QF 192k point award assistance

[bmcc]

Hi - First time poster but long-time reader, I would be grateful for anyone's insight into the following situation.

I have an existing QF award booked, current routing is HKG>BKK>SYD>BNE>SYD>MEL. The international sectors are on Emirates in First, the domestic sectors are on QF in business. Each of the flights are within 24hrs of each other and so each city is considered a stop-over. I have been charged 148k points for this so far.

I ultimately need to arrive in Dubai and I understand that a QF Zone 10 classic award is good for up to 15,000 miles, so long as each subsequent departure is within 24 hours of arrival. I can also see Emirates First availability out of Melbourne within 24 hours of my arrival. However, when I called up today to book the (very friendly and otherwise helpful) Qantas agent said that notwithstanding that the Emirates flight (EK405 from Melbourne to Dubai, via Singapore) was available to book as a standalone redemption, the "system" would not let her book it into my existing award. I had a few questions:

1. Has anyone encountered this problem when trying to add an Emirates award flight to an existing itinerary?
2. An alternative routing would be HKK>BKK>SYD>BNE>SYD>CBR>SYD>DXB, as there is First availability on QF1. All of those flights would be within 24 hours of each other. At <15,000 miles, I understand the total for this routing would be 192k points, does that seem correct?

Thanks in advance for any replies!

 

[trixydoza]

148k isn't a standard category, so I'm thinking something hasn't been treated as a stopover there, possibly because you're departing Sydney twice.

One possibility is that it's effectively been priced as 108k for HKG-BKK-SYD and then 16k for SYD-BNE and 24k for BNE-SYD-MEL. So you're not getting the freebies.

 

[bmcc]

Thanks for the quick reply. I also thought that was odd - but have double checked my flight timing and my longest gap between flights is 22 hours (trip from hell, I know).

I also double-checked the classic award rules and there doesn't seem to be anything in there excluding multiple departures from the same city. The only related rule is that you cannot depart from your port of first departure twice (i.e. if my itinerary originated in Sydney, I couldn't fly SYD>AKL>SYD>DXB).

Thanks again.

 

[trixydoza]

I'm not sure why, but I have found that connections within Australia can be treated a bit differently. It might be related to the search engine not throwing BKK-SYD-BNE up as a natural option, but needing it to be forced via multi-city.

For example, this prices as 90k + 16k despite having a stopover of less than 24 hours.

 

[JohnK]

BKK-SYD-BNE is not a standard routing. It tips over to next band.

Have you tried the routing yourself online? Doesn't have to be in first. See how it prices and whether it is allowed.

 

[trixydoza]

I wasn't familiar with the BKK-SYD route, but now I see it's a distance-related thing.

AND, it would appear the system is trying to help you. Instead of pushing you up to the next award category of 108k when it puts the trip together step by step, it recognises that 90k + 16k would be cheaper for you (assuming you stop after that), and gives you 106k instead.

So I think your trip might have been priced as 108k for HKG-BKK-SYD, and then because the SYD-BNE leg would take you into 126k territory, it's tried to save you 2k by adding on 16k instead, thereby breaking the booking for your purposes.

 

[bmcc]

Thanks both for your very helpful response. I've just tried to use the multi-city online tool to book a hypothetical economy class HKG>BKK>SYD>BNE>SYD>CBR>SYD>DXB routing, which at ~14,200 miles according to Great Circle Mapper should be a valid 60,000 point itinerary (all on QF or EK) but the online booking tool just errors out when you to price it. Very frustrating.

I will try to call Qantas again tomorrow and see if I can get them to put me onto an EK flight out of Brisbane, Adelaide or Perth (which all have F availability showing). However, failing that, do you think the best course would be to cancel the entire itinerary and try to do it fresh either online or on the phone with QF?

Cheers

 

[trixydoza]

HKG-BKK-SYD-DXB works for 192k. Beyond that I'd say it's some sort of an issue with all the domestic legs.

 

[MEL_Traveller]

I wasn't familiar with the BKK-SYD route, but now I see it's a distance-related thing.

AND, it would appear the system is trying to help you. Instead of pushing you up to the next award category of 108k when it puts the trip together step by step, it recognises that 90k + 16k would be cheaper for you (assuming you stop after that), and gives you 106k instead.

So I think your trip might have been priced as 108k for HKG-BKK-SYD, and then because the SYD-BNE leg would take you into 126k territory, it's tried to save you 2k by adding on 16k instead, thereby breaking the booking for your purposes.

There's also something now (not sure if it's entirely relevant here) that any connection to/from a partner airline to a QF flight will now be priced sector-by-sector. It used to be you could do a MEL-SYD-HKG (QF-CX) and be charged the same through fare, (or SYD-HKG-PVG QF-CX). Now QFFF will charge sector by sector even if well within a particular mileage zone.

