Oneworld Classic Flight Reward Discussion - The Definitive Thread

[QFFBNE]

Planning a Oneworld Classic Award trip next year but interested in taking a break in the middle and wondering what is the maximum time allowed for a stopover as per the AFF "How to..." ? We've done a similar trip a couple of times before but max stopover in any one city was about 3 weeks.

Looking at doing Europe/Nth Africa first, come home, then doing a USA leg (or vice-versa) Something like BNE/LHR/SIN/AKL, extended stopover ostensibly in AKL, AUK/BNE/AKL on a seperate booking (paid or Awards?), then AKL/JFK/ORD/BNE.
The airports could and probably will change, but instead of an extended 8 + week trip, the idea of a few weeks in Europe, then home to BNE for a couple of weeks/months, then a few weeks in the US is very tempting.

Of course it would all depend on availability of Awards seats (business) but we are very flexible on dates and routing and Platinum status (P1 in a couple of months) will help. The best information I have is that it's doesn't matter so long as the entire trip is under 12 months but any advice or suggestions would be welcome. This could open up a lot of possibilities.

 

[kirks069]

For the cap to apply you need to add subsequent flights to your existing booking. The system keeps applying individual price costs in points, until it reaches 318. then it

At the moment we don't have a booking. We can book the first leg now for Perth to London in December 2025, but can't do the subsequent legs because they are in the last quarter of 2026.
Is it possible to do the full booking now?
Can we make the first leg booking now and then add on to it later and still have the points cost capped?

 

[elanshin]

At the moment we don't have a booking. We can book the first leg now for Perth to London in December 2025, but can't do the subsequent legs because they are in the last quarter of 2026.
Is it possible to do the full booking now?
Can we make the first leg booking now and then add on to it later and still have the points cost capped?

Full Booking - no. But given the competitive nature of PER - LHR I would lock in that leg now. It would cost significantly less than the cap and that will be how much you would be charged today.

As the rest of your journey opens up for awards, you can call them to add to the ticket. Each time would cost 5000 points per pax (this would be on top of the 318k as it's a separate fee) but it is often the only way you can guarantee getting flights.

As long as you have a valid OWA, it should be points capped no matter how much more you change your itinery before you start. It would only uncap if you invalidated the OWA rules in some way.

 

[elanshin]

Planning a Oneworld Classic Award trip next year but interested in taking a break in the middle and wondering what is the maximum time allowed for a stopover as per the AFF "How to..." ? We've done a similar trip a couple of times before but max stopover in any one city was about 3 weeks.

Looking at doing Europe/Nth Africa first, come home, then doing a USA leg (or vice-versa) Something like BNE/LHR/SIN/AKL, extended stopover ostensibly in AKL, AUK/BNE/AKL on a seperate booking (paid or Awards?), then AKL/JFK/ORD/BNE.
The airports could and probably will change, but instead of an extended 8 + week trip, the idea of a few weeks in Europe, then home to BNE for a couple of weeks/months, then a few weeks in the US is very tempting.

Of course it would all depend on availability of Awards seats (business) but we are very flexible on dates and routing and Platinum status (P1 in a couple of months) will help. The best information I have is that it's doesn't matter so long as the entire trip is under 12 months but any advice or suggestions would be welcome. This could open up a lot of possibilities.

Theres already a OWA megathread, hopefully the mods can move this over. Oneworld Classic Flight Reward Discussion - The Definitive Thread

As for your question - there's no maximums as long as you have time to complete your journey. If you want to spend 350 days of your journey at one stop, theres nothing on the rules that says it cant be done. This is how many of us do 2 or more separate trips on one single OWA ticket. Australia becomes a "stopover" and we're most certainly still on our "holiday" trip at home.

For example, my current OWA, we started in KUL going to Tokyo for a Holiday. At this moment we're on a 4 months stop in Sydney before going to NZ for a weekend. Then we'll be on a 5 months stop at Melbourne before going to Europe.

