QF Multi City Problems

[ricee007]

Howdy,

Am I the only one that has absolutely no luck with the QF multicity booking tool?

Besides being awfully poorly designed (put in 6 flights, then change the destination of one of them, and it deletes all of your flights --- it only has 3 flights showing as default --- the error messages that come up are useless).... it just doesn't seem to work:

For eg, Sydney-LHR-Athens-Istanbul-London-Sydney
doesn't work, no matter what dates I put in.

The error message I get says:
"
We are unable to find recommendations for your search. (#7190-NFA)

• No fares can be found for your selected itinerary. Select new dates and/or destinations and search again. "

What on earth does this mean?

(September 2012, for the record).



I have troubles with it 95% of the time, and I just don't understand why.

 

[gogo419]

I think the multi city tool was designed mainly for AUS domestic and adding in one or two international destinations (i.e per-syd-mel-lax-dfw) You may want to look into a round the world ticket on the QANTAS site. Or do a search on one world.com and see what that gives you (RTW or multi-city). Just did a dummy booking on oneworld.com, i can get flights for everything but Athens-Istanbul (Have no idea who flies this?? But clearly no one in oneworld)

i have saved a pdf of the itinerary. So if you want to have a look at what i did? then PM me your email and ill send it to you.

cheers gogo

 

[ricee007]

Thanks for your input gogo. I guess the fact that there are no OW flights Athens-Istanbul is what the error message means.... I just wish that it would say it! Or, at least, tell me which sector is problematic.

I'm thinking of flying staff travel over to LHR, then buy a BA J ticket to Athens... but I need to be back on a certain day for work, so I might purchase a commercial Y ticket for Athens - Home.

Athens to Istanbul should be cheap, even if OW don't do ... which just leaves Istanbul to Sydney, which can be done via LHR or Frankfurt. QF is $1500 but that is what my traveling party is traveling, so I may end up with that.

Or, I could just risk staff travel from LHR/Frankfurt to Sydney and hope for the best.

 

[A330]

I have found the multi city booking search is very temperamental. For some reason it doesn't allow you to book SYD-HKG-LHR. They obviously want you to go via SIN.

When it does decide to work, I love that it shows you the price difference for each of the flight options before you select them. My experience with other airlines (BA, LH) is that you don't see the price until you have made all your selections. Not very handy if you have a flexible schedule and are looking for price comparison. Though I did notice that LH & IB multi city bookings are cheaper than multiple one way tickets.

 

[oz_mark]

I have found the multi city booking search is very temperamental. For some reason it doesn't allow you to book SYD-HKG-LHR. They obviously want you to go via SIN.

Are you trying to stopover in HKG? If so, you can't continue on to LHR on a QF flight number.

 

[ricee007]

Are you trying to stopover in HKG? If so, you can't continue on to LHR on a QF flight number.

So, does the multicity tool only show Qantas flights??

 

[medhead]

I recently experienced a similar problem with BCN and MAD. Worked by leaving out the BCN-MAD flight. So leave out the ATH-IST leg and see what happens.

The search I was doing also preferentially offered options via HKG on either BA flight numbers or QF codeshares. So I'm not sure about being forced via SIN as my experience is the opposite. Maybe try changing the search option tick box from best fare to schedule (or whatever it is)

Also the last leg you search should be IST-SYD. Absolutely no need to put all the steps in if you just want to fly straight through.


Sent from the Throne

 

[oz_mark]

So, does the multicity tool only show Qantas flights??

No, but there are traffic restrictions imposed on Qantas between Hong Kong and London, so they may have just stopped the tool working on that route, rather than implement the rule.

 

[medhead]

No, but there are traffic restrictions imposed on Qantas between Hong Kong and London, so they may have just stopped the tool working on that route, rather than implement the rule.

Must have been in the last 2 weeks if they have done that.


Sent from the Throne