Oneworld Classic Flight Reward Discussion - The Definitive Thread

[jkcfc]

What flight and date range were you looking at? I still see no flights either out of Australia or back from Europe anywhere.

Doha to Europe and Europe back to Doha in Sept/Oct 2022

 

[dvt]

I recently made some changes to my booking. Most segments are on Qatar so i asked for them to be reticketed straight away. I fortunately received my new ticket within the hour. This was 4 weeks ago. Taxes were paid but they haven't taken the extra points from my account yet. Should I be worried? Will they fix it up when they get time, should I call them back to rectify or will they not even realise?!

 

[flapper]

The challenges on booking a OWA won't be a surprise to anyone on here.
The Challenges of Booking & Changing Qantas Classic Reward Tickets By Phone

 

[DC3]

… Taxes were paid but they haven't taken the extra points from my account yet. Should I be worried? Will they fix it up when they get time, should I call them back to rectify or will they not even realise?!

Shush.

 

[cjd600]

I recently made some changes to my booking. Most segments are on Qatar so i asked for them to be reticketed straight away. I fortunately received my new ticket within the hour. This was 4 weeks ago. Taxes were paid but they haven't taken the extra points from my account yet. Should I be worried? Will they fix it up when they get time, should I call them back to rectify or will they not even realise?!

they'll get round to it...

 

[am0985]

Hi everyone,

Looking to book a OW Classic Reward in August/September next year over a six week period. The first flight looks like being the biggest challenge - after that I think I should be able to find the flights I need looking at the availability.

I understand I can book the first flight then the others through the QFF contact centre as they come up?

How has that been holding up recently with the call centre issues? Still possible with persistence? I'm a lowly Silver so wouldn't get Hobart call centre, sadly.

 

[Mr H]

Hi everyone,

Looking to book a OW Classic Reward in August/September next year over a six week period. The first flight looks like being the biggest challenge - after that I think I should be able to find the flights I need looking at the availability.

I understand I can book the first flight then the others through the QFF contact centre as they come up?

How has that been holding up recently with the call centre issues? Still possible with persistence? I'm a lowly Silver so wouldn't get Hobart call centre, sadly.

It is possible with persistence. It seems quite easy to get flights added to an itinerary but it gets complicated if you want to change flights - better to present it as adding flights and removing flights. The challenge right now seems to be getting it ticketed which can take multiple calls. I think it gets harder with each subsequent change, and exponentially difficult once you exceed eleven sectors as this means it has to be priced manually, sector by sector.

 

[points]

I have a OWA that I would like to add flights to as I could only get QR back into BNE and we live in MEL. The question is twofold, will I risk having my other flights with QR and MH cancelled if I try to add this extra flight. Secondly, we arrive at 16:20 into BNE so how long should I allow for the connection to MEL?

 

[am0985]

It is possible with persistence. It seems quite easy to get flights added to an itinerary but it gets complicated if you want to change flights - better to present it as adding flights and removing flights. The challenge right now seems to be getting it ticketed which can take multiple calls. I think it gets harder with each subsequent change, and exponentially difficult once you exceed eleven sectors as this means it has to be priced manually, sector by sector.

Thanks for the reply.

Won't be exceeding 11 sectors thankfully.

Can the first flight be booked online as a normal Qantas Classic Reward then get added to by phone for the remaining sectors? Or does it have to begin life as a OWA?

 

[cjd600]

Thanks for the reply.

Won't be exceeding 11 sectors thankfully.

Can the first flight be booked online as a normal Qantas Classic Reward then get added to by phone for the remaining sectors? Or does it have to begin life as a OWA?

It starts as a normal Classic Award, and automatically "turns into" a OWA when the conditions are met.
yes, book the first available leg (or legs if multiple are available already) online as a Classic award.
Then call to add further legs.
And the points will cap at 318k (for J), if the OWA conditions are met.
Keep it simple on the phone, "make a change to an Award booking".
Start mentioning OWA etc you'll confuse the hell out of them and start the slippery slope to despair

 

[am0985]

It starts as a normal Classic Award, and automatically "turns into" a OWA when the conditions are met.
yes, book the first available leg (or legs if multiple are available already) online as a Classic award.
Then call to add further legs.
And the points will cap at 318k (for J), if the OWA conditions are met.
Keep it simple on the phone, "make a change to an Award booking".
Start mentioning OWA etc you'll confuse the hell out of them and start the slippery slope to despair

So I'm guessing if I'm adding to the booking bit by bit, there will be a time where the points I'm spending will be above the 318k given the conditions won't be met, before being refunded back to 318k once the loop is completed?

Thankfully I have more than enough points for this, just trying to figure out how it all works.

 

[Mr H]

So I'm guessing if I'm adding to the booking bit by bit, there will be a time where the points I'm spending will be above the 318k given the conditions won't be met

This is unlikely to happen. It would be difficult to exceed 318k points without using at least two non-Qantas airlines. It would be almost impossible to exceed the five stopovers and then bring the itinerary into compliance with a OWA by adding further flights. If you use a non OW airline, you will never be able to comply with the rules for a OWA. The only really plausible situation I can think of is where you leave a route open at the end in a city where you have already had a stopover - waiting for a connecting flight to be released.

 

[cjd600]

So I'm guessing if I'm adding to the booking bit by bit, there will be a time where the points I'm spending will be above the 318k given the conditions won't be met, before being refunded back to 318k once the loop is completed?

Thankfully I have more than enough points for this, just trying to figure out how it all works.

