What confuses you the most about award bookings ?

[masco131]

Saw this thread on reddit and thought it would be interesting to discuss about it. What I think confuses most people is all the alliances and what points are actually are. I started this point journey in 2019 during Covid because I was bored and just went down a rabbit hole of YouTube videos and watching airline reviews. When I started I didn’t understand why airlines would release seats and not just make all cash fares, which still confuses me today tbh. I won’t say I’m an expert but I have had good redemptions over the years.
I have tried explaining multiple times to my partner but she still does not get it. Haha she’s there for the ride most times and plays the P2 role. I am very curious, What makes the point game confusing?

 

[RooFlyer]

Good question and thread.

I’d say it depends on the airline. Some programs are really straightforward to look and book, point pricing straightforward, website easy to use (even if there’s not always availability when you want it) and phone help is there when you need it. Alaskan for instance. Air Canada Aeroplan another; AAdvantage another (although I haven’t had to use the last 2 phone help recently). Some are straightforward to use other than their phone help and here I’m thinking of QR and SQ.

Then again, there’s the opposite, and no prices for guessing which airline I’m thinking of there!

in most cases it’s pretty well solved with a bit of experience in the particular program. Then you should know how it works and also it’s limitations so you know when to give up trying and stop banging your head against the wall.

 

[masco131]

Good question and thread.

I’d say it depends on the airline. Some programs are really straightforward to look and book, point pricing straightforward, website easy to use (even if there’s not always availability when you want it) and phone help is there when you need it. Alaskan for instance. Air Canada Aeroplan another; AAdvantage another (although I haven’t had to use the last 2 phone help recently). Some are straightforward to use other than their phone help and here I’m thinking of QR and SQ.

Then again, there’s the opposite, and no prices for guessing which airline I’m thinking of there!

in most cases it’s pretty well solved with a bit of experience in the particular program. Then you should know how it works and also it’s limitations so you know when to give up trying and stop banging your head against the wall.

Haha QR website can get confusing if you do not have enough points tho, I hate that about them. I have tried to explain just velocity to my partner and navigating the website is already confusing. I wish there was a podcast/youtube that made it so simple and easy.

 

[Seat0B]

In relation to QF specifically, I think many people have been very confused about the differences between Classic Rewards and Points Plus Pay. I'm not sure the advent of Classic Rewards Plus has actually made this any better.

Slightly off your specific topic, but related, is the confusion a lot of people experience in differentiating between FF points (miles, etc) that can be used for flights (if you can find them) or other purchases like wine or toasters, and Status credits (or whatever the airline calls them) that are about earning and maintaining FF status.

Seat Friend is an example of this. For years she just randomly bought flights with different airlines and ended up with quite a stash of points that she could not use because she had no tier status with any of them. She kept getting a bit miffed with me (QF WP or even sometimes P1), that I was able to book attractive reward flights using my points - ah the good old days! Aside - in those good old days (2014-2018), I got 2 x J CBR-SYD-DXB-LHR and return as rewards flights, 2 x J CBR-SYD-SIN-LHR return as rewards flights and 2 x J CBR-SYD-DFW and return also as reward flights. Plus several PE to Japan and a J to CGK for Mr Seat 0A to come with me on a work trip.

In the end we had to sit side by side, with her logged in searching a flight and me also logged in searching the same flights to realise that I was seeing availability that was not shown to her. Once I explained the role of status to her a few times, she wised up to using DSC bookings and Points Club and is now at least seeing what I see in terms of rewards flights - which TBH is not much any more.

 

[RooFlyer]

I wish there was a podcast/youtube that made it so simple and easy.

Sounds like this is for you:

Australian Frequent Flyer Training Courses

https://www.australianfrequentflyer.com.au/members/training-courses/

Also check out 'Guides and tools' along the top of that page.

These are run by @Mattg on behalf of AFF. Perhaps you might PM him to get the full run of what's on offer.

 

[masco131]

Sounds like this is for you:

Australian Frequent Flyer Training Courses

https://www.australianfrequentflyer.com.au/members/training-courses/

Also check out 'Guides and tools' along the top of that page.

These are run by @Mattg on behalf of AFF. Perhaps you might PM him to get the full run of what's on offer.

I do understand the whole thing. Just something simple for the wife to make it simple as ABC.
Haha thanks for the recommendations, i will check them out.

 

[masco131]

In relation to QF specifically, I think many people have been very confused about the differences between Classic Rewards and Points Plus Pay. I'm not sure the advent of Classic Rewards Plus has actually made this any better.

