My wife, daughter and i want to tour Europe for a month starting Sept school hols, visit friends in Uganda and get over jetlag in Thailand on way home early in Nov. (Our first QFF since took family of 5 to Fiji in 2004.)
Prob 1: We have 375K QFF but need 420K for the RTW (Multi-City) booking!
We can buy points (about $1400) but are there other good ways to get the extra 45K quickly? No relatives have QFF points to give us but some are willing to get QFF credit cards and donate points: I think this takes 3 months for points to come through? Is 3 months optimistic? Would this delay make it too hard to still get 3 x RTW QFF seats? Suggestions?
Prob 2: Current Qantas site for RTW (Multi-City) doesn't include Uganda (Entebbe) so requires flying to Nairobi Kenya then long drive! But Emirates flies direct to Entebbe daily so we should wait until Emirates partnership comes through for QFF Award bookings (end March?) and then make bookings.
Maybe I could book RTW (incl. Kenya) now and modify for Uganda later? (A form of insurance for the Rome seats and in case Emirates QFF deal somehow fails.) Would it keep my original Rome & Thai flights? But costs extra points that I don't yet have. Any point in just booking simple Rome return (360K) now with my points and converting to RTW (420K) after Emirates deal? Is this possible?
Will Dubai hub reduce our taxes (since will be MEL-DBX-Rome not MEL-LON-Rome)? Any thoughts/news on when we will be able to book QFF RTW using Emirates?
Thanks for your advice and suggestions.
Prob 1: We have 375K QFF but need 420K for the RTW (Multi-City) booking!
We can buy points (about $1400) but are there other good ways to get the extra 45K quickly? No relatives have QFF points to give us but some are willing to get QFF credit cards and donate points: I think this takes 3 months for points to come through? Is 3 months optimistic? Would this delay make it too hard to still get 3 x RTW QFF seats? Suggestions?
Prob 2: Current Qantas site for RTW (Multi-City) doesn't include Uganda (Entebbe) so requires flying to Nairobi Kenya then long drive! But Emirates flies direct to Entebbe daily so we should wait until Emirates partnership comes through for QFF Award bookings (end March?) and then make bookings.
Maybe I could book RTW (incl. Kenya) now and modify for Uganda later? (A form of insurance for the Rome seats and in case Emirates QFF deal somehow fails.) Would it keep my original Rome & Thai flights? But costs extra points that I don't yet have. Any point in just booking simple Rome return (360K) now with my points and converting to RTW (420K) after Emirates deal? Is this possible?
Will Dubai hub reduce our taxes (since will be MEL-DBX-Rome not MEL-LON-Rome)? Any thoughts/news on when we will be able to book QFF RTW using Emirates?
Thanks for your advice and suggestions.