Oneworld Classic Flight Reward Discussion - The Definitive Thread

[cambriamarsh]

A trans-atlantic leg on IB, back in USDM days, added similar taxes to BA (~$500 off memory, this was a marathon call centre call). Perhaps check that leg in isolation to check what the taxes on that are and maybe look for an AA or AY alternative

My experience is that IB taxes are a lot less than BA

 

[nat000]

I'm looking for award seats on QATAR from per to doh, QR901. No matter what date I put in, it doesn't bring up that flight. Can anyone shed some light on this.

 

[Captain Halliday]

I have read in this thread that sometimes when there's a schedule or equipment change, people are rebooked and end up in a different fare bucket as a result. And at times this has meant SC earn when OW Award would normally not earn.

I've had a schedule change by AA and I'm now booked in T bucket. Am I right in thinking that fare class would normally earn at discount economy rate?

 

[madrooster]

I have read in this thread that sometimes when there's a schedule or equipment change, people are rebooked and end up in a different fare bucket as a result. And at times this has meant SC earn when OW Award would normally not earn.

I've had a schedule change by AA and I'm now booked in T bucket. Am I right in thinking that fare class would normally earn at discount economy rate?

T class is AA's economy award class. AA do not use X class for economy awards.

 

[Battymum]

Can anyone tell me if Qantaslink flights can be included in a OWA?

Looking to start my trip in Canberra - and most flights connect to Sydney on a Qantaslink flight.

Thanks

 

[flychrisfly]

Can anyone tell me if Qantaslink flights can be included in a OWA?

Looking to start my trip in Canberra - and most flights connect to Sydney on a Qantaslink flight.

Thanks

Yes, they can.

 

[appaz]

I see most ppl in this thread opt for the 280k J award, is this because first availability is too scarce to be able to make a decent trip?

420k F looks like good value to me providing you can maximise your long haul flights - and find dates that work together.

If anyone could post an example of their 420k F award I'd love to have a look at it

 

[coyote25]

I see most ppl in this thread opt for the 280k J award, is this because first availability is too scarce to be able to make a decent trip?

420k F looks like good value to me providing you can maximise your long haul flights - and find dates that work together.

If anyone could post an example of their 420k F award I'd love to have a look at it

I think it's because getting enough F flights is difficult and limits your flight options plus J is getting very good on most airlines.

Add in that 420k points might be a bit out of reach for a lot of people and it's not as active a planning discussion. I remember planning my first 280k J award after three enjoyable 140k Y awards, however I can't go back to 140k product now!

Personally I want to do a 420k F Award even if it means flying to a lot of places of visited. I think it would be awesome.

I think I saw a good ITN a few days ago in this thread.

 

[blu]

I'm looking for award seats on QATAR from per to doh, QR901. No matter what date I put in, it doesn't bring up that flight. Can anyone shed some light on this.

Are you looking when released, about 360 days before travel? There's Y & J availability on QR901 on 6 April 2018.

 

[wokstar]

I did call again to query the taxes, and neither the latest consultant nor supervisor could make heads or tails of it so I have been asked to provide evidence of what I have been charged as they couldn't find it in their system...

So I have emailed that off and will be awaiting their response.

Following this up, the email was bounced back. [postmaster undeliverable – email address not found]

Called up again.
Me: I’d like to check the email that I need to sent these proof of payments to.
Qantas: oh yes I can see in the notes here, email is abc_xyz
Me: Can’t be, it got bounced.
Qantas: oh ok, let me check with my supervisor *hold* please send it to xyz_abc

So I sent the email to the revised address.
[postmaster undeliverable – email address not found]

FFS. Back on the phone. However this time, it went to the Hobart call centre…
Me: I would like to check this email address again please.
Qantas: That sounds strange, you shouldn’t have to email anything to anyone
Me: IKR!!!
Qantas: Let me read through the notes here *short hold* Ok there’s a lot to go through here on your booking so rather than you wait I’ll call you back once I check through this.
*A few hours later*
Qantas: Yes, the refund amount is correct and we will process this immediately. Should take a few days to process.

A few days later, the refund amount arrived. Strangely the refund appeared in the missus’ Amex account, on a new card barely 2 months old, had not been used with Qantas before and is not linked to mine (different bank!). It was my understanding that the refund was to be sent to the initial card that was used , but that card was closed but should have still gone to the replacement card at the same bank…

How the refund got to the missus card is a bit of a mystery, but I’m not going to complain about that. The only thing worth complaining about is that the New Zealand call centre has no idea what they’re doing.

Now completed, my itinerary is:
BNE > HKG (CX) Transit
HKG > JFK (CX) Stop 1
JFK > MAD (IB) Stop 2
MAD > MUC (IB) Transit
MUC > TXL (AB) Stop 3 (economy)
TXL > ARN [Surface/own means]
ARN > HEL (AY) Transit
HEL > HKG (AY) Transit
HKG > SGN (CX) Stop 4
SGN > NRT (JL) Transit
HND > CTS (JL) Stop 5 (economy)
CTS > HND (JL) Transit (economy)
NRT > SYD (JL) Transit
SYD > BNE (QF) Home

Total taxes paid is: $490 each ($980 for 2!)