Slightly off your specific topic, but related, is the confusion a lot of people experience in differentiating between FF points (miles, etc) that can be used for flights (if you can find them) or other purchases like wine or toasters, and Status credits (or whatever the airline calls them) that are about earning and maintaining FF status.

Seat Friend is an example of this. For years she just randomly bought flights with different airlines and ended up with quite a stash of points that she could not use because she had no tier status with any of them. She kept getting a bit miffed with me (QF WP or even sometimes P1), that I was able to book attractive reward flights using my points - ah the good old days! Aside - in those good old days (2014-2018), I got 2 x J CBR-SYD-DXB-LHR and return as rewards flights, 2 x J CBR-SYD-SIN-LHR return as rewards flights and 2 x J CBR-SYD-DFW and return also as reward flights. Plus several PE to Japan and a J to CGK for Mr Seat 0A to come with me on a work trip.

In the end we had to sit side by side, with her logged in searching a flight and me also logged in searching the same flights to realise that I was seeing availability that was not shown to her. Once I explained the role of status to her a few times, she wised up to using DSC bookings and Points Club and is now at least seeing what I see in terms of rewards flights - which TBH is not much any more.

OMG those are amazing redemptions. Got any fav out of all of them?

 

[CaptJCool]

having made a handful of award bookings recently

in February - JQ bookings to enjoy the last opportunity to spend time in the Melbourne and Sydney Flounges
recently - 5 with a few more to come along in Europe

there's been plenty of CR availability in Europe
but there's like "47 ways' to book
some can be done on mobile phone
some can only be done on desktop
the Multi-city tool - is a blessing yet curse - mainly works better on desktop
there's no Status credits unless you're in Points club (which can buy the way be done by buying top-up points during a 50% bonus sale) or wine wine wine
some cities are not
the cancellation fees are high compared to the overall points spend

when there's flight changes, the options are not iterative and don't give sufficient information to understand the better option going forward
obviously, if changes are accepted, its all good, but if you wish to cancel the booking I suspect by cancelling it, you are charged the 6,000 - it should not be the case that one needs to ring up to handle a "basic" change such as this.

 

[tdimdad]

Let me think out loud a little. Then I'll duck and dive... ;-)

Many of here may fall into the trap of talking about or showing some whizzbang complex rewards. What Seat0B mentioned above would fly completely over many people's comprehension. And those were pretty straightforward routings & redemptions.

If we eased the laymen in by showing them the simplest possible thing: let's get you an award seat to MEL or OOL for your next weekend getaway. And don't even think of mentioning of anything more complicated than that. Once they've gotten the hunch of how it works at that level, we can start planting ideas of doing longer trips. Next time we'll do SIN for you...

Perhaps we sometimes make this rocket science for others by starting from the top floor instead of the entrance.

 

[Seat0B]

OMG those are amazing redemptions. Got any fav out of all of them?

Nah - they were all great. I just wish it was possible to get that sort of thing as easily these days.

Maybe the DFW trip as it was over on one of the last 747 and home on the first (or one of the first) A380s, from memory in October 2014.

 

[Seat0B]

Many of here may fall into the trap of talking about or showing some whizzbang complex rewards. What Seat0B mentioned above would fly completely over many people's comprehension. And those were pretty straightforward routings & redemptions.

Yep, when I try for rewards, I always try to make it as simple as I can - too many moving parts can make the this grind to a halt very easily. The main complexity of my reward flight wishes (and FWIW, also the same when I pay!) is getting a connection from CBR to either SYD or MEL for international departure. Otherwise, I just try to get to a destination via whatever the standard routing is - eg the trips to LHR were all QF1/2 but at one point this went through DXB, and earlier and later on it went through SIN.

I do always try for premium cabins though .

I've never really had much success with complex flight routings and am quite scared off trying for one world awards given the horror cancellation stories I keep reading about on here!

 

[JohnK]

I can't get over the surcharges on airlines such as Qantas.

I know the airline industry has changed since covid but it used to cost x points + ~AUD350 classic award return SYD-BKK where the cash airfare was ~AUD650 return making the return on 60,000 points look very poor.

Airfares are now more expensive but surcharges are still there and now slightly higher but the availability is now very poor.

I've had enough of playing the game. I'll try to spend the points balance I've accumulated and then not bother accumulating points but I have this feeling with normal travel the points will still accumulate as they'll still hard to spend.