We found this out in a recent thread somewhere.

 

[bmcc]

That's a concerning development I wasn't aware of - you don't happen to know which forum it was posted in by chance (a quick Google turned up nothing)?

If that is in fact the case it takes away much of the attraction of the QF/EK partnership for one thing. This time last year I did a SYD>BNE>MEL>SIN>DXB on QF and EK on a 192k award without any trouble...

 

[trixydoza]

There's also something now (not sure if it's entirely relevant here) that any connection to/from a partner airline to a QF flight will now be priced sector-by-sector. It used to be you could do a MEL-SYD-HKG (QF-CX) and be charged the same through fare, (or SYD-HKG-PVG QF-CX). Now QFFF will charge sector by sector even if well within a particular mileage zone.

We found this out in a recent thread somewhere.

Not an issue for itineraries consisting solely of EK and QF (and AA), though.

 

[MEL_Traveller]

Not an issue for itineraries consisting solely of EK and QF (and AA), though.

yeah. I'm a little sketchy now on the details - and I can't for the life of me find the reference in the QFFF points tables. I remember it took us ages to find it last time, and there's just a line buried somewhere saying something about combining carriers. Which kind of makes sense if QF and partner tables are charged differently, but this was something over and above that.

 

[bmcc]

There's definitely something wonky with Qantas' booking engine - either that or I don't understand the classic award rules properly.

The itinerary below prices out in economy at 85,000pts even though it is comfortably within the 15,000 mile limit of a zone 10 economy award and all of the stopovers are <24hrs. This is almost identical to the itinerary I am trying to ticket in J/F class.

Not looking forward to trying to work this out on the phone tomorrow...

 

[JohnK]

There's also something now (not sure if it's entirely relevant here) that any connection to/from a partner airline to a QF flight will now be priced sector-by-sector. It used to be you could do a MEL-SYD-HKG (QF-CX) and be charged the same through fare, (or SYD-HKG-PVG QF-CX). Now QFFF will charge sector by sector even if well within a particular mileage zone.

We found this out in a recent thread somewhere.

That could be true to some extent.

SYD-HKG-BKK on QF->EK is 35,000 points.
SYD-HKG-BKK on QF->CX or CX->CX is 42,000 points.

That may have come in with QF->EK partnership.

 

[trixydoza]

yeah. I'm a little sketchy now on the details - and I can't for the life of me find the reference in the QFFF points tables. I remember it took us ages to find it last time, and there's just a line buried somewhere saying something about combining carriers. Which kind of makes sense if QF and partner tables are charged differently, but this was something over and above that.

I think it was the last part of this:

"Trip" means a series of one or more consecutive Flight Segments within an Itinerary:
(a) that does not include:
(i) a Stopover; or
(ii) a Flight Segment whose arrival city is the same as the departure city of any other Flight Segment in that series (in this instance the Trip will be broken at the farthest point from the departure city for that series);
(b) not exceeding the maximum permitted miles in the Qantas, Jetstar or Partner Classic Flight Reward tables as applicable (see qantas.com for the tables); and
(c) not broken by a change to or from any airline included in the Partner Classic Flight Reward table (see qantas.com for the table).

 

[trixydoza]

And (a) (ii) seems to be relevant here too.

 

[JohnK]

There's definitely something wonky with Qantas' booking engine - either that or I don't understand the classic award rules properly.

The itinerary below prices out in economy at 85,000pts even though it is comfortably within the 15,000 mile limit of a zone 10 economy award and all of the stopovers are <24hrs. This is almost identical to the itinerary I am trying to ticket in J/F class.

Not looking forward to trying to work this out on the phone tomorrow...
View attachment 66018

SYD-BNE-SYD could be the issue. It could be breaking up your trip. Try SYD-BNE-MEL instead.

 

[bmcc]

And (a) (ii) seems to be relevant here too.

Indeed it does. That seems to invalidate my proposed routing because of the multiple Sydney arrivals. I might need to be a bit more creative to avoid this problem. Thanks very much for pointing this out to me.

 

[trixydoza]

For example, this prices as 90k + 16k despite having a stopover of less than 24 hours.

I learnt something, anyway. It compares the higher zone cost of 108k with 90k + 16k and then gives you the latter. Then if you add on another valid leg, it moves you back to zone-based pricing:

 

[bmcc]

For anyone still interested, I managed to find a 192k Zone 10 routing that allowed me to be everywhere I need to be (i.e. Sydney, Brisbane and Dubai, out of Hong Kong). Final routing was HKG>SIN>BNE>MEL>SYD>ADL>DXB. Major downsides are 1. Jetstar economy to Singapore, and 2. No F Lounge in Syd/Mel, but oh well.