Oneworld Classic Flight Reward Discussion - The Definitive Thread

[sergeyvzn]

re: "oneworld" award (140K/280K/420K) Planning - The Definitive Thread

For those keeping score at home...
Being too impatient to wait for the booking windows to open, I instead created a dummy Itinerary with three objectives:
1. 'Triple Hit' a City;
2. Use Dragon Air on a Sector (I believed it to be possible, but just wanted to check...);
3. Commence the Itinerary outside of Australia (I believed it to be possible, but just wanted to check...).

I was able to build the Itinerary including all three elements, all the way to the 'Check Itinerary' screen. As I didn't go through to the screen in the process where I would actually BOOK the Itinerary, I can't really claim complete proof; but I think that I now have sufficient justification to believe that all three can be done successfully.

As a side note, the reason we want to start outside Australia is that we want to have a mid-Itinerary stop in hometown Melbourne. So, as can be seen in Flight #1 in the screen shot, I dummied it up to begin in Auckland. By coincidence, the AUK-HKG flight I was seeking for this purpose happens to transit through MEL. That prompted Mrs.TOOJ to pose a question along these lines: So, does that mean we could book the AUK-MEL-HKG flight and then 'miss' the AUK-MEL leg and 'rejoin' for the MEL-HKG leg?'
Interesting thought - could it work?

No. If you don't show up for your first sector the rest of the journey will get auto cancelled. You can only throw out the very last segment

 

[aikman]

re: "oneworld" award (140K/280K/420K) Planning - The Definitive Thread

I have yet another problem with Qantas and this time it's this oneworld award.

The itinerary so far is:

PER-xDOH-ZAG
ZAG-LHR
LHR-IST
IST-xDOH-JFK
JFK-xHKG-PER

So four stops so far (ZAG, LHR, IST and JFK). I want to add in JFK-xMIA-SJU. There is award space but only in economy. Fine. Suck it up. There's no award space to come back, at anytime that would connect with the existing flight to HKG, so, again, suck it up and pay for a seat SJU-JFK.

Qantas tells me, for a reason I can't understand (and, so far, no agent can point me to the rule) that if I did JFK would count as a stop on the second entry, SJU-JFK, thereby putting me at six stops instead of the maximum five.

Is this correct?

Are you stopping over in JFK coming from DOH? If yes then you will have a second stopover in JFK as part of the SJU-JFK open jaw.

If you are only transiting JFK coming from DOH, then it looks like a valid itinerary. Five stops and no duplicate stopovers.

 

[There'sOnlyOneJimmy]

re: "oneworld" award (140K/280K/420K) Planning - The Definitive Thread

No. If you don't show up for your first sector the rest of the journey will get auto cancelled. You can only throw out the very last segment

Bummer. I thought we might have stumbled onto a cunning plan.
We'll just have to by a one-way cheapy to get out of OZ to get started.
Thanks for the advice.

 

[burnt]

re: "oneworld" award (140K/280K/420K) Planning - The Definitive Thread

In response to "thereis only one Jimmy, dont forget to make the last sector on your booking back to AUK and make it a year out, this way you can change the date later and you will have a ticket back to AUK to start another "big trip" out of AUK another time, or you can just throw that sector away if you dont need it.

 

[Buzzard]

re: "oneworld" award (140K/280K/420K) Planning - The Definitive Thread

Bummer. I thought we might have stumbled onto a cunning plan.
We'll just have to by a one-way cheapy to get out of OZ to get started.
Thanks for the advice.

Worth a try eh Baldrick

 

[Danger]

re: "oneworld" award (140K/280K/420K) Planning - The Definitive Thread

I have yet another problem with Qantas and this time it's this oneworld award.

The itinerary so far is:

PER-xDOH-ZAG
ZAG-LHR
LHR-IST
IST-xDOH-JFK
JFK-xHKG-PER

So four stops so far (ZAG, LHR, IST and JFK). I want to add in JFK-xMIA-SJU. There is award space but only in economy. Fine. Suck it up. There's no award space to come back, at anytime that would connect with the existing flight to HKG, so, again, suck it up and pay for a seat SJU-JFK.

Qantas tells me, for a reason I can't understand (and, so far, no agent can point me to the rule) that if I did JFK would count as a stop on the second entry, SJU-JFK, thereby putting me at six stops instead of the maximum five.

Is this correct?

On face value there shouldn't be a problem with you transiting through JFK on the return from SJU but your problem might be that because you intend to buy the SJU - JFK ticket separately, from your award ticket point of view, you have no arrival time in JFK for the QF system to reference in regard to your departure time to HKG. Therefore maybe it can't recognise that you are within the less than 24 hr transit time requirement. If you could get a Y ticket back to JFK via MIA (for both legs preferably - but either would do) your problem might be solved because then there would be a reference time on your award booking for your arrival in NY to have it designated only a transit.