 

[QFFBNE]

Theres already a OWA megathread, hopefully the mods can move this over. Oneworld Classic Flight Reward Discussion - The Definitive Thread

As for your question - there's no maximums as long as you have time to complete your journey. If you want to spend 350 days of your journey at one stop, theres nothing on the rules that says it cant be done. This is how many of us do 2 or more separate trips on one single OWA ticket. Australia becomes a "stopover" and we're most certainly still on our "holiday" trip at home.

For example, my current OWA, we started in KUL going to Tokyo for a Holiday. At this moment we're on a 4 months stop in Sydney before going to NZ for a weekend. Then we'll be on a 5 months stop at Melbourne before going to Europe.

Great, thanks for that. I regularly read that thread and had done a search but nothing relevant came up. We're at the stage where 4 weeks or so away in one hit is our comfortable limit, so we were planning just UK /Africa trip for 4 weeks but you can get so much more for not that many more points it seemed a shame not to do the US as well. Also want to get in before the points increase in August. Next question is will they Iet me book the AKL/BNE/AKL legs as a seperate Classic Reward Flight? I could just as easily pay cash for these flights but I have points to burn so may as well use them

 

[elanshin]

Next question is will they Iet me book the AKL/BNE/AKL legs as a seperate Classic Reward Flight? I could just as easily pay cash for these flights but I have points to burn so may as well use them

Yep no problems there, just make a completely separate booking.

 

[DC3]

… will they Iet me book the AKL/BNE/AKL legs as a seperate Classic Reward Flight?

Easiest way is to do this on-line

 

[QFFBNE]

Yep no problems there, just make a completely separate booking.

Thanks, this just gets better and better. Now comes the fun part trying to get U Award return bookings to UK/Egypt around March/April/May, then USA in Sept/Oct. Used to be a lot easier when seats were released to a known schedule.

 

[QFFBNE]

Easiest way is to do this on-line

Yep, it will either accept the booking or spit out an error I guess.

 

[elanshin]

Thanks, this just gets better and better. Now comes the fun part trying to get U Award return bookings to UK/Egypt around March/April/May, then USA in Sept/Oct. Used to be a lot easier when seats were released to a known schedule.

Just one note, in the past the Qantas computers think AKL is an Australian city for the purpose of OWA (not sure if it's fixed yet) so it would error thinking you'd gone to your starting country (which you can't so). I'm sure any staff manually looking at your itinerary would have it be ok, but just a weird quirk that's been reported here before.

 

[QFFBNE]

Just one note, in the past the Qantas computers think AKL is an Australian city for the purpose of OWA (not sure if it's fixed yet) so it would error thinking you'd gone to your starting country (which you can't so). I'm sure any staff manually looking at your itinerary would have it be ok, but just a weird quirk that's been reported here before.

Thanks for the heads up. Never flown through Auckland before so that's a new one on me.

 

[kirks069]

Full Booking - no. But given the competitive nature of PER - LHR I would lock in that leg now. It would cost significantly less than the cap and that will be how much you would be charged today.

As the rest of your journey opens up for awards, you can call them to add to the ticket. Each time would cost 5000 points per pax (this would be on top of the 318k as it's a separate fee) but it is often the only way you can guarantee getting flights.

As long as you have a valid OWA, it should be points capped no matter how much more you change your itinery before you start. It would only uncap if you invalidated the OWA rules in some way.

And these have to be Classic rewards, not Classic Plus? Because the points for a Classic Plus PER - LHR is 541k Business class, which is significantly higher than the 318k mentioned.

 

[elanshin]

And these have to be Classic rewards, not Classic Plus? Because the points for a Classic Plus PER - LHR is 541k Business class, which is significantly higher than the 318k mentioned.

All flights must be CR. Plus can't go in any leg of OWA.

