QFF Classic Awards Bookings ..... 354 days in advance .... no Business Class !?!?!?

[ben ifin]

Hi all

My first post here - looks like an awesome forum.

Each year for the last few years we have [ been fortunate enough ] to book Melbourne to Heathrow Business using QFF Classic Awards ..... we always book 354 days in advance, and without fail, after just a day or two of looking, we have gotten the Mel to London [ 1 stop ] direct flight all the way with Qantas Business.

So whats the issue ?

Well, for the last few weeks we have been looking / searching the Qantas site for the same Mel to London [ 1 stop ] direct flight all the way with Qantas Business ..... and there has been nothing ..... nothing at all.

Plenty of Economy ...... plenty of genuine Premium Economy ......... some "hybrid" Premium/Business ...... but nothing pure Business !?!?!?

What gives ?

Has Qantas pretty much stopped releasing [ full ] Business QFF Classic Award seats ?

For the last 4 / 5 years this has never been an issue when booking this far ahead ..... but now ...... nothing ?

Can anyone here advise what is going on ?

What we could try ?

Many thanks in advance,
Ben

 

[gbetox]

Re: QFF Classic Awards Bookings ..... 354 days in advance .... no Business Class !?!

Maybe search separately, MEL-HKG and HKG-LHR?

On the BA website, I can see 2 J seats MEL-HKG flying CX, and 2 J seats HKG-LHR flying BA.

 

[serfty]

Re: QFF Classic Awards Bookings ..... 354 days in advance .... no Business Class !?!

It's 353 days. (midnight UTC)

 

[grussellt]

Re: QFF Classic Awards Bookings ..... 354 days in advance .... no Business Class !?!

Hi Ben, There are at least 2J (and 2F) on QF9 on 25/4/2016 but little else direct earlier. Be quick!

 

[ben ifin]

Re: QFF Classic Awards Bookings ..... 354 days in advance .... no Business Class !?!

Hi Ben, There are at least 2J (and 2F) on QF9 on 25/4/2016 but little else direct earlier. Be quick!

Seems to be lots of QF9 Business from Dubai to Heathrow but *no* QF9 Business from Melbourne to Dubai ??????

This has never happened before in multiple prior years where we have made QF9 Mel <-> London Business bookings this far in advance ..... anyone have any idea what is going on ?

Ben

 

[Alanslegal]

Re: QFF Classic Awards Bookings ..... 354 days in advance .... no Business Class !?!

Seems to be lots of QF9 Business from Dubai to Heathrow but *no* QF9 Business from Melbourne to Dubai ??????

This has never happened before in multiple prior years where we have made QF9 Mel <-> London Business bookings this far in advance ..... anyone have any idea what is going on ?

Ben

The answer is easy; there are up to 10 million members out there fighting over the two measly seats that Qantas releases almost a year in advance.

It will only get harder and harder to book premium cabin seats in the future when Qantas prints out flyer points left, right and center and you can earn them on pretty much anything nowadays. Go to the supermarkets, I earn Qantas points. Sign up to health insurance, I earn Qantas points. Even shopping on eBay earns Qantas points. Qantas loves us, they print out the points, sells them to anyone who cares or wants to, and they make it so difficult to get on a plane that most never bother anymore and end up redeeming toasters. And if you do get on a plane and most end up in economy too sadly, the hefty surcharges that one just paid, well it would have been cheaper just paying outright cash for the exact flights.

Anyway good luck, hope it works out for you.

 

[ben ifin]

Re: QFF Classic Awards Bookings ..... 354 days in advance .... no Business Class !?!

The answer is easy; there are up to 10 million members out there fighting over the two measly seats that Qantas releases almost a year in advance.

It will only get harder and harder to book premium cabin seats in the future when Qantas prints out flyer points left, right and center and you can earn them on pretty much anything nowadays. Go to the supermarkets, I earn Qantas points. Sign up to health insurance, I earn Qantas points. Even shopping on eBay earns Qantas points. Qantas loves us, they print out the points, sells them to anyone who cares or wants to, and they make it so difficult to get on a plane that most never bother anymore and end up redeeming toasters. And if you do get on a plane and most end up in economy too sadly, the hefty surcharges that one just paid, well it would have been cheaper just paying outright cash for the exact flights.

Anyway good luck, hope it works out for you.

Hi Alanslegal

Yep ...... sadly I have come to the same conclusion too - and it seems to be much, much worse [ harder ] now than even last year, let alone 2 - 3 years ago.

Ben

 

[Dr Bob]

Re: QFF Classic Awards Bookings ..... 354 days in advance .... no Business Class !?!

