Oneworld Classic Flight Reward Discussion - The Definitive Thread

[burnt]

Haven't booked yet so can't use Check my trip. I think I have 16 segments with my planned itinerary now, but if it counts as a surface segment instead of transfer, then I'll have to rejig my plans.

Just thought I thought i would share this itinerary which has just been ticketed as a pretty good example of maximising value from Classic Oneworld redemptions.
The following currently only has one economy sector from LAS to LAX which I suspect will be able to be changed before travel date to a business seat as more open up?
Barcelona to Heathrow (T)
Gatwick to las Vegas (SO)
Las Vegas to LA
LA to Sydney
Syd to Gold Coast (home for a few months)
Brisbane to Singapore (T)
Singapore to London (SO)
London to Delhi (SO) (from here catch another booking back to Aus).

Return to Delhi on sep. ticket to fly

Delhi to Helsinki (T)
Helsinki to Barcelona (END)

Did not use up all my 35000 mile allowance but was trying to get closer to Aus on the return from London but could not work it to get to Bangalore which is a shorter trip to Aus.

 

[Mr H]

Just thought I thought i would share this itinerary which has just been ticketed as a pretty good example of maximising value from Classic Oneworld redemptions.
The following currently only has one economy sector from LAS to LAX which I suspect will be able to be changed before travel date to a business seat as more open up?
Barcelona to Heathrow (T)
Gatwick to las Vegas (SO)
Las Vegas to LA
LA to Sydney
Syd to Gold Coast (home for a few months)
Brisbane to Singapore (T)
Singapore to London (SO)
London to Delhi (SO) (from here catch another booking back to Aus).

Return to Delhi on sep. ticket to fly

Delhi to Helsinki (T)
Helsinki to Barcelona (END)

Did not use up all my 35000 mile allowance but was trying to get closer to Aus on the return from London but could not work it to get to Bangalore which is a shorter trip to Aus.

Looks good, though I’d be inclined to give Las Vegas and Ool a miss.

 

[Nisho]

Heya team, I just tried to book my first ever OWA for September-October next year, managed to get the flights i desired.
After entering the passenger details, I get the following error(s):

Please review the following items

• An error has occurred in our central database. Please contact us for further information. (4002 [7597])

Any ideas as to what the actual problem is? Is there phantom award availability with one of the partner airlines or something?

 

[Warragul]

Try this page.

Qantas Website Error Codes (And How to Avoid Them)

If you've ever tried to make a complex booking using the multi-city booking tool on the Qantas website, you've probably encountered some of the many error messages that it often displays.

www.australianfrequentflyer.com.au

 

[Rach1616]

14.6.1 Classic Flight Rewards will be valid for one year from the original ticketed departure date

Thanks for the reply, I assumed this meant the actual original departure date of the first flight, not the date the original departure was ticketed. What am I missing here? I have already made similar changes to a different OWA where I added on return flights that were more than one year after the first flight was originally ticketed. However the original flights had been re ticketed a couple of times due to schedule changes so not sure if that makes a difference. Called again today and 3 different agents couldn't add the flights, was told they can't add any flights for me in Oct and I have to book return flights in a separate ticket. But if that was the case, adding to OWA bookings as flights are released wouldn't work in most cases??

 

[landl]

Haven't booked yet so can't use Check my trip. I think I have 16 segments with my planned itinerary now, but if it counts as a surface segment instead of transfer, then I'll have to rejig my plans.

It's a transit if it's less than 24 hours.

 

[landl]

Thanks for the reply, I assumed this meant the actual original departure date of the first flight, not the date the original departure was ticketed. What am I missing here? I have already made similar changes to a different OWA where I added on return flights that were more than one year after the first flight was originally ticketed. However the original flights had been re ticketed a couple of times due to schedule changes so not sure if that makes a difference. Called again today and 3 different agents couldn't add the flights, was told they can't add any flights for me in Oct and I have to book return flights in a separate ticket. But if that was the case, adding to OWA bookings as flights are released wouldn't work in most cases??

