see it on the website but after putting me on hold told me that flight was for new bookings only. So I hung up to explore other options.

I've heard others have had that issue in the past (adding Iberia to an existing booking), due to the taxes having to be calculated for each flight manually because Iberia doesn't supply a tax quote????).

Has anyone recently had this issue and got is resolved? Should I try again and hope for another operator?

 

[MEL_Traveller]

Looking to book another OWA but dates are going to be tight .
I’m trying to clarify what are the Award “blackout “ dates .
I'm sure that they are not definitely fixed but in the past , I’ve had Hobart agents just say outright there are no award seats available for certain dates .

These are my general recollections of blackout dates- I accept there will be exceptions for high level members and requests closer to the time.

Any suggestions and additions ?

January

Easter

School Term holidays.

Specific regions

Europe June, July and August

USA July

There are no official blackout dates for Qantas award seats.

It’s possible some flights in leak periods don’t have any, or have limited numbers of seats, or those seats have already gone, or those seats have been requested to be released by platinum members.

 

[logos 01]

I rang QF to book the remainder of my trip (as amended via RUH thanks to elanshin).
I had MEL-HKG, PVG-HEL-ARN already booked.
Rang to add the rest FRA-MAD, MAD-AMM-IST, IST-AMM-RUH-HKG, HKG-NRT-MEL) but the agent couldn't find the Iberia flight from FRA to MAD. She could see it on the website but after putting me on hold told me that flight was for new bookings only. So I hung up to explore other options.

I've heard others have had that issue in the past (adding Iberia to an existing booking), due to the taxes having to be calculated for each flight manually because Iberia doesn't supply a tax quote????).

Has anyone recently had this issue and got is resolved? Should I try again and hope for another operator?

Oh the joys of booking Oneworld awards. I solved the Iberian issue by going via HEL, so AY codeshare flight to MAD. But the sticking point was the final leg NRT-MEL on QF. The website shows 2 seats available, the but the operator said no only 1, same with dates either side, from NRT or from HND. So frustrating! So I booked all the other flights (except HKG-NRT) and will have to try to see if anything from HKG to Australia gets released

 

[MEL_Traveller]

Oh the joys of booking Oneworld awards. I solved the Iberian issue by going via HEL, so AY codeshare flight to MAD. But the sticking point was the final leg NRT-MEL on QF. The website shows 2 seats available, the but the operator said no only 1, same with dates either side, from NRT or from HND. So frustrating! So I booked all the other flights (except HKG-NRT) and will have to try to see if anything from HKG to Australia gets released

It shouldn’t be an AY codeshare as an award. If they’ve booked you as the codeshare you might want to confirm they’ve actually given you an award.

 

[logos 01]

It shouldn’t be an AY codeshare as an award. If they’ve booked you as the codeshare you might want to confirm they’ve actually given you an award.

Oh what I meant is that it's a flight with an AY flight number but actually operated by Iberia. AY1661 HEL-MAD

 

[k_sheep]

I'm realising it's darn near impossible to get across the pacific with these fares if you want to avoid the USA! For reference these are the possible flights I've found
Into SCL: QF from SYD (there is 1 seat in J on 7th Nov if anyone needs! but impossible to get 2 in my experience).
Into YVR: FJ from NAN, QF from SYD, JAL from NRT, CX from HKG.

Slim pickings :s Thinking I'll have to skip South America for my next one. No point using surface sectors to make my own way.

 

[logos 01]

Someone please tell me I'm not completely crazy.

I've got the following flights booked:
MEL-HKG-TFU (stop 1)
PVG-HEL-ARN (stop 2)
And I'm trying to add the following to the booking
BER-HEL-MAD (AY flight number operated by IB) (stop 3 )
MAD-AMM-IST (stop 4)
IST-AMM-RUH-HKG (stop 5)
Can't find back to Australia yet.

When I try to get it priced I've had the following from multiple operators:
1) Too many stopovers because your next flight is the next calendar day (the transfer flights are all within 24 hours).
2) You can't transfer through a city twice (HEL & AMM)
3) You can't have more than 2 cities where you transfer twice (HEL & AMM)

I'm quoting the Qantas T&C's and getting nowhere. Seems there are notes on the booking now telling the operators it can't be done.

Any advice from here? I feel like either I'm missing something big or I'm bashing my head against a brick wall. The last operator didn't seem to know the difference between a transfer and a stopover.

