Oneworld Classic Flight Reward Discussion - The Definitive Thread

[Youfah Mizzum]

Like sydneyswan says, if you don't take Tokyo to HCM the whole rest of your itinerary is cancelled. The whole lot. So you'd have to continue to HCM and get your own way to Tokyo. This would count in your mileage as a land segment.

 

[Shipsong]

Any segments after the Tokyo - HCM will get cancelled.

Thanks for all your help guys I think I'm getting close.

How do you add flights to your itinerary? When I go into Manage Booking and Change it only seems to offer changing existing flights not adding new ones.

 

[MEL_Traveller]

Thanks for all your help guys I think I'm getting close.

How do you add flights to your itinerary? When I go into Manage Booking and Change it only seems to offer changing existing flights not adding new ones.

You have to call. Only way.

Give them the booking reference and say you’d like to add some flights. Avoid, if possible, and discussion about a oneworld award. Just say you wanna add flights.

5000 change fee per call where you make changes.

 

[Shipsong]

You have to call. Only way.

Give them the booking reference and say you’d like to add some flights. Avoid, if possible, and discussion about a oneworld award. Just say you wanna add flights.

5000 change fee per call where you make changes.

Has anyone had the problem with a classic reward flight showing as available but the call centre telling you its not. The website shows the flight and lets me get through the booking process right up to payment (where I bail because I want it booked under my existing booking).

 

[Kangol]

Has anyone had the problem with a classic reward flight showing as available but the call centre telling you its not. The website shows the flight and lets me get through the booking process right up to payment (where I bail because I want it booked under my existing booking).

QF or partner airline?
Married segments?

 

[serfty]

Has anyone had the problem with a classic reward flight showing as available but the call centre telling you its not. The website shows the flight and lets me get through the booking process right up to payment (where I bail because I want it booked under my existing booking).

You need to check in relation to more than just looking for one-way availability. Such are;

- Married segments. Award for AAA-BBB and/or BBB-CCC may be available but not for AAA-xBBB-CCC where there is a transit (not stopover) at BBB. Effectively the availability needed is for AAA-CCC.

- Point of Commencement. An award for DDD-EEE may be available when booking an itinerary starting in DDD. But that availability does not exist for booking commencing in xx_. You can test this with muti-segment and looking for xx_-YYY and then DDD-EEE in the same search.

 

[Shipsong]

You need to check in relation to more than just looking for one-way availability. Such are;

- Married segments. Award for AAA-BBB and/or BBB-CCC may be available but not for AAA-xBBB-CCC where there is a transit (not stopover) at BBB. Effectively the availability needed is for AAA-CCC.

- Point of Commencement. An award for DDD-EEE may be available when booking an itinerary starting in DDD. But that availability does not exist for booking commencing in xx_. You can test this with muti-segment and looking for xx_-YYY and then DDD-EEE in the same search.

All Cathay flights. Sydney-HongKong-Tokyo (married segment)is the first one. Tokyo-Hong Kong the second one and Hong Kong-Sydney the third one. The first and third ones they are saying are unavailable even though I can see them.

I am trying to add these flights to an existing itinerary which starts in Seoul.

 

[serfty]

The first and third ones they are saying are unavailable even though I can see them.

Where can you see them?

If not as part of a dummy booking for an itinerary commencing in Seoul then that search may not reflect actual availability for your purposes.

 

[Shipsong]

Where can you see them?

If not as part of a dummy booking for an itinerary commencing in Seoul then that search may not reflect actual availability for your purposes.

I can see them as stand alone flights. I didn't appreciate that availability of reward seats depended on earlier trips in your itinerary.

 

[serfty]

I can see them as stand alone flights. I didn't appreciate that availability of reward seats depended on earlier trips in your itinerary.

POC ...

- Point of Commencement. An award for DDD-EEE may be available when booking an itinerary starting in DDD. But that availability might not exist for a booking commencing in xx_. You can test this with muti-segment and looking for xx_-YYY and then DDD-EEE in the same search.

 

[BriarFlyer]

Has anyone had the problem with a classic reward flight showing as available but the call centre telling you its not. The website shows the flight and lets me get through the booking process right up to payment (where I bail because I want it booked under my existing booking).

