Oneworld Classic Flight Reward Discussion - The Definitive Thread

[ozflier]

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

Update to my attempt at a Oneworld award booking.

Well I was able to score 2 award J seats AKL-Santiago de Chile on the 14 september 2015 –not the best time of year but doable with our itinerary.

The sad bit is that I could not get any BNE-AKL flights to connect. Not even the late pm flight the day before.

But remembering the flexibility fellow posters talk about, I was able to find Award seats BNE-SYD 13/09/15 connecting to QF 321 SYD-AKL the next day. (in fact it was the same LAN aircraft that would take us thru to Santiago.

All I needed to do was ring Qantas and ask for the change to my original booking. Hey, my OW booking is building up and on the way.

Being in the UK at the moment and having learnt that if suitable flights come, grab them while you can, I got moving.

I rang the 08 number from a phone booth, paid 30 pence minute for half an hour to listen to various QF ads and advices. Eventually, I was connected, I suspect to Australia. The lady confirmed that 2 business class seats were available on each of the 2 sectors ie there were award seats to connect us to the AKL-SCL flight BUT it was not a legal connection in the Qantas booking system! The BNE-SYD-AKL award seats, despite being available, could not be added to our existing reservation - something to do with needing to have award availability for the entire SYD-SCL flight NOT just the 2 components (SYD-AKL-SCL).Thats it!

No wonder posters get frustrated and angry with QFF. I didn’t get angry at least. I just kept adding pound coins to the phone.

In the end, I knew there were now economy award seats available BNE-AKL to connect with SCL flight on the 14th. I asked the lady to add those to the existing reservation .OK she said and I assume was checking on something- then a couple of clicks, some silence, another click and the conversation was over! Line dead! I was just not up to another 30 minutes listening to some fool telling me his airline knew Australia more than any other carrier.

So our trip still starting in Auckland ! (and we live in Brisbane)

So what’s next?

Keep trying I guess. I will keep you updated.

Sooner or later, I must come across a situation where I can report “they finally came thru for us and I can say Good on you Qantas!” We’ll see.

 

[petunia]

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

Yay, I've booked my first oneworld award flight in J. 10 weeks in USA/ Canada in 2015. PER,HKG,ORD - ORD,YYZ - NY,YVR - YVR,NRT,HKG- HKG,PER.
Using CX,AA and JAL, approx $1180 taxes for 2 X 280K J . I originally booked the whole shebang online in one go, then realised that there was the better option of returning to Hong Kong from Vancouver via Tokyo. My original booking had us flying from Vancouver to Hong Kong via New York, so I checked the BA Avios system to see availability of JAL flight and rang Qantas to change.
I had rung them several times with queries while in the planning stage, and they couldn't seem to see any more availability of J seats than I could by using Avios, AA and Qantas sites. Still, I had no choice but to ring and cop a change fee as I couldn't book the JAL section using Qantas booking site. On the upside there was a refund of $510 in taxes.
I'm so appreciative of the wealth of information sharing on this site - it's been an immensely educational and rewarding process. Now to start saving!

 

[ellen10]

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

Wow fantastic and well done!

 

[petunia]

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

I never could have done it if I hadn't stumbled across this forum. Many an hour was spent poring over routes and doing dummy bookings to test all the possible combinations to achieve the best points value. I hope to be able to book a reward Alaska Airlines flight as well to get us up to Anchorage in time for a ferry down the Inside Passage.

 

[snabbu]

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

Well done
How far ahead are the flights. Is that in Y or J?

7ish months out with all sectors in J.

I presume the LHR in your itinerary is just a transit (which won't attract hefty fees) instead of a stop over.

 

[benz]

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

I can confirm that trying to incorporate TAM flights into a oneworld award is near impossible. It caused me so much hassle when I planned my trip that I had to go from Brazil to Australia via the USA on AA/QF. I simply could not get Rio de Janeiro/São Paulo to Santiago on TAM despite being extremely flexible with dates and routings.

Yeah I have found trying to book anything to/from/within south America near impossible but I did manage to pick up a J on TAM from Santiago to Sao Paulo to connect with my incoming flight on LAN from AKL-SCL. When I first booked the best I could do was overnight in Santiago and pick up an economy red eye the next day on LAN. The TAM flight either showed up on BA or Awardnexus so they do exist. Whether lightning ever strikes twice and I could ever repeat the booking who knows...

 

[benz]

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

I'm beginning to regret booking the Europe to South America leg of my oneworld award with BA via LHR now when Iberia via MAD with a very similar schedule was available...

Hmm, I wonder if it's too late to change? Would the refund amount outweigh the change fee/s?

