Planning a holiday on QFF points - Business or First?

[TheFergus]

Ok, decision made - First Class it is!
Can anyone point me in the right direction?

I'd stick with the Qantas site and try and stick with just the Qantas flights rather than the code shares (except possibly Emirates) and A380 only.

Then you'll have a bench mark for all future adventures.

Have a blast.

 

[mghinoz]

The first leg of this journey will be Sydney to somewhere in Europe.
We are pretty flexible with where our European entry point is.

I am trying to determine which flights with OneWorld carrier have first class cabins, and if they are available (ever) via award redemption. Looking around Aug, Sep, Oct 2013, first match is QF1, SYD to LHR via DXB.

Question 1) Will the second leg of the QF1 flight (DXB-LHR) be on Qantas metal, or are they planning to use Emirates assuming the regulatory approval is granted?

Q2) If the second leg of QF1 is on Emirates, does that mean that the flight cannot be part of a OneWorld Award booking due to clause 14.5.1 "A oneworld Award is a Classic Award Itinerary that includes travel on at least two oneworld Alliance Airlines other than Qantas and does not include any travel on any airline that is not a oneworld Alliance Airline."

Q3) Am I better off moving these questions to the trip planning forum?

 

[fdken]

For interest, I did something similar 2 years ago. I went for the First class one world award. Actually in the end I wasn't overly impressed over business. I flew on Qantas first Mel-hkg-lhr with connection bus bne-Mel and tacked on Lhr to Aberdeen to qualify for one world award. I was using Asia miles points.

Flew on very old 747 cabin, majority of flight was at night both ways, the beds whilst nice for sleeping don't allow for much contact with partner, would prefer Business in that regard. The first class lounge experience was nice though.

If you decide to go first then finding suitable flights will be difficult. Any flight on Emirates whether code shared or not would in my understanding make it ineligible as would any jetstar connecting flight.

You need two non Qantas one world members for one world award, so aa, cx, ba are good options. I have been searching but as Bronze member myself I have never even seen Finnair business awards.

If I could book on a380 I possibly would again otherwise I would go business. But then again I have tried First.

Also once Mh joins in December ish there may be other options as well.

 

[mghinoz]

Thank you all for the advice given...I have taken the plunge and booked 2 x Oneworld Award seats in F.

SYD - DXB in F on QF
TLV - MAD in J on IB
LHR - JNB in F on BA
JNB - HKG in F on CX
HKG - HND in F on CX
NRT - SYD in J on QF

I was aiming to experience the F cabins from multiple carriers, and am pretty happy with QF, CX and BA.

I would like to get some opinions on seat selection. Which is the best forum to post to?

 

[amaroo]

Thank you all for the advice given...I have taken the plunge and booked 2 x Oneworld Award seats in F.

SYD - DXB in F on QF
TLV - MAD in J on IB
LHR - JNB in F on BA
JNB - HKG in F on CX
HKG - HND in F on CX
NRT - SYD in J on QF

I was aiming to experience the F cabins from multiple carriers, and am pretty happy with QF, CX and BA.

I would like to get some opinions on seat selection. Which is the best forum to post to?

Great trip! You've picked a good route with BA that will ensure NF

 

[mghinoz]

Thanks.

Your FTDashboard.net tip helped in deciding that route, with the aim of maximising the chance of NewFirst.
And getting 2 x F seats on many CX routes was difficult, but there was plenty of availability ex JNB.

 

[bmam7]

Sounds like a great trip, mghinoz.

Can I be inquisitive and ask how you are getting from DXB to TLV?

I am planning a J class trip next year to ORD via Asia/Europe and returning via Europe/Asia for 280K points. I've found the problem mentioned by another poster about the little symbol indicating that such and such a flight will be in Economy Class (usually the longest leg!). Also, when I've used the QF booking system on-line I end up being told that the trip planned will cost 400K+ points, when I know for a fact that there is a OW combination (QF plus at least two other OW airlines) that allows 5 stopovers and a max routing of 35K miles for 280K.