 

[logos 01]

Someone please tell me I'm not completely crazy.

I've got the following flights booked:
MEL-HKG-TFU (stop 1)
PVG-HEL-ARN (stop 2)
And I'm trying to add the following to the booking
BER-HEL-MAD (AY flight number operated by IB) (stop 3 )
MAD-AMM-IST (stop 4)
IST-AMM-RUH-HKG (stop 5)
Can't find back to Australia yet.

When I try to get it priced I've had the following from multiple operators:
1) Too many stopovers because your next flight is the next calendar day (the transfer flights are all within 24 hours).
2) You can't transfer through a city twice (HEL & AMM)
3) You can't have more than 2 cities where you transfer twice (HEL & AMM)

I'm quoting the Qantas T&C's and getting nowhere. Seems there are notes on the booking now telling the operators it can't be done.

Any advice from here? I feel like either I'm missing something big or I'm bashing my head against a brick wall. The last operator didn't seem to know the difference between a transfer and a stopover.

About 30 mins after my last fruitless call. The overseas QF call centre actually called me unprompted (that's a first!). They said they could now price the itinerary (correctly as a Oneworld award). That's been done and I've paid the taxes. Now just have to wait for it to be ticketed, which hopefully doesn't have any issues.

Anyways sorry everyone for spamming the chat, but thought I should update to say the issue has been solved (well for now least until I find a flight from HK back to Oz and try to add it ).

 

[pyramidforce]

Someone please tell me I'm not completely crazy.

I've got the following flights booked:
MEL-HKG-TFU (stop 1)
PVG-HEL-ARN (stop 2)
And I'm trying to add the following to the booking
BER-HEL-MAD (AY flight number operated by IB) (stop 3 )
MAD-AMM-IST (stop 4)
IST-AMM-RUH-HKG (stop 5)
Can't find back to Australia yet.

When I try to get it priced I've had the following from multiple operators:
1) Too many stopovers because your next flight is the next calendar day (the transfer flights are all within 24 hours).
2) You can't transfer through a city twice (HEL & AMM)
3) You can't have more than 2 cities where you transfer twice (HEL & AMM)

I'm quoting the Qantas T&C's and getting nowhere. Seems there are notes on the booking now telling the operators it can't be done.

Any advice from here? I feel like either I'm missing something big or I'm bashing my head against a brick wall. The last operator didn't seem to know the difference between a transfer and a stopover.

This was resolved, enjoy your flight!! but in future your options are to HUCA, write to your local member of parliament, become the CEO of Qantas or win the jackpot and hire a private lawyer. All of these are likely to have similar rates of success when dealing with QF call centre as others can attest. T&C don't matter, rules dont matter, you probably arent missing.
It wouldmbe great if things worked they way they should but alas something something enshittification.

One actual suggestion is if you use the manage booking call centre option thingo, you get a code to enter when you call, I have had complex bookings be routed to platinum line. Got hobart once. Other times was still Manila, but platinum manila was slightly less difficult than normal manila. YMMV.

 

[logos 01]

This was resolved, enjoy your flight!! but in future your options are to HUCA, write to your local member of parliament, become the CEO of Qantas or win the jackpot and hire a private lawyer. All of these are likely to have similar rates of success when dealing with QF call centre as others can attest. T&C don't matter, rules dont matter, you probably arent missing anything, something something enshittification.

Yes I am salty yes I have personal experience no i will not calm down

Thank you.

Oh after the day I've had on the phone with QF call centre I'd say there's plenty of salt to go around

 

[mustkill]

Anyone know when Oman Air can be booked as part of Oneworld classic rewards under the points cap?

 

[There'sOnlyOneJimmy]

Anyone know when Oman Air can be booked as part of Oneworld classic rewards under the points cap?

You could do a dummy booking, including an Oman Air sector, and see if the points cap out. If you do, please report back… ;-)

 

[Roman Sandstorm]

Warning: Long read. Feel free to bypass.


Further sharing my experience of booking a OneWorld Classic Flight Reward. I have spent 60-80 hours on this, and a few 3:30 am finishes so even if it helps one person, just a little, I'll feel better.

My requirements were tough, although definitely made easier by being one person.

Dec-Jan this year. MEL-Europe (pref HEL). Europe-Japan. Japan-MEL. Pref J class.

I read as much advice in this forum (but not 857 pages) as I could. Other forums. Reddit. And the (mostly) good articles on the scheme here and elsewhere. But those articles do present a rather rosy and simplistic version of reality.

