Oneworld Classic Flight Reward Discussion - The Definitive Thread

[Daver6]

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

J award available on CX 171 & CX137 direct from HKG - PER on 30/10/16
Also QF has J on 26/10/16 HKG - SYD - PER

Have you got a specific date range you want to travel back to PER?

You sir, are a legend! Not sure why that hasn't come up yet in my searching.

I just came across the QF option. Slightly early. The CX option could be perfect. Just running it now. I should also mention it was for two pax, both options you mentioned have two pax availability

 

[EestiTiger]

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

Hi Matt, are you booking for one pax or two ?
If just one F does become easier.

As for a routing that maximises F, here is one suggestion, which starts in MEL, with the lounge in brackets.

MEL-SYD-NRT QF J then JL 77W F (QF SYD F),
HND-HKG CX 774 F, HKG-LAX CX 77W F (CX Pier),
LAX-LHR BA 388 F (QF LAX F),
LHR-DOH-DXB QR 388 F then QR A321 F, (QR LHR lounge then Al-Safwa lounge)
DXB-MEL QF 388 F (EK DXB F)

7 F legs and 1 J leg.
With stops in Japan, LA, London, Dubai, and Bangkok.
Comes in at just under 32k miles.
Five of the best OW F products (JL, CX, BA, QR and QF)
Probably four of the best OW lounges (Al-safwa, QF SYD & LAX F, CX Pier) + the EK DXB lounge and highly regarded QR lounge at LHR.

Flying out of LAX to HKG may be tough so could always do SFO for example or even JFK and you could get to JFK from LAX using AAs super sleek A321 F product.

Nizar - sorry for the late reply I have been away all weekend and limited access to tech - which was nice

That is simply brilliant! It is for 1 PAX so good to hear that will make it easier.

I have been planning to actually go the other way to get to Europe, mainly Estonia, before it cools down too much and to also be on US East coast when college football starts up in September. You have really given me some food for thought. Those lounge suggestions are most appreciated too.

I didn't want to waste everyone's time on here before I had done my own research and pulled together some sort of plan.

Again Nizar - thanks again for the time and effort to come up with that plan. Some amazing options I will have to look into

 

[vetrade]

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

We are at the end of our 420K booking but we are struggling to get home. I would appreciate any ideas!

My partner and I are in Vancouver for Christmas. We are based in Sydney and need to return home by Dec31 (our son will turn 2)

Im a QF Platnium if that will help getting seats released

Ive tried LAX > SYD/MEL, DFW > SYD, YVR > NRT, YVR > HKG but not come up with anything.

Am I missing any options?

Cheers,

3

You really are stretching your luck to plan on getting F, or even J, back to Oz between Xmas and NY. Desperate times call for desperate measures though, so I'd look at alternatives flying back via Europe. CX has a once daily flight from YVR - JFK. Another possibility would be a paid fare from YVR - YYC - from Calgary BA have a direct flight to LHR. There are then multiple possible routes through DOH or HKG etc. Suggest you use the BA Exec site to search for options.

 

[Pablo]

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

Thanks to everyone on this thread, I'm not 99% done for our 10th wedding anniversary 280k trip next April. Our routing is:

SYD-DOH-BUD: QR J
BUD-LHR-CDG: BA J
CDG-MAD-GIG: IB J
GIG-MIA: JJ Y (hoping to still change this to JJ or AA J but as we are doing a cruise, I forfitted J the next day as it doesn't work for the cruise)
MIA-LAX: AA J (just in LAX in transit for about 12 hours)
LAX-MEL-SYD QF J

Taxes were only $803.91 each which surprised me - I thought they would be more - but not complaining at all.

I'll keep my eye on the GIG-MIA to try and get J on it, and I still want to bring the MIA-LAX flights back a day so we can get home a day earlier but I can only get one J seat on AA from MIA-LAX on the night I want, rather than 2, so have to do an additional night after our cruise in MIA rather than coming straight home.

 

[yoyo]

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

Thanks to everyone on this thread, I'm not 99% done for our 10th wedding anniversary 280k trip next April. Our routing is:

SYD-DOH-BUD: QR J
BUD-LHR-CDG: BA J
CDG-MAD-GIG: IB J
GIG-MIA: JJ Y (hoping to still change this to JJ or AA J but as we are doing a cruise, I forfitted J the next day as it doesn't work for the cruise)
MIA-LAX: AA J (just in LAX in transit for about 12 hours)
LAX-MEL-SYD QF J

Taxes were only $803.91 each which surprised me - I thought they would be more - but not complaining at all.

I'll keep my eye on the GIG-MIA to try and get J on it, and I still want to bring the MIA-LAX flights back a day so we can get home a day earlier but I can only get one J seat on AA from MIA-LAX on the night I want, rather than 2, so have to do an additional night after our cruise in MIA rather than coming straight home.

