USA w/ QFF Points? [Aug 2018 in Business]

[Yoz]

So the wife has never flown business class and we received a wedding invitation for a Californian wedding but a quick search on Qantas sees nothing for MEL-LAX in Business in August.

Questions are then...
1) Are there any US airports which tend to have more availability in business class for classic redemptions?
2) Are there any other airlines which would have redemption availability?
2b) Where do we go to search for these flights?

I've read differing reports on whether the Qantas search tool captures all the partner airlines and figured the friendly folk at AFF would have the most current information!

 

[cove]

Widen your search using Sydney and Brisbane as departure points as well as Dallas and San Francisco as arrival points.
I grabbed a 353 day ahead deal to get to Los Angeles for two in First Class to get to a trade show a few weeks ago. One of my business partners is using Cathay thru Hong Kong using more Qantas points.
We have bought Premium Economy seats and used points to upgrade the fares both ways for staff on the MEL-LAX-MEL run.
Also do try the call center staff at Qantas using some flexibility as I detailed. You are competing with millions of frequent flyers.

 

[amaroo]

Searching BNE as departure/entry point will most likely net the best result.

QF status will also help...

 

[Limewood]

We get fed up trying to obtain J award seats on QF long haul, its ridiculous (stingy) unless you are high status which we don't have now, so we hop up to HKG, stopover (love the city) then fly "direct " to numerous USA cities, BOS, JFK, SFO, ORD etc. on CX in J and miss that awful LAX, usually no problem finding CX award seats either and their fees are next to nothing unlike the huge $ Q charge. Ok its the long way around but in J and the brilliant plethora of HK lounges one can enjoy is OK by us two. Couple times scored J or PE seats on QF for the return, other times upgrade on Y to or from HKG.

 

[Yoz]

Interesting. It's strange I never thought to change the origin city but was playing around with destination cities. Will give it a whirl and see how we go - hopefully the missus gets to have fun burning some QFF points.

 

[AustraliaPoochie]

Also, you can only redeem QF points on OW airlnes, not on others that might fly from Au to Asia (VN/OZ for eg) to the US.

 

[snabbu]

We get fed up trying to obtain J award seats on QF long haul, its ridiculous (stingy) unless you are high status which we don't have now, so we hop up to HKG, stopover (love the city) then fly "direct " to numerous USA cities, BOS, JFK, SFO, ORD etc. on CX in J and miss that awful LAX, usually no problem finding CX award seats either and their fees are next to nothing unlike the huge $ Q charge. Ok its the long way around but in J and the brilliant plethora of HK lounges one can enjoy is OK by us two. Couple times scored J or PE seats on QF for the return, other times upgrade on Y to or from HKG.

Agreed. If I can't get an AA J seat over I'll go up to HKG then across every time. Points cost marginally higher however almost no tax so a no brainer for me and I'll admit I'm a CX fan anyway.

 

[Limewood]

Yes using QF points via HKG is long way around but gee what a fantastic, clean, safe interesting city it is, never get tired of it after about 20 visits or more, we have Aussie mates who live there too so even better. Also the Regal Airport Hotel attached to Int. terminal is handy too for a short stopover.

The best part we find is, being able to fly direct into so many US cities with stuff all award seat fees. And Mrs Lime being a professional lounge lizard, is right at home with a mountain to choose from!. Even going Y on OZ/HKG daylight flight is not all that bad either. We've also done Europe out of HKG few times as well, award seats galore.

So no thanks Qantas for releasing so few J award seats long haul and then whacking us for doing so.

 

[Dr Ralph]

1) Are there any US airports which tend to have more availability in business class for classic redemptions?
2) Are there any other airlines which would have redemption availability?

1) New York has more availability, especially via Cathay flights.

2) Cathay. Forget Qantas, you'll be extremely lucky to get direct flights if you have no status.

 

[RichardMEL]

Also, you can only redeem QF points on OW airlnes, not on others that might fly from Au to Asia (VN/OZ for eg) to the US.

Ahem. No

What you SHOULD be suggesting is non QF partners.

Remember there's EK, who have various services eg: MEL-SIN that can be used (yes, the award charts are different, but that's not the point here) and/or JQ can be used to asia, and of course another major QF partner that serves the USA is FJ via NAN, which one can redeem points with.

So your statement is inaccurate.

 

[fairbasa]

As a mere SG I snagged 2xJ seats on a Wednesday in September LAX-MEL before Christmas. I was then able to switch to 2xF seats the day after when availability opened up.