Are you stopping over in JFK coming from DOH? If yes then you will have a second stopover in JFK as part of the SJU-JFK open jaw.

If you are only transiting JFK coming from DOH, then it looks like a valid itinerary. Five stops and no duplicate stopovers.

I've fallen foul of 14.5.4 The following Stopover conditions apply to oneworld Awards:
(a) up to five free Stopovers are permitted;
(b) additional Stopovers are not permitted;
(c) only one Stopover is permitted in any one city in the Itinerary; and
(d) only two Transfers may be taken at any one city in the Itinerary.

As I said to the QF agent, the Bible is shorter than the rules of this award. Just when you've resigned yourself to the fact you've got to fork out another the the dollars to fly back (SJU-JFK) because there's no award space, you're blocked again.

So then I thought, fine, I'll fork out more points and book the JFK-SJU separately and pay for SJU-JFK. That will create another stop so, Hong Kong is as good a place as any. I phoned Qantas to break the journey in HKG but, nope, can't do that, they're married segments.

I truly pity the poor families who try to put together one of these. This is my first and, God willing, my last. It does my head in.

 

[djmalc]

re: "oneworld" award (140K/280K/420K) Planning - The Definitive Thread

I've looked through this thread and have a few questions about things I'm finding confusing. I have around 150,000 Qantas FF points and have been trying to book a Multi-City Award itinerary using 140,000 points - which I believe is the only way I can do this online? So I get the drop-down city selector and have ticked the box "Show Qantas and Partner Classic Award Cities". A small squiggly icon appears next to a few cities after I do this and I'm assuming that I can only select those cities? The available cities are ridiculous - there's no New York, Dallas or LA or anything resembling a capital city in South America. London City is the only airport in England (only Gatwick is listed there is no Heathrow - and no squiggly icon for Gatwick).

I'm sure I must be missing something. Can anyone advise me please? I'm sure it's probably in this thread somewhere but I have spent several hours going through it over the last few days - apologies if I've missed this information and am asking something already answered elsewhere.

 

[vetrade]

re: "oneworld" award (140K/280K/420K) Planning - The Definitive Thread

I've looked through this thread and have a few questions about things I'm finding confusing. I have around 150,000 Qantas FF points and have been trying to book a Multi-City Award itinerary using 140,000 points - which I believe is the only way I can do this online? So I get the drop-down city selector and have ticked the box "Show Qantas and Partner Classic Award Cities". A small squiggly icon appears next to a few cities after I do this and I'm assuming that I can only select those cities? The available cities are ridiculous - there's no New York, Dallas or LA or anything resembling a capital city in South America. London City is the only airport in England (only Gatwick is listed there is no Heathrow - and no squiggly icon for Gatwick).

I'm sure I must be missing something. Can anyone advise me please? I'm sure it's probably in this thread somewhere but I have spent several hours going through it over the last few days - apologies if I've missed this information and am asking something already answered elsewhere.

djmalc, the "squiggly" icons are irrelevant - you should be able to select any city on the drop-down menu (with or without a squiggly) if you have the Show Qantas and Partner Award Cities box ticked. I don't actually know what the squiggly icon means but all the cities marked with one seem to be small out-of-the-way places that wouldn't come in to most people's plans anyway. Sometimes the QF platform has a "seizure" if you try to put together too many flight segments in the Multi City tool so I usually search for one way award availability one segment at a time without using the Multi City option. It's then pretty straight forward to string the individual segments into an itinerary. Of course if you are trying to put the whole itinerary together online to avoid the call centre booking fees you have to use Multi City BUT if that's not working for you ring the call centre and tell them that when you try to book on line you get an error message that tells you to call them for assistance (it's a "white lie", I know but......). You'll probably find they just say "Oh, OK" and waive the booking fee.

 

[djmalc]

re: "oneworld" award (140K/280K/420K) Planning - The Definitive Thread

thanks vetrade that's a big help. Can I indulge you or one of the other gurus to help with my NEW problem!
I unticked the Show qantas Partner Classic Award Cities checkbox and chose my flights as below. Then I selected the other checkbox "Search Qantas and Partner Classic Awards" and started selecting Award flights. For the first two legs it says "Partner Award" at the bottom where the points allocation is shown (above the continue button) But after selecting the flight to Cairo this label changed to "oneworld award" and the points became 140000. If I continue selecting flights the points go up and up - 266,000.

I was under the impression that I could select 5 stops for 140,000 points - which, if I'm correct, would be 6 flights - the last flight not ending up at a "stop" but HOME in Melbourne? Is it in fact only 5 flights that are allowed? Also regardless of that why don't the points stop at 140,000? Am I doing something else wrong, or can this only be actually booked over the phone? what's going on? Also at the end after selecting my last flight ending back in Melbourne I get a typically cryptic qantas error :

Please review the following items We could not find fare for the requested itinerary (5685 UI)

What's worse is that there is only a Cancel button below that error which turfs me back to the very beginning all over again.