Yes, if conditions aren't met the points will keep adding on per the relevant Award table.
You'd be doing pretty well to get to the 318k without already meeting conditions though (essentially 2 OW airlines other than QF).
Anything else will mean the conditions will likely never be met (e.g. using a non-OW airline who is a QF partner, too may stopovers in a city or whatever)

 

[DC3]

So I'm guessing if I'm adding to the booking bit by bit, there will be a time where the points I'm spending will be above the 318k given the conditions won't be met, before being refunded back to 318k once the loop is completed?

By staying within the rules (including carriers, maximum distance, segments, stops, transits) it will max out at 318,000 points).

However, if I had QF as the only carrier, or less than two non-QF oneworld carriers, then the points cost could exceed the 318,000 until all the rules have been met.

On a recent award booking I got to over 400,000 points, until I included a second oneworld carrier.

 

[flapper]

I was told yesterday that each flight has a different ticketing deadline. Some of my QR flights have a ticketing deadline of 8 August - so well beyond the 24 hours. She then told me the ticketing deadlines for some of the other flights on the itinerary. My question, which obviously the agent would not have been able to answer, is - if the ticketing deadlines are visible to QF, why the QF don't they have a system in place to make sure they are ticketed ahead of that deadline?

An operator told me today that my QR flight indicates has a 24 hour reticketing time. Mr H's post was the first I'd heard the reticketing time showing and quite frankly I thought they were having a lend of you. Anyway the operator just happened to mention it. I asked where it was and she said it was on the 1st page of the booking. I don't know if this is something new or not but why the resistance many operators have to reticketing? They almost always parrot 24-48 hours yet they must be seeing 24 hours on the booking and ignore it.

 

[DC3]

An operator told me today that my QR flight has a 24 hour reticketing time …

That fits in with most of the reported experiences, before the booking drops off.

 

[flapper]

I added a flight to my OWA booking booking again today. It took 8 calls to get someone who could add it, mostly Fiji but a few CT. I'm quite quick at flitering them now and just HUACA if they fail my test questions. Got a few telling me they can't add a flight to an existing booking (I thought that was mainly a Manila problem), got 2 saying they can't see flights past 354 days, plus some telling me they just couldn't see the flights.
The biggest problem was the time on the phone trying to get it reticketed.
1st call took about an hour to recalculate taxes and took my credit card again and points even though they were recalced and taxes paid when I added the flight. She wanted to end it there but I pushed for reticketing, she said she would call me back as it would take about an hour. Of course no call.
2nd call took 1:50 hr just for him to recalc taxes and points, wanted credit card again. Call dropped out twice but he called back. He wanted to end it there but I pushed for reticketing, he finally agreed but call dropped out after a while. He didn't call back this time.
3rd call was the woman who added the flight but wouldn't ticket in the morning. She actually remembered me. She took about 15 mins to recalc the taxes and points (why did it take the other guy 2 hours???). She then had to contact ticketing after about 1:30hr she got through to them and came back and wanted my credit card again, 4th time today. She then had to go back to ticketing. While waiting call cut out. She didn't call back.
4th call I called and asked to get the previous operator to call me, she went off and came back and said she was on another call and will call back. Of course that never happened.
5th call. I got AKL. I couldn't believe it. I told her it was like winning the lotto. It was the 1st time in over 50 calls these past 3 months. She said the reference number dropped off (whatever that is) which it why they kept asking for my credit card. She worked on it for 30 mins then said she had to contact her supervisor for ticketing it would take 15 mins max and would call back. I begged to wait onhold having already told her all the call drop outs I'd had and how many hours I had waited. She said I can't wait on hold. She did tell me her supervisor was online and she (the supervisor) would do the ticketing but she may need my cr card again. True to her word she called back 15 mins later and it had been ticketed (no cr card need again, I'd already been charged twice).
She confirmed the booking shows how long they have to reticket it.
Interesting, it seems AKL & I guess HBA have ticketing on tap yet the OS call centres have to wait in a queue which is usually over an hour.
She also said AKL operates 24 hours and HBA finishes at 1:00am.

 

[DC3]

She also said AKL operates 24 hours and HBA finishes at 1:00am.

Good news to hear that Hobart has extended hours, past the 11.00pm of late. Unless she was referring to Kiwi time, 1.00am in Kiwi land would be 11.00pm in Taswegia?

Cape Town and AKL certainly never close. Not sure about Manila and the other one in Fiji.

 

[squid01]

Another question relating to another cancelled flight on my OWA. I originally had a leg booked of ADL>PER>KUL>HKT>DOH>LHR (I know lol). All flights just transit and less than 24hours between each, so not stops.

The KUL>HKT flight has been cancelled by MH, there is no oneworld option to pick up another flight on that date. I am going to have to buy a revenue fare on another airline and make my own way. That would be a surface segment, but between landing in KUL and departing HKT will still be less than 24hrs. So will that count as a stop, as not flying out of the same airport? Or just a stopover still as between landing and departure is less than 24hours?

Also, my itinery starts in ADL and finishes in MEL. Landing back in MEL is that considered a "stop"?

Does anyone have any experience on these two points regarding counting of stops?

 

[squid01]

Just a follow up on this; still no word from AA on if they will release the rewards seat on that flight due to their cancellation of my original flight. Phoned Qantas back after one week from original request said need to wait longer. Just called again (16 days after original request) they put in a follow up request to AA. Not sure why it took over an hour for them to do something so simple as a follow up.

If I call back in a few days to try and escalate it what can I say? Do the operators managers have the ability to connect directly with AA perhaps via a phone line, to push the request through? Or are we truly at the mercy of the email request line of communication they have been doing?

An update on this, it has been five weeks since the original request for AA to release the seats. No response. Followed up with Qantas many times they all say they can't escalate it and can only put in a follow up to the request via email. Think I will just change that flight to economy class as that has availability, not worth this effort anymore.