Am pretty sure the "original ticketed departure date" means the first departure date on your ticket. I've done a split itinerary before and had 12 months from the date of departure to return. Perhaps there's something else wrong with your itinerary?

 

[Warragul]

I assumed this meant the actual original departure date of the first flight, not the date the original departure was ticketed. What am I missing here?

I tend to agree with landl. Have you changed the first flights departure date since it was first ticketed? If so maybe it relates to the original departure date...Just a thought.
Having multiple agents say it can't be done, doesn't necessarily make them right. Could be a case of finding someone with the right know how. I've had several say I couldn't make any changes to an award booking.

 

[PaulyB]

Well! It just happened to me. Making changes to an existing Bus Class Classic award booking - Changing dates for everything and after an hour... 'Can I put you on hold.....and 35mins I am still here, on hold... Oh no - wait - the call just dropped out and I got to fill in a survey. One of the questions was not - did the person hang up, unfortunately....

What's worse is that having read all the material on here I made sure she had my number before she went on hold.... Read it back to me and all.

The irony is that I thought she was doing pretty well although it did get a bit hard towards the end finding flights that my screen said were there but hers did not....

So depressing that this is a representative of QANTAS.

Postscript
Anyway, undeterred I got straight back on the horse and got a very helpful person who seems to be going ok

 

[PaulyB]

And a postscript to my postscript.

We seem to have made it through although I haven't received ticketing confirmation yet...
But I am a little nervous a mistake has been made. I found it hard to get from BKK to Syd and so am returning via Tokyo. This is a Business Class Classic Award booking. I was sure we had been booked in Premium Economy for these two flights but the JAL booking comes up as Economy (T) on the details I can now see on my QANTAS booking.

Can anyone advise what the T stands for? I would have thought it would say Premium Economy. I don't have the strength to call back and ask after 3 hours on the phone

Thanks!
Oh and P.S . The original assistant called back and left a message (I was onto the 2nd operator by now) saying the call had dropped out "a few minutes ago" and that she would call again. Which is fine except that it was over half an hour since the call had disconnected and over an hour since she had gone off for a few minutes.

I had mentioned it to the second assistant (a couple of times - nicely but clearly) - and she said she would speak to her colleague so maybe the message got through somehow.

 

[Guvner]

T normally means Discount Premium Economy.

 

[PaulyB]

T normally means Discount Premium Economy.

Be still my beating heart. Thanks!

 

[PaulyB]

So I have another update in this journey. It feels like days of our lives...

Waking up Sunday morning I realise that one of the connecting flights leaves before we arrive. Sigh.....
Fortunately, I had spotted a PLan B yesterday so I ring and speak to another agent who sees the problem anf makes the changes. So great.

(By the way, I asked him where he is based and he said "the Hobart office but based in Manila!!!!) True....)
When it got to the ticketing question though, he said it wouldn't be ticketed until next year because the first flight isn't until August.

At which point I went blue., (The agent yesterday had said 24 hours) Anyway he is calling back in about hours to confirm the bookings are locked in.

Should I be panicking yet? Or stop panicking or...?

 

[am0985]

So I have another update in this journey. It feels like days of our lives...

Waking up Sunday morning I realise that one of the connecting flights leaves before we arrive. Sigh.....
Fortunately, I had spotted a PLan B yesterday so I ring and speak to another agent who sees the problem anf makes the changes. So great.

(By the way, I asked him where he is based and he said "the Hobart office but based in Manila!!!!) True....)
When it got to the ticketing question though, he said it wouldn't be ticketed until next year because the first flight isn't until August.

At which point I went blue., (The agent yesterday had said 24 hours) Anyway he is calling back in about hours to confirm the bookings are locked in.

Should I be panicking yet? Or stop panicking or...?

Do not accept the bullshit about it not being ticketed until next year. Keep calling until it gets ticketed.