When I phoned QF, I was advised the best way around all this was to spend an extra number of points or $60 for a "telephone" consultation as they would be able to access various combinations to get me the best value for the 280K. What's the point in being in OW and supposedly having a common booking system if you can't actually make a booking? After all, the cities are listed on their booking site. Anyway, that's another argument.

Do others have this problem, or am I going about it the wrong way? Perhaps I should have made this a separate post but it was the enticing route provided by the OP that set me off, although I doubt if I could add ORD into that list (perhaps replace JNB with ORD?) without going over the 35K limitation.

 

[mghinoz]

Sounds like a great trip, mghinoz.

Can I be inquisitive and ask how you are getting from DXB to TLV?

I am planning a J class trip next year to ORD via Asia/Europe and returning via Europe/Asia for 280K points. I've found the problem mentioned by another poster about the little symbol indicating that such and such a flight will be in Economy Class (usually the longest leg!). Also, when I've used the QF booking system on-line I end up being told that the trip planned will cost 400K+ points, when I know for a fact that there is a OW combination (QF plus at least two other OW airlines) that allows 5 stopovers and a max routing of 35K miles for 280K.

I don't believe there are any direct flights between DXB and TLV (or AUH-TLV either). So we are thinking of stopping over in Amman for a few days and going to see Petra. One of those "while we are there we may as well" kind of things. We kept this leg off the OneWorld award so as to maximise the value of the 5 stops on the longer haul legs. Having said all that, if there is conflict in the Middle East when we travel, we will dump the TLV leg and just fly DXB to LHR - or some other European destination if we can use an emirates/qantas codeshare as part of the OneWorld award.

As for your OneWorld award, post up the routing and we will see why it is quoting you 400k rather than the 280k it should be. It is probably just a small infringement on the OneWorld award requirements.

i think I was seriously lucky to be able to book the whole trip online without phone operator assistance.... Although it did involve months of searching and planning and boring my wife with OneWorld routing details at odd moments (church, bride walking down aisle, "did you know that Iberia fly blah blah blah")

 

[bmam7]

Thanks, mghinoz. Sounds like you went to a lot of work to achieve your aim. I know the feeling - switching from one website to another, consulting the OW page etc. I too have bored friends and relatives silly with all my "changes" and/or "additions" to what was originally a very simple plan, but then I got a bit carried away. You didn't really discuss travel plans whilst walking down the aisle????? That is priceless!

You are right about no direct flights from DXB-TLV. All I could find was as you appear to be doing, via Amman on RJ or a combination of RJ and EK. I envy you visiting Petra! You are making me rethink my plans already as AMM is a "technical" stop on my route.

My planned route is SYD-NRT (stay overnight but less than 24 hours, so technically not a "stopover"), NRT-HEL (stopover 1), HEL-BCN (2), BCN-YYZ (3), YYZ-ORD-YYZ as a separate train trip, so not part of the FF deal, YYZ-LHR (4), LHR-AMM (change planes), AMM-BKK (overnight stay), BKK-SIN (5), SIN-SYD. I think the problem may be that the booking site insists that I am stopping over in NRT and BKK, thereby creating more than the 5 real stopovers.

The other hassle is that the QF site constantly wants to fly me via LHR (that may change because of EK, it being a few months ago that I created the "current" itinerary), although the OW site allows me BCN-JFK-YYZ and LHR-GVA-AMM. QF doesn't acknowledge several of those OW legs as, of course, they don't codeshare or fly their own metal. Am I looking at the wrong page on QF perhaps?

The routing it wants to take me (and I'm afraid I didn't print it out) segmented the route for points purposes, sent me all over the place, and came up with over 400K FF points. This is when I made my phone call and was told the best thing to do was book through one of their consultants - at a price of course! LOL. As I've still not made up my mind (some other destination or airline or aircraft type always seems to pop into my head) I didn't take her up on her offer at the time.

My route plan is to avoid as much night time flying as possible (I have a bit of a phobia and try hard for daytime flights - crazy I know!) although that won't be possible YYV-LHR and AMM-BKK. Once upon a time I could have flown SIN-PER (stop for the night for less than 24 hrs) then PER-SYD the next day, but I can't find any daytime flights to any Australian port from SIN on QF at all these days. BA is the same and I don't know if Emirates will have the codeshare (I assume it will but I think with this deal you have to be on OW metal even if it is a QF flight number - or have I got that wrong?) Anyway I haven't checked Emirates flights to SYD just yet until we know what is happening for sure in this regard. I'd hate to get my hopes up!