Edit: Never mind, there is no award availability on that day on Iberia any more.

if it makes you feel any better we switched our J bookings on Iberia to BA to get from Sao Paulo to London, as meant we could cut out going via Madrid. Happy to pay a bit more to cut some hours and avoid another transit stop. Haven't travelled Iberian but BA J was great & we would do the same again (if we could save up another 560 points!). Just watch the seat arrangement on BA (check out seat guru) as they alternate facing front and back so if you travel as a couple and take the two by the window you are facing each other. We opted for the two middle seats which are both rear facing but felt more private. Also BA charge you a fee to book your seats more than 24 hours before flying, which was a pain, but we never had an issue getting two seats together booking less than 24hrs prior.

 

[ozflier]

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

Yeah I have found trying to book anything to/from/within south America near impossible but I did manage to pick up a J on TAM from Santiago to Sao Paulo to connect with my incoming flight on LAN from AKL-SCL. When I first booked the best I could do was overnight in Santiago and pick up an economy red eye the next day on LAN. The TAM flight either showed up on BA or Awardnexus so they do exist. Whether lightning ever strikes twice and I could ever repeat the booking who knows...

I am getting a bit confused also.
I can find LAN own metal award J SYD-SCL on BA and award nexus but QFF does not recognise them- or at least QFF agents cannot book me onto them.
They do "see' Y award seats ( allegedly even J) on one stop LAN flights SYD-AKL-SCL but
as far as I see , and I have looked a lot , there are restrictions on connections from other Australian ports to AKL to connect with the codeshare to SCL eg you cannot book BNE-SYD-AKL-SCL as one award.
Re the posters comments ,on a lot of LAN intra South America flights( eg SCL-EZE/AEP/MVD) , very limited award seats are available for one day only.
I still live in hope that Mr Joyce will one day relent and treat th wretched Platinum Nones ( ie old QFF level "Lead"") to the occasional award business seats to South America or to the USA without a detour via some Asian destination.

 

[sergeyvzn]

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

if it makes you feel any better we switched our J bookings on Iberia to BA to get from Sao Paulo to London, as meant we could cut out going via Madrid. Happy to pay a bit more to cut some hours and avoid another transit stop. Haven't travelled Iberian but BA J was great & we would do the same again (if we could save up another 560 points!). Just watch the seat arrangement on BA (check out seat guru) as they alternate facing front and back so if you travel as a couple and take the two by the window you are facing each other. We opted for the two middle seats which are both rear facing but felt more private. Also BA charge you a fee to book your seats more than 24 hours before flying, which was a pain, but we never had an issue getting two seats together booking less than 24hrs prior.

having just flown both Iberia and BA on our 280K J RWT - I will choose Iberia over BA any time. BA's seat is nice to sleep on but that's it, there's no storage apart from a shoe container at the bottom of the seat that you can't access once reclined, inflight entertainment is next to zero, service is awful (took them 3 hours to serve dinner on an over night flight from London to Jonannesburg, I don't want dinner at 1 am) and the backward facing seat arrangement is just plain weird. At the same time, Iberia's new seat was superb, service was very friendly and propmt (dinner served and all finished in 1 hour), great in flight entertainment and fantastic food. So if you ask me - big mistake changing IB for BA

 

[snabbu]

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

having just flown both Iberia and BA on our 280K J RWT - I will choose Iberia over BA any time. BA's seat is nice to sleep on but that's it, there's no storage apart from a shoe container at the bottom of the seat that you can't access once reclined, inflight entertainment is next to zero, service is awful (took them 3 hours to serve dinner on an over night flight from London to Jonannesburg, I don't want dinner at 1 am) and the backward facing seat arrangement is just plain weird. At the same time, Iberia's new seat was superb, service was very friendly and propmt (dinner served and all finished in 1 hour), great in flight entertainment and fantastic food. So if you ask me - big mistake changing IB for BA

I also loathe BA in J with the backward/forward seating, unless you know the person who is right across from you it's the most awkward experience I ever have in the air.

 

[robd]

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

I was phoofing around on the QF site this afternoon and realised that I was 1 stopover short of converting my points outlay to 280k instead of the considerably more points with only 4 stops. I successfully added in HKG as a stop back to MEL, but I really prefer to stop somewhere I haven't been before.

The current itinerary is MEL-xHKG-CDG, ORY-xLHR-IST, IST-xLHR-DXB, DXB-HKG-MEL.

The premise of the trip is that Jnr#2 is doing a European tour for 28 days, followed by a ten day Greek Island tour and I have been invited to meet up with her after. We will then do IST & DXB together (I am dong Paris on my own before meeting up with her - a couple of things I wanted to see, but missed last time I was there).

