Using QF points to fly AA on intra-US flights

[Bell21]

I was trying to assist a family member today and not having done this myself before, I'm curious to get feedback from the AFF community.

Family member had already booked (cash) saver J flights from SYD-DFW return, but hadn't booked the intra-US parts of their trip. Needed to fly DFW-LGA-MIA-SLC-DFW. Would prefer to fly J, but would consider Y.

However, I could see the availability he needed for Y and J, but only with Anytime reward seats (not Milesaver) - whilst that would probably stop me using points, he has a big war-chest of points that he never manages to use, and so, even anytime reward seats are a viable option for him (he did consider using points on AMEX travel, but thankfully, I talked him out of that!)

The issue was that QF said that they could not see the Anytime reward seats and were unable to assist him - I found that strange, as I understood that generally, if you could find the availability on an alliance partner airline and were able to direct eg, QF to specific flights, that they typically should be able to book it accordingly (albeit using higher points than QF metal).

I wondered if the real issue was that he was trying to book intra-US flight segments separately to booking SYD-DFW return (putting aside that latter is a cash fare), and it was the stand-alone intra-US flight segments that QF couldn't see - or was it that they can't see Anytime reward seats?!

 

[Hillbilly64]

No help here sorry...just posting to follow

 

[serfty]

Anytime Awards are an AA only thing.

You need AADVANTAGE points to book them and only on AA flights.

They Book into the full fare buckets (F, J & Y) whereas Saver Awards book into Z, U & T.

You cannot book full fare buckets on AA with Qantas points. You can book the Saver Buckets (where there's availability) with Qantas

 

[Bell21]

Thanks serfty. That's so helpful - would've saved me a lot of time if I knew that in advance! Is there somewhere online, other than on AFF forums , where one can find this sort of information (eg, saver buckets not full fare buckets etc, as it sounds like another layer of 'points knowledge')

 

[serfty]

@Bell21There are plenty of places where this sort of information is available, but here on AFF the following thread may be of use:

Understanding [Fare Buckets] Expert Flyer

I'd appreciate some help understanding the information EF provides. For example, F6 A6 J9 C9 D9 I0 B9 H9 K9 M9 R9 L9 V9 S0 N0 Q0 O0 X0 E0 What letters do I look at to try to work out how many seats are still available in economy? What letters do I look at to try to work out how many...

www.australianfrequentflyer.com.au

 

[Bell21]

Thanks very much!