Here's the flights...
Melbourne -> Mexico City 1 Feb 66,000 - qantas/partner award
Lima -> New York 25 Mar 94,000 - qantas/partner award
New York -> Cairo 10 April 140,000 - oneworld award
London -> Phnom Penh 2 June 196,000 - qantas/partner award
Phnom Penh -> Taipei 30 June 216,000 - qantas/partner award
Tapei -> Melbourne 30 July 266,000 - qantas/partner award

even if I substitute the New York flight to Cairo with a flight to London (and do Cairo on a completely separate flight) it is a qantas/partner award and yet the points still go up (to 226,000 odd) and I still get the cryptic error message.

thanks for any light you can cast for a relatively inexperienced FF as my self
cheers
Dave

 

[vetrade]

re: "oneworld" award (140K/280K/420K) Planning - The Definitive Thread

Dave, for oneworld awards you can have up to 5 stopovers and up to 16 individual flight segments. It's important to realise that all the flights have to be on oneworld airlines (there's a list at oneworld.com) - QF has partner airlines which are not all members of oneworld (e.g. Emirates) so if any of your flights are on non OW airlines the booking system will treat them as separate award flights and not as a OW RTW classic award. I reckon that's why the system is still racking up points when you have surpassed 140K. Suggest you cross check your flight selections against the list of OW airlines. Another obvious error is the fact that while the system tells you how many points your selections would be, it won't let you try and book anything that would exceed the number of points you actually have in your account.

If you still can't work out your error/s, post each of the individual flight segments you intend to fly and on which airlines, rather than just the routes between stopovers, and we'll probably be able to spot the glitch and set you right.

 

[JohnK]

re: "oneworld" award (140K/280K/420K) Planning - The Definitive Thread

It's my understanding that a stopover is considered a transit as far as 14.5.4 is concerned - so you can have one stopover plus one transit or two transits but not a stopover plus 2 transits.

Definitely can't argue with you TOOJ and I have seen dissenting opinions on AFF regarding the stop-over/transit point but have never read a post on here from anyone who claimed that they had had a stop-over plus 2 transits in the same city. I did ask a QF call centre operator about this in Jan or Feb this year when putting together an early itinerary and the answer I got was that you could only have one transit if you also had a stop-over. I didn't pursue it because it wasn't relevant to the itinerary I settled on. I have received incorrect info from the call centre in the past though, so I can't categorically state that it's "definite".

I have had 1 stopover and 2 transits in LHR on a Oneworld award. I actually wanted 3 transits but had to make one of them a stopover.

 

[djmalc]

re: "oneworld" award (140K/280K/420K) Planning - The Definitive Thread

vetrade thanks for your suggestions - again very helpful and I'm pretty close now.

I've spent about 3 hours trying a variety of combinations of flights and have managed to get a 5 flight multi-city to stick at 140,000. That only gives me 4 stops though, and no matter what I've tried I cannot get that sixth flight (with 5th stop) to work. So my question is am I trying to book one more flight than I should be i.e. is your last "stop" considered to be your home city starting point?

Here's that flight plan..

1a. 1 Feb Mel - Syd - Dallas - Mexico City (QF430 - QF7 - AA2417)
2a. 27 Mar Lima - Dallas - New York (AA988 - AA1138)
3a. 10 Apr New York - London - Cairo (BA186 - BA155)
4a. 30 May Budapest - Helsinki - Hong Kong (AY754 - AY69) (Finn Air)
5a. 22 Jul Hong Kong - Mel (CX105)

I've tried multiple ways to get to Hong Kong from Europe and the only one I could get to work was the Finn Air flight from Budapest. So I thought OK I'll add a flight between Cancun and Lima (I was going to do that on a separate ticket but it's fairly expensive and they seem to charge same for one way as return)... so added this flight after the Mexico City one...

1b. 20 Feb Cancun - Miami - Lima (AA1394 - AA917) it accepts this flight and the next two (i.e. 1a, 1b, 2a, 3a) but I get an "invalid travel class for redemption" message when I add the Finn Air flight from Budapest to Hong Kong (the one that worked perfectly well earlier). I know I haven't exhausted every possible combination of cities in Europe as darture point for the flight to Hong Kong but before I go down that path is there something more fundamental I'm stuffing up?

Thank you again for your help... again! With luck you can point out the error of my ways ;-)
cheers
Dave

 

[QPProletarian]

re: "oneworld" award (140K/280K/420K) Planning - The Definitive Thread

Keep in mind the 35,000 mile limit; not sure how long yours was, but it also counts the distance between the two stops/OJ for your surface segments - so always better to redeem as you're loosing the miles anyway even if on rev ticket.

