Pumped 205,000 points for RTW instead of 140,000 need suggestions.

[Espresso]

Hi
Trying to whittle down 4 x RTW from 820,000 points to 560,000.

Have booked : from 13 June

Melb-Hono-LA-NY-Dublin-Rome-Helsinki-Bangkok-Melb.

If I cut out two legs I can get it all for 540,000.

Any body suggest two legs to cut or some other way.

Issues so far:
June 25th NY-Rome one leg N/A, so have to go NY-Dub then Dub-Rome two legs and Rome-Helsinki could do a Ryan Air.

All N/A on the dates I want. Should I wait until closer to June or does anybody have better legs.

Cheers

 

[Alanslegal]

If I cut out two legs I can get it all for 540,000.

Any body suggest two legs to cut or some other way.

To be eligible for the 140,000 point redemption, there is a maximum of 5 stopovers on these types of bookings (and a maximum of 16 segments). So thus, I would be guessing you have more than 5 stopovers causing the rate to be 205,000 pp.

 

[Espresso]

I know its been stated a million times but was is a definition of a stopover and a segment.

If I could get NY-Rome without going to Dublin, I'd be fine. Why is NY to Europe so loaded in late June.

 

[dajop]

I know its been stated a million times but was is a definition of a stopover and a segment.

If I could get NY-Rome without going to Dublin, I'd be fine. Why is NY to Europe so loaded in late June.

That is your problem. NY-Dublin is operated by Aer Lingus. They are not part of oneworld. You may need to spring an extra 3500x4 pts to book itinerary over phone (ie 143,500 x 4), as the agents may have access to alternative options that do not come up in the online booking engine (eg JFK-MAD on IB)

 

[Alanslegal]

I know its been stated a million times but was is a definition of a stopover and a segment.

Transit is less than 24hours
Stopopver is more than 24hours
Segment is just A to B, B to C etc

 

[JohnK]

All N/A on the dates I want. Should I wait until closer to June or does anybody have better legs.

I think trying to get award seats for 4 people on the same flight this close to June is going to be a challenge. Perhaps something will open up closer to the date but that is risking it.

One option as mentioned is to call QF and try to get an itinerary planned over the phone.

Another option would be to start looking for alternate airports from the USA and Europe and the other option as you have done already is to break the trip up when searching for award flights. e.g JFK-LHR/MAD/HEL/BUD and then LHR/MAD/BUD/HEL-FCO.

I remember when I was booking my Oneworld award IAD-ATH and YYZ-ATH for 2 people did not return any results but when I started breaking down it down leg by leg the results became available. Obviously this is going to take time and I don't like how the new QF award booking engine is coughbersome. One the old award booking engine I could change the 6th leg in the routing without stuffing the rest of the routing. With the new one one has to restart at each hurdle.

be to get a subscription to something like ExpertFlyer to find out which city pairs may actually have award availability for the dates you want.

 

[Jacques Vert]

That is your problem. NY-Dublin is operated by Aer Lingus. They are not part of oneworld. You may need to spring an extra 3500x4 pts to book itinerary over phone (ie 143,500 x 4), as the agents may have access to alternative options that do not come up in the online booking engine (eg JFK-MAD on IB)

Agreed.

If you look at the OW Map oneworld Online Timetable. it shows the only ways into and out of Dublin are via Chicago, Madrid, Budapest and Moscow.

Try changing your itinerary to include Dublin and one of these (but only use them as a transit <24 hours). For example, NY-Madrid-DUB then DUB-Budapest-Rome.

Good luck,

JV