Oh well, it can be fun!

All the very best for your trip and thank you for satisfying my curiosity about your middle east schedule. For seating, I've found seatguru to be pretty good. I use it all the time for my domestic flights with QF as I find many of their seat maps don't even show where the wings are! Apparently I can't post the link as I've not posted enough on this site but you can find it easily enough on google.

 

[mghinoz]

Thanks, mghinoz. Sounds like you went to a lot of work to achieve your aim. I know the feeling - switching from one website to another, consulting the OW page etc. I too have bored friends and relatives silly with all my "changes" and/or "additions" to what was originally a very simple plan, but then I got a bit carried away. You didn't really discuss travel plans whilst walking down the aisle????? That is priceless!

Oh no I wasn't walking down the aisle - just a guest sitting in the church with a mind dreaming of travel.


Yes, I think you are correct in saying that your problem is the transits being counted as stopovers. As has been suggested to you, your only option may be the operator assisted booking. Don't sweat the fee... It is an insignificant cost when you look at the overall cost of the trip (and the savings of making an award booking vs buying a regular ticket). Booking Award tickets is a Whole lot easier when routing through the carriers hubs - hence my stops in MAD and LHR. It is so cheap and easy to get around Europe that you may just have to accept that your entry point will not be your first choice, but you can simply add a few hours and a few dollars and hop over to where you want to be.


This trip report - FC to London, Istanbul, Jordan and more - Oct 2011 - FlyerTalk Forums - was one of several that made me think that Jordan would be an interesting place to visit. And because my wife can speak Arabic, it adds to the experience in markets, restaurants, and communicating with locals in general.

 

[bmam7]

mghinoz

Thanks very much for your advice and help. I agree that the easiest thing to do is probably an operator assisted booking. I actually ended up doing this a couple of years ago on a similar trip when I got stuck with computer booking and one advantage was that I got actual seat allocation at the time with the consultant's advice, even on an AA flight that had not yet "opened" to the general public on the booking system.

My problem that time was that I had keyed in LHR a couple of times as a stopover so it obviously came up with an excessive number of points required. It was a relatively simple trip, CBR-BNE-CNS-NRT (that bit not so simple thanks to the vagaries of the FF ticket) on QF (o/night transit), NRT-LHR on BA (stopover 1), LHR-ORD on BA (2), ORD-LHR (but, of course, not permitted so she suggested I fly to CDG on AA and buy a cheap BA ticket to LHR - I did this and made it to LHR but alas my luggage stayed in CDG for 3 days!). CDG was therefore the "official" 3rd stopover. Then AMS-LHR-SIN on BA (AMS being the "official" 4th stopover and SIN the 5th). In the meantime, I had travelled from London to Brussels by Eurostar, flew Brussels Airlines to Berlin then train back to to AMS). SIN-PER on QF (o/night transit), PER-SYD-CBR on QF. In the UK I did a side trip with EI to Dublin (LHR to DUB for 1 pound, DUB to EDI for 4 pounds plus of course about 30 pounds in assorted taxes and charges - still a very cheap trip). Weirdly, although I had booked directly on-line with Aer Lingus for the LHR-DUB-EDI sections and the flights had an EI code, because it was a codeshare with QF between LHR-DUB I got 1000 bonus points and 10 SC for this part of the trip from QF.

I had keyed in my QF FF number, however I had expected nothing as EI had left OW some time before. The BA legs for which I paid gave me about 125 points and no SC, but I did have access to their lounges through my QF Club membership. All other flying was J so automatic access to the relevant lounges. Liked BA lounges very much but was not impressed with AA at all and had an argument in CDG with a bossy lady who would not allow me access to the BA lounge until I threatened to escalate the situation. I can't speak a word of French and her English was not too good so it would have made for an interesting situation. LOL.

Thanks again for your advice. I will finalise my itinerary asap and then phone QF. Happy travelling to you and your wife, and thanks for the trip report which I will read with much interest.