I'm impressed that you were able to get the LAX-MEL leg on QF in J. I have been trying to get that as soon as they are released with no luck. Do you have any status or tips for getting this?

 

[Daver6]

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

J award available on CX 171 & CX137 direct from HKG - PER on 30/10/16
Also QF has J on 26/10/16 HKG - SYD - PER

Have you got a specific date range you want to travel back to PER?

Of course getting to HKG from DOH proved to be tricky, but I managed it via SIN. Thanks so much for your help with that one.

 

[Daver6]

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

Quick question for those in the know.

I could see two J award seats IAD - DOJ on October 27. Showed on both QF and BA. However, when I rang QF they couldn't see or book it. Its not on their system I'm told. Any idea what is going on? Is there a way around such issues?

On a side note, I managed a booking. I'll post details when a get a chance. Taxes and surcharges were close to the GDP of a small African nation though!

 

[vetrade]

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

Quick question for those in the know.

I could see two J award seats IAD - DOJ on October 27. Showed on both QF and BA. However, when I rang QF they couldn't see or book it. Its not on their system I'm told. Any idea what is going on? Is there a way around such issues?

On a side note, I managed a booking. I'll post details when a get a chance. Taxes and surcharges were close to the GDP of a small African nation though!

If you could see availability on QF I'd put it down to "operator error" until proven otherwise. This is one of those instances where it might be worth ringing QF back and see what a different operator can find for you.

 

[Danger]

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

Quick question for those in the know.

I could see two J award seats IAD - DOJ on October 27. Showed on both QF and BA. However, when I rang QF they couldn't see or book it. Its not on their system I'm told. Any idea what is going on? Is there a way around such issues?

On a side note, I managed a booking. I'll post details when a get a chance. Taxes and surcharges were close to the GDP of a small African nation though!

On more than one occasion I have seen different award availability offered by QF and AA. For example, for months I've been able to see QF showing award availability on AB in Y and J; AA consistently says nothing in either class. Similar, too, for different availability on CX when viewing through AA (and often without the very annoying married segment rule) than when viewing through QF.

 

[Daver6]

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

On more than one occasion I have seen different award availability offered by QF and AA. For example, for months I've been able to see QF showing award availability on AB in Y and J; AA consistently says nothing in either class. Similar, too, for different availability on CX when viewing through AA (and often without the very annoying married segment rule) than when viewing through QF.

Interesting. The weird thing in my case is both BA and QF online showed availability. Its just the phone operator couldn't see it and hence couldn't book it.

 

[Jacques Vert]

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

Interesting. The weird thing in my case is both BA and QF online showed availability. Its just the phone operator couldn't see it and hence couldn't book it.

I've had similar experiences. On one occasion the operator couldn't see it but she kept asking me the flight number and saying "let me try something different" or something like that. After a few attempts she suddenly said "Oh; there it is". On other occasions I have had to accept an alternative flight/route.

My only suggestion is to try to be flexible; but if you must have that flight just keep ringing up and try, try again.

 

[RAM]

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

Interesting. The weird thing in my case is both BA and QF online showed availability. Its just the phone operator couldn't see it and hence couldn't book it.

Whenever something like that happens to me - I take a screen shot, paste it into a freeware program (Paint.net Vn 4.09) and edit out my id details so that it only shows the web page, as well as date and time parameters on the bottom of the screen.

Just like this...


Then I email the operator the screenshot and miraculously they find the missing information. Sometimes it is an honest mistake on their part and other times...

 

[Daver6]

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

Really that works?

I called again today. They still can't see it

 

[vetrade]

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

Really that works?

I called again today. They still can't see it

Daver6, when you search online, say through QF, for awards on a non QF route, sometimes when you select the particular flight a message comes up that you are being transferred to one of their OS sites. For example you may be directed to the HKG site for a CX operated flight. If you got a message like that when you searched for your IAD - DOH leg, when you call the QF call centre maybe you need to specify to the operator that it came up on a particular OS QF site and ask them to contact that site/office to confirm availability of the seats you saw.

 

[Daver6]

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

Another bizarre situation. As part of my booking I have SIN - HKG - PER on CX.

I now want to change to KUL - HKG - PER, keeping the same HKG - PER flight. There is availability but QF can't book it. They can see it and could book it separately, but some story about CX not allowing them to change a married flight or something. They say the only option is to cancel the HKG - PER sector and try, but no guarantee the availability on the HKG - PER sector will go back to the pool.

This seems so weird to me. At the time of booking you're told you can change without issue. To some extent I feel QF didn't notify me of this restriction and needs to come up with a solution.

Thoughts?