 

[PaulyB]

Do not accept the bullshit about it not being ticketed until next year. Keep calling until it gets ticketed.

I'm on it...

 

[Jarrard Scott]

Can anybody assist me in explaining how I could use Qantas FF on partner airlines?

Wanting to get to UK mid August 2023.

The Qantas booking system is broken as anything. for example. It says 45K points from Singapore to London in the top calendar bar, but if you click it it says "no flights available"....

 

[PaulyB]

Can anybody assist me in explaining how I could use Qantas FF on partner airlines?

Wanting to get to UK mid August 2023.

The Qantas booking system is broken as anything. for example. It says 45K points from Singapore to London in the top calendar bar, but if you click it it says "no flights available"....

Hi Jarrard.
While I cannot even begin to answer why it is showing you no seats, I had a look and hopefully the attached screenshot shows you how I got a more useful result. I selected the 'Rewards Only' filter on the page and you can see that there was what you were hoping for. As you can see the number of points vary significantly so you may want to jump on any bookings as soon as you can. This day is a BA flight.
Having said that, despite the torture you can go through booking them, a QANTAS One World Award ticket (use multi city tool) will get you there with less points. In fact, you can go further...Unless you are only going to do that one hop you are talking about.

How to Fly Around the World with a Qantas Oneworld Classic Flight Reward [Mega Guide]

Fly around the world with Qantas and other Oneworld airlines by redeeming points for a Oneworld Classic Flight Reward. Photo: Qantas. Did you know that

www.australianfrequentflyer.com.au

Hope that helps.

 

[levelnine]

Can anybody assist me in explaining how I could use Qantas FF on partner airlines?

Wanting to get to UK mid August 2023.

The Qantas booking system is broken as anything. for example. It says 45K points from Singapore to London in the top calendar bar, but if you click it it says "no flights available"....

The best option is to use the multi-city search tool (even if you are searching for a single flight).

Here is the link to the tool: https://www.qantas.com/au/en/book-a-trip/flights/multi-city.html

Put in your details and voila:

 

[Danger]

I've now had a second experience with this.

Two days ago I wanted to add CX LAX-xHKG-MEL to an existing oneworld award. Like everyone else when they go to do this, the flights were available online, but when I asked the HBA-based agent to add them, he couldn't see them. I said I could see them online; why can't he? He told me there's often a "synchronisation issue" that means availability is not updated across platforms at the same time and that if I tried to book the seat myself, it would fall at the payment page. Challenge accepted! I proceeded to book and confirm the very seat he couldn't see. I gave him the reference and he went away to investigate. After a few minutes on hold he returned to the call to tell me that it's a limitation imposed by Cathay and out of Qantas's control.

There's obviously multiple accounts of this sort of issue occurring. I'm now convinced it's not a limitation of offshore call centres (either through incompetence or poor training). Equally, I'm not convinced that the two excuses I've been given (different available from different currencies (rather than point of sale) in the case of the AY issue and a third party limitation in the case of CX) are accurate. They may well be true but my feeling is it's a Qantas deficiency somewhere in the booking system and it's much easier to blame someone or something else.

And now a third experience.

Speaking with Rehan in HBA, I wanted to add PHX-xDFW-PDX into an existing oneworld award. The Qantas website showed multiple options; Rehan could not find any. He said he's seen this "many, many, many times" and that it has to do with "fare combinability for a brand-new booking", although he couldn't (or wouldn't) explain to me what "fare combinability" meant.

This gives me even more confidence that even when an offshore agent tells you 'no flights', despite what you can see online, they aren't doing anything wrong. Equally, as I said above, I think this is a Qantas system issue, rather than a limitation being imposed by partner airlines and there's no undoubtedly no impetus to look into it.

 

[PaulyB]

Yes - I had a version of that a couple of days ago where the agent told me she couldn't see particular JAL bookings yet I could. Yet 24 hours later another agent could see them. Now, the first agent said a few things that were wrong but with the other poster's experiences, the possibility is that this could have been genuine.