 

[kirks069]

Full Booking - no. But given the competitive nature of PER - LHR I would lock in that leg now. It would cost significantly less than the cap and that will be how much you would be charged today.

As the rest of your journey opens up for awards, you can call them to add to the ticket. Each time would cost 5000 points per pax (this would be on top of the 318k as it's a separate fee) but it is often the only way you can guarantee getting flights.

As long as you have a valid OWA, it should be points capped no matter how much more you change your itinery before you start. It would only uncap if you invalidated the OWA rules in some way.

And these need to be Classic rewards, not Classic Plus? Because the points cost for PER - LHR is 541k Classic Plus PER person. Way more than the 381k mentioned.

 

[madrooster]

@madrooster do you know if an involuntary change months out, QF can substitute a QF flight with an EK flight? (Already started the OWA).

For a schedule change, no, you need to remain on oneworld. For an involuntary reroute within airport control window, yes you can.

 

[Captain Halliday]

For a schedule change, no, you need to remain on oneworld. For an involuntary reroute within airport control window, yes you can.

To expand on this in the context of a OWA…

Hypothetical routing FRAxNRTxMNL-SYD.

Airlines JL,JL, QF.

QF ticket stock (obviously)

Would a JL schedule change on either sector enable a switch to HND-BNE or HND-SYD on QF metal?

Post automatically merged: Feb 28, 2025

If I call what is the likelihood they will be able to change my classic award to the following day?

Quite good IMO.

 

[MEL_Traveller]

To expand on this in the context of a OWA…

Hypothetical routing FRAxNRTxMNL-SYD.

Airlines JL,JL, QF.

QF ticket stock (obviously)

Would a JL schedule change on either sector enable a switch to HND-BNE or HND-SYD on QF metal?

Post automatically merged: Feb 28, 2025

Quite good IMO.

Sure, if there are award seats available on the alternative route, you may be able to change free of charge.

I don’t see a reason for QF to create inventory to accommodate a schedule change by a partner.

 

[madrooster]

Would a JL schedule change on either sector enable a switch to HND-BNE or HND-SYD on QF metal?

QF is not required to offer up space on their own services due to an OAL schedule change. In this case JL is the faulting carrier... not QF.

If it were the other way around, where QF caused a misconnect at MNL where QF20 had a schedule change, then yes, QF can offer up space on alternative services. That's because QF is the faulting carrier.

I have seen instances where contact centre staff who aren't across the procedures and policies may do things out of line with policy... if you get lucky, you get lucky.

You can always request a seat release if platinum or above on QF services at the time of such a schedule chnage and move across that way, if you can successfully obtain inventory that way, otherwise no, you'd have to work with whatever JL is willing to give.

 

[bobeaumontswife]

I'm hoping that someone may be able to help.

I have nearly completed a OneWorld Reward itinerary for 5pax in economy.
So far I have booked BNE-DRW-SIN-HEL, HEL-LHR, LHR-JFK, EWK-DFW-HNL, SYD-BNE.
The flights all the way through to New York were booked online first, and the remainder of the flights were added via a phone call with a very helpful consultant.
The only leg missing is HNL-SYD.
The Qantas website shows 5 classic reward seats as being available for this leg.
The telephone consultant said she is unable to book this segment as the HNL-SYD reward seats are available for a new booking but the correct fare class is not available to add them to an existing booking. Does anyone know why this is the case, and is there a way around it? It's a long swim from HNL to SYD

Thanks in advance for any assistance. I have learned much from AFF over many years and always managed to find the answer to my question by searching threads, but this has left me stumped, hence my first post!

 

[DC3]

The telephone consultant said she is unable to book this segment as the HNL-SYD reward seats are available for a new booking but the correct fare class is not available to add them to an existing booking. Does anyone know why this is the case, and is there a way around it?

Some Call Centre staff have shown themselves to be useless. Some have given incorrect information. HUACA. Rinse and repeat if necessary. unfortunately.

And welcome to AFF.

Edited