Something else to consider: when you take your dummy booking right through to payment, you remove it from inventory (temporarily.) So if you're calling right away and asking for that same CR -- and it was the last one -- then the agent legitimately can't see it because it's in your "shopping basket" awaiting payment. It will drop out and become available again but that can take hours.

 

[Shipsong]

Something else to consider: when you take your dummy booking right through to payment, you remove it from inventory (temporarily.) So if you're calling right away and asking for that same CR -- and it was the last one -- then the agent legitimately can't see it because it's in your "shopping basket" awaiting payment. It will drop out and become available again but that can take hours.

Thanks. Yeah I've had that issue as well.

 

[Shipsong]

POC ...

Thanks serfty. I understand what you're saying but why is that? If the airline is offering the seat as a reward why do they care where you started your itinerary?

 

[serfty]

Thanks serfty. I understand what you're saying but why is that? If the airline is offering the seat as a reward why do they care where you started your itinerary?

It's for differing markets and having varied level of discount fare availability that seems to filter down to award levels.

For example a 4 continent oneworld explorer (DONE4) base fare starting in OSL is ~AUD8698, while the same fare beginning in MEL has a base of AUD12588. The fare $$$ are split up between the airline marketing/operating each segment and there would be a bigger 'pie' to slice up ex MEL. With such, some airlines have made fare bucket availability (D class) fares very tight. For example, when considering flight availability with bookings ex Norway (OSL), that for the same flight when booking from other POC's have been observed to be greater.

 

[algae]

On my second owa at the moment. All in J other than 2x JAL PE legs.
I've got the email to request a cash upgrade which I've done.
If I'm successful, does this require JAL to reticket the whole booking to avoid impacting the future legs?
Does anyone have any experience with JAL cash upgrades on a OWA?

 

[Kangol]

I haven't booked a OWA in years, am in the process of completing one.
Most recent change added the second OW airline, which I thought automatically changes the points table to OWA, instead of multiple point to point trips. Phone agent came back with the fare rules require it to be calculated when returning to point of origin (I'm not quite halfway to 35k miles), so no point in doing so right now.

Is this new?

I see this in the terms:
14.4.3 A one way oneworld Classic Flight Reward Itinerary will be charged as a return Itinerary. Itineraries finishing in a port other than the port of origin must include the distance to return directly to the port of origin when calculating the number of Qantas Points required to redeem the Flight Reward and the maximum distance for the Itinerary.

The last OWA I took was pre-covid, so something may have changed.

 

[aikman]

I haven't booked a OWA in years, am in the process of completing one.
Most recent change added the second OW airline, which I thought automatically changes the points table to OWA, instead of multiple point to point trips. Phone agent came back with the fare rules require it to be calculated when returning to point of origin (I'm not quite halfway to 35k miles), so no point in doing so right now.

Is this new?

I see this in the terms:
14.4.3 A one way oneworld Classic Flight Reward Itinerary will be charged as a return Itinerary. Itineraries finishing in a port other than the port of origin must include the distance to return directly to the port of origin when calculating the number of Qantas Points required to redeem the Flight Reward and the maximum distance for the Itinerary.

The last OWA I took was pre-covid, so something may have changed.

That rule has been there since the beginning. That rule must be decades old.

 

[Kangol]

That rule has been there since the beginning. That rule must be decades old.

Does it have to include a segment (surface or otherwise) back to point of origin, to be priced as a OWA?
That's what I was told (VIP team).
Previously this was not the case in my experience.
The flights I want to take to go back to point of origin haven't opened up yet.

 

[cjd600]

Does it have to include a segment (surface or otherwise) back to point of origin, to be priced as a OWA?
That's what I was told (VIP team).
Previously this was not the case in my experience.
The flights I want to take to go back to point of origin haven't opened up yet.

Mine have always capped at the OWA points level once I've met the criteria even with flights to add back to home

 

[serfty]

Does it have to include a segment (surface or otherwise) back to point of origin, to be priced as a OWA?
That's what I was told (VIP team).
Previously this was not the case in my experience.
The flights I want to take to go back to point of origin haven't opened up yet.

As per the rules you quoted, the distance between the last arrival port and the first segment's origin port must be included in the total distance calculation.

There is no need to specifically book a segment to the origin port.

Or, to put it another way, the rule 14.4.3 would otherwise have no relevance.