 

[fairbasa]

Pretty horrible to think if not for your persistence you'd be $1300 out of pocket.

 

[N860CR]

Following this up, the email was bounced back. [postmaster undeliverable – email address not found]

Called up again.
Me: I’d like to check the email that I need to sent these proof of payments to.
Qantas: oh yes I can see in the notes here, email is abc_xyz
Me: Can’t be, it got bounced.
Qantas: oh ok, let me check with my supervisor *hold* please send it to xyz_abc

So I sent the email to the revised address.
[postmaster undeliverable – email address not found]

FFS. Back on the phone. However this time, it went to the Hobart call centre…
Me: I would like to check this email address again please.
Qantas: That sounds strange, you shouldn’t have to email anything to anyone
Me: IKR!!!
Qantas: Let me read through the notes here *short hold* Ok there’s a lot to go through here on your booking so rather than you wait I’ll call you back once I check through this.
*A few hours later*
Qantas: Yes, the refund amount is correct and we will process this immediately. Should take a few days to process.

A few days later, the refund amount arrived. Strangely the refund appeared in the missus’ Amex account, on a new card barely 2 months old, had not been used with Qantas before and is not linked to mine (different bank!). It was my understanding that the refund was to be sent to the initial card that was used , but that card was closed but should have still gone to the replacement card at the same bank…

How the refund got to the missus card is a bit of a mystery, but I’m not going to complain about that. The only thing worth complaining about is that the New Zealand call centre has no idea what they’re doing.

Now completed, my itinerary is:
BNE > HKG (CX) Transit
HKG > JFK (CX) Stop 1
JFK > MAD (IB) Stop 2
MAD > MUC (IB) Transit
MUC > TXL (AB) Stop 3 (economy)
TXL > ARN [Surface/own means]
ARN > HEL (AY) Transit
HEL > HKG (AY) Transit
HKG > SGN (CX) Stop 4
SGN > NRT (JL) Transit
HND > CTS (JL) Stop 5 (economy)
CTS > HND (JL) Transit (economy)
NRT > SYD (JL) Transit
SYD > BNE (QF) Home

Total taxes paid is: $490 each ($980 for 2!)

I honestly think nobody knows how these taxes are calculated. I booked a oneworld award that came to about $1200 each in taxes.

One leg was ARN-DOH-EBB. I tried to make that HEL-ARN-DOH-EBB. When adding that one 1 hour sector, t

 

[wokstar]

Yeah, all the earlier calls went through to the New Zealand call centre which I've now learnt are hopeless.

One of the previous calls ended up with the consultant saying that Qantas had made a mistake in issuing the e-ticket (when taxes were at $1100 each) and that it should have charged an extra $200 each. I was given the option to leave the booking as is with taxes at $1100 each, or they could re-issue the ticket and charge the extra $200 each.
Obviously, I declined their offer to re-issue tickets and pay more

Another time before that when I wanted to add some flights, I was told to make a new booking for new the flights and to get them to join the two bookings together. Having read on these forums that that is not how it works, I asked to speak to a supervisor to check if that was the correct method as that was not what I've had to do previously when adding flights. The consultant rudely said "ok sure, but they'll tell you the same thing that I just told you!" and then instantly put me on hold, only to come back on a few minutes later to apologize and admit that she was wrong.

FWIW, I did manage to almost recreate the exact flight and date booking using google matrix and the taxes calculated through that were pretty close. So that's one thing I learned.

 

[Daver6]

Pretty horrible to think if not for your persistence you'd be $1300 out of pocket.

Exactly my experience too.

 

[Croupier]

I have read in this thread that sometimes when there's a schedule or equipment change, people are rebooked and end up in a different fare bucket as a result. And at times this has meant SC earn when OW Award would normally not earn.

I've had a schedule change by AA and I'm now booked in T bucket. Am I right in thinking that fare class would normally earn at discount economy rate?

It happened to me in late November last year.
Originally ticketed on a *A 70K UA F saver award, KBP-FRA-SFO-LAS (J,F,Y) lucky me the LH pilots went on strike and a fantastic OS ground staff manager got on the phone and managed to open up revenue seats for me flying KBP-VIE-LHR-LAS (J,J,F)
[TABLE="class: basic, width: 760"][TR="class: underline1 alt, bgcolor: #F9F9F9"][TD="bgcolor: #FFFFFF"]01 DEC 16[/TD][TD="bgcolor: #FFFFFF, align: left"]BA 275 FIRST 29NOV16 LONDON/LAS VEGAS [/TD][TD="class: figures, bgcolor: #FFFFFF"]8,600[/TD][TD="class: figures statusBonus, bgcolor: #FFFFFF"]-[/TD][TD="class: figures, bgcolor: #FFFFFF"]8,600[/TD][TD="class: figures statusCredits, bgcolor: #FFFFFF"]210[/TD][/TR][TR="class: underline1"][TD]01 DEC 16[/TD][TD="align: left"]BA 697 BUSINESS 29NOV16 VIENNA/LONDON [/TD][TD="class: figures"]1,375[/TD][TD="class: figures statusBonus"]-[/TD][TD="class: figures"]1,375[/TD][TD="class: figures statusCredits"]60[/TD][/TR][/TABLE]No points on the KBP-VIE *A flight, but helped me to QF Gold ))