 

[vetrade]

re: "oneworld" award (140K/280K/420K) Planning - The Definitive Thread

Dave,
Firstly. your departure/final destination city isn't included in the number of stop-overs allowed so no problems there. Did you check the total distance? Your total distance travelled can be no more than 56,315 km (35,000 miles). When you have a land leg e.g. in your case Cairo - Budapest, you still have to include the straight line distance between those cities in the total. My quick check shows that your itinerary comes out at very close to 56,000km which means you only have about 300km "spare". Trying to get to CUN would obviously put you well over your limit so that's where your problem is.

 

[djmalc]

re: "oneworld" award (140K/280K/420K) Planning - The Definitive Thread

Vetrade Ok just did a few calculations and it suddenly all makes sense. Wish I could get that 5th Stop in (somewhere... anywhere!) in order to maximise my use of the points but considering the cost will be about $1300 taxes and a oneworld itenary without using points came out around $6500 I guess I'm getting pretty good value. Of course that's not including about a half dozen smaller flights I'll have to do separately but I still end up way ahead.

I really appreciate your help in all this. This forum is amazing and the gurus like yourself are worth your weight in gold.

Happy Travels!
Dave

 

[djmalc]

re: "oneworld" award (140K/280K/420K) Planning - The Definitive Thread

One more thing... is there a mileage calculator that you recommend? The one I used is OK but I've had to enter city by city and it's a little laborious.

cheers
Dave

 

[Buzzard]

re: "oneworld" award (140K/280K/420K) Planning - The Definitive Thread

I like to read this thread with the hope that one day I shall plan a OWA myself.
Some of the routes are quite inspiring.

The single biggest thing that always puts a smile on my face is those AFFers that offer all this help to the hapless like me, some of whom are newbies and not yet had an opportunity to contribute to this site.
Without wishing to single anybody out for fear of excluding another, a big thank you to all the AFF helpers on this thread.
I am certain I too will be seeking your advice and assistance hopefully soon.

 

[vetrade]

re: "oneworld" award (140K/280K/420K) Planning - The Definitive Thread

One more thing... is there a mileage calculator that you recommend? The one I used is OK but I've had to enter city by city and it's a little laborious. cheers
Dave

Dave,
Happy to help - the futures markets are doing nothing lately so I'm in front of the 'puter with lots of spare time!
I don't think there's any alternative to working out the distances one by one. I use the OW interactive planner because I know their distances will be the same as what QF uses when doing their calculations. Any search you do for flights between 2 cities automatically shows up the OW airline/s flying that route and the distance. To minimise repetition I have progressively built up an Excel spreadsheet with lots of readily accessible info about distances, flight times etc. which saves me a lot of time.
If you experiment with your routes and maybe even the order in which you do your stop-overs I'm sure you will be able to find some distance savings to get an extra stopover in. As an example you could save about 600km by flying SYD - LAX - PHX - MEX instead of SYD - DFW - MEX - sure it's a bit longer trip but not significant in the overall context of the length of your intended time away. Also, flying direct from LIM - JFK with LAN rather than via DFW would save you about 1750km. So you can see it wouldn't be hard to find room to add a side trip to CUN between MEX and LIM. Another option worth looking at (dependent on your personal preferences) might be to go to BUD before CAI i.e. fly NY - LHR - BUD and then make your way to CAI and on to HKG. That might save some km too.

 

[serfty]

re: "oneworld" award (140K/280K/420K) Planning - The Definitive Thread

One more thing... is there a mileage calculator that you recommend? The one I used is OK but I've had to enter city by city and it's a little laborious.

cheers
Dave

I use Great Circle Mapper where you can just put in the route using airport codes.

e.g. MEL-SYD-DFW-MEX-LIM-DFW-NYC-LHR-CAI-BUD-HEL-HKG-MEL

Note that I put the land segments between MEX and LIM and CAI and BUS in as sectors as they do count toward the total distance.

 

[djmalc]

re: "oneworld" award (140K/280K/420K) Planning - The Definitive Thread

Brilliant! Looks like those 2 suggestions make a world of difference... allowing me that 5th Stop - also as mentioned by another forum member, since the miles are calculated even if you do it as a land segment it would make sense to fly to Mexico City to Lima anyway (or maybe surface to Cancun or Guatemala City and then onto Lima). For the Budapest stop-over what I haven't mentioned is that from Cairo I'm actually going to use separate low-cost flights (if I can get them) or surface travel to Turkey, Italy, England and then Budapest - I'm going to try a little re-jigging to see if I can mix that up a little! I've tried to use the Award flights for all the longest flights. Your spreadsheet sounds like a highly marketable item BTW ;-)
cheers, thanks again and... may the Futures market pick up for you!
Dave