Upgrade Seating help for a new member please!

[Aaaannngg]

Hello All
Firstly I'm very excitited I have found this forum and I apologise if I have posted in the wrong section
but was hoping someone could please help me get started.
I am planning to travel with Qantas to LA next year and wanted to start collecting enough points for a seat upgrade for two people, economy to premium economy. Is it possible to pay for the two tickets without points but then using points just for the upgrade?
And do you think 12 months will be enough time to accumulate the points?
Thank you in advance
AP

 

[deejo77]

Make sure you buy an economy ticket in a category that is upgradable (so no cheap economy tickets)
Do you have any status? If only bronze your chances are extremely low as they process all with status above you first
are you flying peak times? School holidays, Xmas or their summer....decreases your chances again

aussie to USA and back is popular so I would say you would be flying economy as booked


yes you could earn enough points with sign on bonuses but doesn't mean you will be able to use them

 

[hm520]

It's completely possible. In Oct-Nov last year I flew to the states and upgraded from PE to J on both legs while being bronze status.

It was probably possible only because 1) I was flying at a non-peak time of year and 2) It was a Tuesday for both flights. I consider myself very lucky.

 

[RooFlyer]

Welcome to AFF.

deejo77 has covered all the relevant areas, but just to expand on 'sign on bonus'. A number of credit cards issuers (such as the banks) will give you quite large amounts of FF points if you sign on to them (often there are qualifying hurdles, such as spending $xx_ within Y months) - sometimes 60,000 to 100,000 points! This is a great way to accelerate points earn. Go over to the credit card forums to lean more.

 

[Aaaannngg]

Welcome to AFF.

deejo77 has covered all the relevant areas, but just to expand on 'sign on bonus'. A number of credit cards issuers (such as the banks) will give you quite large amounts of FF points if you sign on to them (often there are qualifying hurdles, such as spending $xx_ within Y months) - sometimes 60,000 to 100,000 points! This is a great way to accelerate points earn. Go over to the credit card forums to lean more.

Thank you all!
I will definitely have a good look at the credit cards for the extra points.

Just wondering does anyone know if the Premium Economy on Qantas A380 have a number of seats that are left only for qff? And if so how many?

Thanks again
AP

 

[RooFlyer]

There is a 'quota' of 'Award' seats on any flight, that number is not fixed either at the start or as time towards departure progresses and I'm not sure if there are separate pools for 'points upgrades' and 'points bookings'. If they think they are going to sell most of the seats, the award number will shrink. If there are many seats free just before departure, they may open some more up.

Be aware also that you don't get given the upgrade straight away, and this is one of the great problems with the Qantas system. You will only be informed a day or two before departure and passengers with high status get allocated first. We call it the 'upgrade lottery'. Full points bookings are given (or not) at the time of booking BUT in those cases be aware that there are substantial cash costs in addition to the points. Sometimes the extra cash is almost as much as the cheapest full paid economy tickets!!!

There are tools available to find out the availability of award seats on any flight - one is KVS and the other is Expert Flyer. Both need to be paid for, but many here have one of them (usually Expert Flyer) and can look up availability on a particular flight for you if you go into the right thread and ask - I think there is an Expert Flyer thread, but I think its mainly about using the software. Try 'Your questions' with a header something like 'Expert Flyer look up please'; or even be on the Qantas forum. But remember it will only be the availability at the time of lookup - it can change to more or less .

Award seats are released at a certain time on a certain number of days before the flight in question - something like 11am 330 days out. Search around AFF and you'll find the number, unless someone posts it again here. It really pays to be ready that morning to snaffle those seats on the day they are released if you want to be sure. The other strategy is to be flexible - departure days obviously, but also be prepared to depart from Melbourne or Brisbane even though you might live in Sydney, and/or to go to DFW rather than LAX, then fly on from there.

 

[Flying mermaid]

As people have said flexibility is the key. My son and his partner have done a fair bit of flying between the US and Australia over the last three years and have been very succesful with upgrades mid week. Fri, Sat and Sun are generally very bad for people with no or low status.