Maybe RedRoo has been reading!! QF9 J 26th 27th & 28th now appearing for 2 pax good luck

 

[gbetox]

Re: QFF Classic Awards Bookings ..... 354 days in advance .... no Business Class !?!

Interestingly, I've just finished booking two 280k J awards for next year. I've had no problems finding seats on CX, BA, AY, QR and JAL, on the exact dates I wanted. However, no seats were available on the QF flights, and I had to request the release of those seats as a WP.

 

[geordieladinoz]

Re: QFF Classic Awards Bookings ..... 354 days in advance .... no Business Class !?!

I was recently searching for SYD-LHR and had noticed no J awards being released for a number of weeks (unless people were phoning in and nabbing them before 11.05am every day). Called the QF WP line 353 days in advance of my preferred date, 19th April, and they released them within 1 minute for me.

Interesting if this was a spell of not making them open to everyone and they've now started appearing again.

 

[smit0847]

Re: QFF Classic Awards Bookings ..... 354 days in advance .... no Business Class !?!

The answer is easy; there are up to 10 million members out there fighting over the two measly seats that Qantas releases almost a year in advance.

It will only get harder and harder to book premium cabin seats in the future when Qantas prints out flyer points left, right and center and you can earn them on pretty much anything nowadays. Go to the supermarkets, I earn Qantas points. Sign up to health insurance, I earn Qantas points. Even shopping on eBay earns Qantas points. Qantas loves us, they print out the points, sells them to anyone who cares or wants to, and they make it so difficult to get on a plane that most never bother anymore and end up redeeming toasters. And if you do get on a plane and most end up in economy too sadly, the hefty surcharges that one just paid, well it would have been cheaper just paying outright cash for the exact flights.

Anyway good luck, hope it works out for you.

This is the future of Qantas Frequent Flyer people. More people with more points fighting for the same number of seats.

 

[kpc]

Re: QFF Classic Awards Bookings ..... 354 days in advance .... no Business Class !?!

I was recently searching for SYD-LHR and had noticed no J awards being released for a number of weeks (unless people were phoning in and nabbing them before 11.05am every day). Called the QF WP line 353 days in advance of my preferred date, 19th April, and they released them within 1 minute for me.

Interesting if this was a spell of not making them open to everyone and they've now started appearing again.

I got one (Syd-Lhr) the day before by ringing the Premium desk

 

[geordieladinoz]

Re: QFF Classic Awards Bookings ..... 354 days in advance .... no Business Class !?!

I got one (Syd-Lhr) the day before by ringing the Premium desk

That's exactly what I did!

 

[Alanslegal]

Re: QFF Classic Awards Bookings ..... 354 days in advance .... no Business Class !?!

Interestingly, I've just finished booking two 280k J awards for next year. I've had no problems finding seats on CX, BA, AY, QR and JAL, on the exact dates I wanted. However, no seats were available on the QF flights, and I had to request the release of those seats as a WP.

And that's the issue, it is extremely difficult to get premium cabin awards with Qantas and it was only because of your Platinum status that you were secure seats on their planes, after you asked them to release some.

I have a restrictive solution that may work - quite a few would be upset about it - but change the cancellation terms so that if you need to cancel your ticket, you forfeit the entire amount of points. This will stop speculative bookings 353 days out because currently you only pay a small number of points to cancel which is negligible in the scheme of things. Make the points loss so scary that people book only what they know they will fly. Sure there may be some exceptional reasons for cancellation (eg. death of family member) but for most of the reasons - then too bad, too sad, lose your xx_,xx_ points that you blew to book the premium cabin seats.

 

[Scr77]

Re: QFF Classic Awards Bookings ..... 354 days in advance .... no Business Class !?!

There are quite a few Heathrow to Melbourne first class seats available in March 2016

 

[RichardMEL]

Re: QFF Classic Awards Bookings ..... 354 days in advance .... no Business Class !?!

Don't forget it's not just the QFF members trying to grab these seats, but other partner airline members.. and by that I am thinking mostly AA given the seemingly increasing numbers of folks chosing to fund their premium travel via purchasing of miles in partner programs like this (not having a go, just making a statement). Plus QF is obviously being more agressive with revenue and yield management both to boost profit and obviously keep their cashflow up.

 

[JohnK]

Re: QFF Classic Awards Bookings ..... 354 days in advance .... no Business Class !?!

The answer is easy; there are up to 10 million members out there fighting over the two measly seats that Qantas releases almost a year in advance.

And with Qantas flooding the market with more and more points it is getting harder to book those premiuma awards.

I thought the main priority of the QFF porgram was to ensure that people can use those points on flights? No? Toasters makes more money, right?