 

[blu]

You can always check the taxes yourself using https://matrix.itasoftware.com/ if you can be bothered. Doing so once saved me $900 (2 pax) on a 280k booking.

Must check mine - was about $3,400 for two pax (BA unfortunately for some of it). The NZ call centre arranged it.

In the past QF charged YQ penalties additional to base fare & taxes.
Now YQ charges forms part of the base fare? So with QF flights we would now only be paying airport & government taxes?

 

[cjd600]

In the past QF charged YQ penalties additional to base fare. Now YQ charges forms part of the base fare? So with QF flights we would now only be paying airport & government taxes?

Thats only the case on revenue fares, not awards, I believe.
Unfortunately.

 

[blu]

Looks like a overcharge, should be around $2,300 for two pax.

SYD-SIN QF
SIN-DOH-MAN QR
LHR-ARN BA
ARN-LHR-DUB BA
DUB-LHR-NRT BA
HND-SYD QF

 

[hutch]

Hey all

Just thought I'd share my recent 280J booking, which will be my second 280J.

Originally I was just doing a return trip to North America which cost me 196,000 points and around $900 tax. Considering that for only another 80,000 odd points I could get another trip in, I decided it was worth the effort. So I did some adjustments to have two trips.

Part A:
CBR-BNE-LAX (QF/QF) - Stop one
Make own way to Detroit
DTW-ORD-HKG (AA/CX) - Stop two

Fly home on separate award/revenue ticket to face 5 and 1/2 months back at work!! Damn.
Fly back to HKG on separate award/revenue ticket.

Part B:
HKG - TPE (CX) Stop 3
TPE - KIX (CX) Stop 4
Make own way to Tokyo
NRT - HEL (AY) Stop 5
HEL - DOH - ADL - CBR (QR, QR, QF)

Total points 290,000 including change fees and $1,571 taxes
10 flight segments (plus 2 non-flight segments) and 34,869 miles according to GCMap

Issues experienced in booking
1. After my first change (swapping direct USA - Australia return, LAX-SYD to DTW-ORD-HKG), the booking was ticketed. However, after the next change (adding HKG-TPE, TPE-KIX and NRT -HEL) the booking remained unticketed. I knew this was happening, but since there was no QR bookings at the time I wasn't overly concerned and no ticketing means the change fee was not charged.

2. When I rang back around 3-4 weeks later to add the final leg of my booking and make some slight date & carrier changes, I was unable to swap the NRT-HEL flight from Finnair to Japan Airlines. BAEC was showing availability, but the QF agents couldn't find any. Whilst i'm fine trying out Finnair, I did want to give JAL a go.

3. I was unable to get my preferred Finnair flight back to HKG. Given there was also limited CX availability back to Australia this was causing a few dramas. Ended up booking a HEL-PEK-HKG-SYD-CBR routing home. Interestingly, at this point there was a 36 odd hour layover in Beijing. Whilst this went through at booking time, I was a bit dodgy about it being rejected at ticketing time due to 6th stop-over (which in the end wouldn't be an issue - see point 4). At this point the agent advised taxes would be another $600.

4. A couple of hours after booking item 3, I thought about using Qatar to get home. Noted availability online (lucky!!) and rang back Qantas. Availability was found on their end and the booking changed. Given I know QR has a habit of removing non-ticketed flights, I was pleased to see my ticket issued within 30minutes.

Interestingly, by swapping to QR, my taxes went from the additional $600 to an additional $1000. So a $400 extra charge by QR over Finnair/Cathay.

My last 280J cost around $1,100 in tax and included 4 QR legs, a QF international leg, QF dom leg, CX and AA. Also avoided flying out of the UK and using BA. Anyway, not too concerned about it, as I think it's still pretty good value, but money in my pocket is always a better outcome.

Thanks for all the contributions to this forum. Great resource!

 

[fairbasa]

2. When I rang back around 3-4 weeks later to add the final leg of my booking and make some slight date & carrier changes, I was unable to swap the NRT-HEL flight from Finnair to Japan Airlines. BAEC was showing availability, but the QF agents couldn't find any. Whilst i'm fine trying out Finnair, I did want to give JAL a go.

If BA and JAL mileage bank are showing availability, then it's there.

I don't understand exactly why, but QF agents often have issues seeing JAL availability. It's been discussed a few times here. The HUCA rule applies here if the QF agent tells you there's no availability.