I subscribed to seats.aero after one day. $12.99 for a month saved way more than that overall.

Very, very few J award seats out of Aust in Dec. Very few Y class, for that matter. Seats.aero shows quite a lot of MEL-DPS (my preference) in early-mid Dec, however this is not reflected when using the Qantas multi-city tool.

It seems that seats.areo includes Classic Plus reward seats, and this can't be filtered out. A pain. But this only seems to matter for flights from Aust. Once starting elsewhere, the dual-filter of QFF and OneWorld seems way more accurate.

As finding Aust-DPS seemed almost impossible I figured to *start* from DPS, perhaps getting a $500 Jetstar there independently.

So I put together DPS-HKG-NRT-HEL-HND-MNL-MEL. Took into account all the stopover/surface sector considerations. Plugged into Q multi-city tool. And all accepted. Went to payment, and *bzzzt*. No matter what combination I tried, even splitting CX/AY, JL/AY codeshares, etc into individual flights, I could not progress beyond to payment; even though the tool accepted the routes and conditions.

I tried starting from HKG, MNL, anywhere. I reduced to two or three flights, and it was accepted and went to payment page. But having any return from Europe broke it.

And at this point I noticed something really weird. If at any time I actually progressed to the payment page, and then obviously cancelled, when I returned to selecting (after Qantas's terrible error page and need to restart the multi tool), often the J class seats that were available five minutes earlier were no longer available. (Yes, cleared cookies, new browser, logged off and on.) Yet, returning the next day they were back again.

I know there have been comments in this forum that progressing to the payment page does not impact on availability, and perhaps this is indeed correct, but I experienced those symptoms many times, over several days. And I don't believe that reward seats on obscure routes suddenly disappeared one day (at the time I was looking) and then re-appeared the next day on same routes in same quantity. Maybe I didn't clear or delete something I should have? I can accept it must be me, not you.

This hugely frustrated and upset me until I realised that the seats returned soon after. Because I had spent dozens of hours, and was then faced with starting the whole thing again.

After reading all of the horror stories of dealing with the call centres on here, I really wanted to resolve this myself, and only deal with a call centre if I was to change at a later time.

Ultimately, even though the routes and seats 'passed' the multi-tool, I could never get the whole six slots to work. Until... I started leg one in Australia.

Once I put MEL-DPS as the first (and I picked an arbitrary date a couple of months earlier where there were rewards (not Plus) seats), the rest of the itinerary fell into place. After all the faffing about I had lost HKG-NRT-HEL, but managed to find an HKG-ICN-HEL instead. No biggie.

It accepted, went through to payment, and... zap! My 318,000 points gone, and $760 fees. BTW, pricing the legs one at a time, using local currency and converting, it all added up to over $1200, so starting in Aust, bizarrely, was much less. Go figure.

So now, I have alerts for any kind of Classic Rewards seat from MEL-DPS in mid Dec, and I will brave the call centre, and front up the $77 when the time comes to change the booking. At that time I also plan to add two legs inside Europe (as I have surface sectors available and unused). But this is a nice 'plus', not essential.

My biggest concern remains if no award seats ever appear leading up to mid-December! What do I do then? How does my original idea of just buying a cheap seat to Bali fit in with the rest of the plan? Will advance notice of a no-show keep the remainder of the itinerary intact?

Overall... whew... what a complex procedure. And I haven't had 40 calls to the call centre like some people on here. Luckily, I don't have family or other demands, and can spare some 3:00 am finishes. LOL. This must be a nightmare for some folks, and they must question whether the saving is worthwhile.

Sorry for the essay-length read. But I feel I have addressed some things in here that are either barely mentioned, or spread over 100's of posts. Fellow sufferers, you are not alone.

 

[MEL_Traveller]

Well done! You’ll need to action the MEL-DPS sector before its date of travel. Failure to take that flight will cancel the rest of the itinerary,

You should be able to drop that sector, but the ticket will then have to be re-priced ex DPS.

 

[mustkill]

You could do a dummy booking, including an Oman Air sector, and see if the points cap out. If you do, please report back… ;-)

of course i tried... no luck hence the q

 

[MEL_Traveller]

of course i tried... no luck hence the q

Fiji Airways took months before it was part of the cap? Possible Oman could be as long. Or maybe, because they did all the work for FJ, it’s only incremental to switch on capability for Oman as well?