Qantas Reward Booking to Montreal

[cdarvell]

Hi All,
This is my first post.
My husband and I plan a trip to Canada/USA in October/November 2013 using our frequent flyer points for business/first class tickets to Montreal & returning from LA out of Brisbane.
I have been watching the award bookings area and testing our booking, at times it seems one can get through to Montreal on one ticket, and at other times it seems we can get as far as New York, then need to do a separate booking from NY to Montreal.
Also are there any particular days that first class award seats are offered from LA to Brisbane via Melbourne, as it seems as though some days never seem to have them.
Your thoughts would be appreciated.
Thank you
Chris

 

[serfty]

Any initial award seats become available 353 days before the flight (at 10am Brisbane time).

These tend to get snapped up rather quickly. From my observations, flights departing Tue/Wed/Thu may be your best bets.

 

[ozbeachbabe]

Sometimes it's worth just looking at the award flights ex BNE to the QF gateways only eg LAX/DFW/JFK as sometimes using another city such as Montreal may increase the amount of points required greatly.

In many cases it's cheaper to just purchase a separate ticket NYC/YUL (Montreal) or do that one way then get the Amtrak train from NYC to Niagara Falls then on to YYZ (Toronto).

Remember there are two types of awards:

a) Qantas or Partner airline Classic Award (no frequent flyer points or status credits earned)

b) Anyseat Award (QF/JQ only) that earns frequent flyer points & status credits.

The Any Seat Awards also known as FASA's, JASA's, WASA's & YASA's for First, Business, Premium Economy & Economy respectively may require the same amount of points as a Classic Award but may cost slightly more dollars.

When you factor in the points/SC earn paying a few more dollars initially can definitely be worth it for the return.

 

[wingspan]

In addition to Oz' good advice, it may be worth noting that JFK-YUL flights (IME) tend to be on RJ140 so those legs are economy only (although maybe there are some other aircraft available at some times - but I've not seen them). Therefore it probably adds to the argument to only worry about booking through to JFK and then transferring - on a separate ticket - to YUL.

 

[Isochronous]

The only YUL flights I'm aware of on AA are from JFK and LGA, and on planes with no F or J.

 

[Mwenenzi]

Welcome to the forum

Also be very careful when looking for business/first class awards on the QF web site you are not offered/accept economy or economy plus over the pacific for the full business/first class points. Does trap some people.

Phoning Qantas is worth it at times (5000 points extra ?)

 

[mushypeas]

i've flown from YYZ & LGA to YUL on AA metal using points... what a pain in the cough, stupid embraer 135 which are so small it's ridiculous - yes ok it's fine for a short distance but they get knocked about with slight wind gusts, as a nervous flyer i hate these aircraft !! im heading back over XMas/NYE and have chosen to fly Porter YUL > quick stop at YTZ > EWR and returning via rail.