 

[Jacques Vert]

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

Another bizarre situation. As part of my booking I have SIN - HKG - PER on CX.

I now want to change to KUL - HKG - PER, keeping the same HKG - PER flight. There is availability but QF can't book it. They can see it and could book it separately, but some story about CX not allowing them to change a married flight or something. They say the only option is to cancel the HKG - PER sector and try, but no guarantee the availability on the HKG - PER sector will go back to the pool.

This seems so weird to me. At the time of booking you're told you can change without issue. To some extent I feel QF didn't notify me of this restriction and needs to come up with a solution.

Thoughts?

I've had the same situation with QR: had JNB-DOH-SIN, then when QR started flying to Sydney I tried to change to JNB-DOH-SYD. Plenty of availability but apparently QR would not allow it to be changed, only available for new bookings; I would have needed to cancel the entire booking and start again (not likely).

QF kindly opened up 2 direct JNB-SYD seats to get me around the problem which saved me miles and allowed me to add some extras earlier in the itinerary.

 

[vetrade]

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

Another bizarre situation. As part of my booking I have SIN - HKG - PER on CX.

I now want to change to KUL - HKG - PER, keeping the same HKG - PER flight. There is availability but QF can't book it. They can see it and could book it separately, but some story about CX not allowing them to change a married flight or something. They say the only option is to cancel the HKG - PER sector and try, but no guarantee the availability on the HKG - PER sector will go back to the pool.

This seems so weird to me. At the time of booking you're told you can change without issue. To some extent I feel QF didn't notify me of this restriction and needs to come up with a solution.

Thoughts?

The married segment issue with CX is well known, Daver6. Essentially because CX is based in HKG they try to discourage people using awards on many of their flights to just transit HKG. If you were to have a stopover (i.e. transit of > 24 hrs) you would be able to book the flights into and out of HKG you wanted. The same thing happens if you try to book YVR - HKG - SYD on CX - you can book YVR - HKG and HKG - SYD separately but can't book them together unless you have that stopover in HKG.

Strongly suggest you do not cancel your HKG - PER. The married segment problem will still preclude you from the KUL - PER combo. And QF can't help you because this is out of their control - it's entirely a CX issue.

 

[Daver6]

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

I've had the same situation with QR: had JNB-DOH-SIN, then when QR started flying to Sydney I tried to change to JNB-DOH-SYD. Plenty of availability but apparently QR would not allow it to be changed, only available for new bookings; I would have needed to cancel the entire booking and start again (not likely).

QF kindly opened up 2 direct JNB-SYD seats to get me around the problem which saved me miles and allowed me to add some extras earlier in the itinerary.

I presume you are a WP? I suggested QF do that to help me out, but won't as I'm not WP

The married segment issue with CX is well known, Daver6. Essentially because CX is based in HKG they try to discourage people using awards on many of their flights to just transit HKG. If you were to have a stopover (i.e. transit of > 24 hrs) you would be able to book the flights into and out of HKG you wanted. The same thing happens if you try to book YVR - HKG - SYD on CX - you can book YVR - HKG and HKG - SYD separately but can't book them together unless you have that stopover in HKG.

Strongly suggest you do not cancel your HKG - PER. The married segment problem will still preclude you from the KUL - PER combo. And QF can't help you because this is out of their control - it's entirely a CX issue.

Thanks. I won't be cancelling HKG - PER. There is basically nothing into Australia in J around that time of year from anywhere on all OW airlines.

 

[Jacques Vert]

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

I presume you are a WP? I suggested QF do that to help me out, but won't as I'm not WP

No, not WP, merely LTS so I was most appreciative of the outcome.

It may have had something to do with the fact that I'd had the agent on the line for well over an hour trying different alternatives and they wanted to get rid of me.

 

[Daver6]

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

Well, landed up changing some other flights so in the end didn't need to worry about the changes to CX.

So the trip all flights in J commencing mid to late Sept.

PER - ADL (QF) - DOH (QR) - AMM - TLV (RJ) Stop
TLV - LHR (BA) Stop
ground travel to Paris and spend some time in a wine region TBD
ORY - LHR - IAD (BA) Stop
Will spend time in IAD, New Orleans and Boston. Still to book internal flights
BOS - DOH - SIN (QR) Stop
SIN - HKG - PER (CX)

Taxes and surcharges came in at roughly $2200 per pax. Ouch! Not sure where I've been stung exactly. I know the RJ flight from AMM to TLV last time I looked was a good few hundred in taxes. At some future point I might investigate each sector out of interest.

Finding most flights wasn't too difficult. The real struggle was just getting home and am incredibly lucky to have snagged that CX flight to Perth.

Thanks to all those who have helped in the last few days. Greatly appreciated.