HKG will be ticked off the list next month as done, as was Singapore last April. I have been to BKK, so it's off my list too (although Jnr#2 hasn't been there).

Here's the question - can anyone suggest a 2-3 day stopover on the way home to MEL from DXB apart from SIN, HKG, BKK that fits within the 280k criteria?

 

[jetpack]

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

Here's the question - can anyone suggest a 2-3 day stopover on the way home to MEL from DXB apart from SIN, HKG, BKK that fits within the 280k criteria?

Kuala Lumpur, Tokyo, or even Taipei, Seoul...

 

[robd]

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

Kuala Lumpur, Tokyo, or even Taipei, Seoul...

Tokyo and Seoul sound interesting. Do you know which airlines fly that route?

 

[jetpack]

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

When I made those suggestions I unfortunately had it in my head for some reason that Emirates was an option. Albeit less convenient you can still get to Tokyo via DOH/KUL/HKG and then fly home via Sydney.

 

[vetrade]

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

Here's the question - can anyone suggest a 2-3 day stopover on the way home to MEL from DXB apart from SIN, HKG, BKK that fits within the 280k criteria?

As an alternative to the Asian options what about JNB or CPT? For 2-3 days CPT would be the preferred option since there is so much of interest to see within a short distance of the city centre and it's not an expensive city. Table Mountain, Lion's Head, the waterfront, vineyards etc etc. The route options are several - you could go LHR - CPT - DOH - MEL or if you still wanted to go to DXB it's only a 1 hr flight from DOH - DXB (I don't think there are OW flights direct from DXB - CPT). An alternative would be to fly from Sth Africa direct to Australia and go LHR - DXB - DOH - CPT - JNB - SYD - MEL.

 

[Caversham04]

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

A quick question - I've been investigating possible options for a RTW Qantas Classic Award ticket using the multi-city option. However, I can't get some cities to list, even when I've ticked the "check partner airlines" box. For example, I know that AA fly MIA to Port-of-Spain, and BA fly LGW-Tobago, but neither Trinidad nor Tobago will appear in the searches, using either the country, city or airport code. Does this mean that I can't fly through those places on a RTW ticket or just that I need to book these legs over the phone?

 

[ablecookie]

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

Tokyo and Seoul sound interesting. Do you know which airlines fly that route?

go to oneworld website, under flight schedule and flight search. Enter the cities and it will show all possible oneworld flights between the pair of cities.

 

[ablecookie]

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

A quick question - I've been investigating possible options for a RTW Qantas Classic Award ticket using the multi-city option. However, I can't get some cities to list, even when I've ticked the "check partner airlines" box. For example, I know that AA fly MIA to Port-of-Spain, and BA fly LGW-Tobago, but neither Trinidad nor Tobago will appear in the searches, using either the country, city or airport code. Does this mean that I can't fly through those places on a RTW ticket or just that I need to book these legs over the phone?

Qantas search site is not very good, many cities pairs will not show up, some cities will only show "to", but not "from".

I guess you can ring up to enquire, as long as you don't book, won't cost you anything, except time.

 

[ozflier]

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

Best way to check on availability for sectors that QFF does not show is to check on the BA website - they seem pretty accurate and the times I have requested a flight based on what I see on BA, they can be seen by the QFF agent.

It also seems that some towards Australia award flights will only show up if do a return flight search from home to that destination.

 

[Jean Prouvaire]

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

I intend to book a OneWorld Award in Business Class (280,000 points) for a trip next October. The issue I have is that I'd like to be in London early October, then in the US mid October and back in London late October. So the restriction that you can only stop over in any city once or transit through any city twice is a problem. Just wondering if there's any creative ways around this.

(Not directly to my issue but included in case it makes a difference: I'll be flying out of Sydney but would like to stop over briefly in Perth before heading off to Europe. I'd also like to stop over in Copenhagen while over there, and maybe Dubai on the way there or back if possible.)

If I fly into a city other than London and make my own way there, but then fly out of London - does that count London as a stopover or a transit city?

Eg, if I fly:

• Sydney - Perth (flying Qantas) - transiting in Doha (flying Qatar) - Copenhagen (direct from Doha on Qatar) ...
• Then make my own way to London (not on the OneWorld Award ticket) where I'll be for a couple of weeks ...
• Then from London - New York (flying BA or AA, staying for a week or so) - back to London (staying for a few days) - Sydney (stopping off briefly at Dubai if possible)

I know that the second stay in London would definitely count as a stopover as I'd be there for a few days and flying both in and out on the OneWorld Award itinerary.

However, would the system count the first London departure as a non-allowed stopover or a permitted transit?