 

[Mattg]

In my opinion, the key to getting the best value from award bookings is to understand (a) the sweet spots in each program's award chart, (b) what the award routing rules will let you get away with, and (c) which airlines partner with whom.

Of course, this isn't simple and there are so many different airline partnerships. Understanding which airlines are part of oneworld, Star Alliance and SkyTeam is one thing, but then there are also so many bilateral partnerships. E.g. you can redeem Qantas points on Emirates, Velocity points on ANA, Etihad miles on Air Serbia, United miles on Aer Lingus, etc. etc.

It does take a bit of time to wrap your head around the intricacies of frequent flyer programs, and not everyone is willing to invest that time and effort. But IMHO it's worth it. And as @RooFlyer says, that's exactly why AFF has training courses which explain all this in an easy-to-understand way

https://www.australianfrequentflyer.com.au/members/training-courses/

 

[MEL_Traveller]

Saw this thread on reddit and thought it would be interesting to discuss about it. What I think confuses most people is all the alliances and what points are actually are. I started this point journey in 2019 during Covid because I was bored and just went down a rabbit hole of YouTube videos and watching airline reviews. When I started I didn’t understand why airlines would release seats and not just make all cash fares, which still confuses me today tbh. I won’t say I’m an expert but I have had good redemptions over the years.
I have tried explaining multiple times to my partner but she still does not get it. Haha she’s there for the ride most times and plays the P2 role. I am very curious, What makes the point game confusing?

The concept of award seats is fairly simple. They are seats the airline doesn’t think it can sell to a cash buyer.

Airlines have many years worth of data and highly complex yield management systems. They know how many seats are likely to go unsold.

So they can the. offer these up and they serve two purposes. (a) they attract loyalty… keep flying with us, earn points and you can get a ‘free’ seat. (b) because you are using points, or have previously purchased seats with one airline to build up your points, they are actually making money off that seat that would otherwise be empty. You are now sitting in it, likely having laid a mix of points and cash to cover any fuel surcharges.

People think they will get an award seat on any flight, at any time, for the lowest number of points. If you accept only the ‘unsold seats’ will be at the lowest cost, and will be highly restricted in terms of availability, a lot of the difficulty goes away. You just have to resign yourself to reality!

Then it becomes a search for the needle in the haystack. Or you fly economy, which has much larger cabins, and so more likelihood of empty seats.

 

[henrus]

The thing that confuses me the most is cancellations. If an airline cancels a route or flight with no replacement then you're often on your own and the most you'd get back is a full refund whilst those on cash tickets are often allowed a rerouting.

 

[Seat0B]

The thing that confuses me the most is cancellations. If an airline cancels a route or flight with no replacement then you're often on your own and the most you'd get back is a full refund whilst those on cash tickets are often allowed a rerouting.

I agree this is both confusing and scary - your trip can vanish at any point, including leaving you stranded halfway through. It never used to be like that.

 

[MEL_Traveller]

The thing that confuses me the most is cancellations. If an airline cancels a route or flight with no replacement then you're often on your own and the most you'd get back is a full refund whilst those on cash tickets are often allowed a rerouting.

Well, this isn’t a failure of award bookings, this is a lack of interest to get it resolved.

All airline Conditions of Carriage say that in the event of a schedule change or disruption, they will accommodate you on another service, free of charge.

The problem is when a third party is involved. If you book cathay through qantas, and cathay changes, you can’t call cathay direct to get a replacement flight, Qantas needs to do that, but they are busy doing other things.

A schedule change or cancellation is a really easy thing to deal with, made hard because of the third party

In the old days, you used to be able to ring cathay direct, get them to put in a new flight ‘pending ticketing’, ring qantas and say ‘there’s a new flight, please ticket’.

Not anymore unfortunately

 

[JohnK]

In my opinion, the key to getting the best value from award bookings is to understand (a) the sweet spots in each program's award chart, (b) what the award routing rules will let you get away with, and (c) which airlines partner with whom.

This is true if you don't care where you go. But it's a huge issue if the sweet spot is Honolulu and you only want/need to go to Bangkok.

 

[tdimdad]

This is true if you don't care where you go. But it's a huge issue if the sweet spot is Honolulu and you only want/need to go to Bangkok.

Which means that your sweet spot may be a very different program across the globe instead of the local ones here.

 

[Mattg]

Which means that your sweet spot may be a very different program across the globe instead of the local ones here.

Yep. It's why I collect points with multiple different frequent flyer programs (or better, where possible, third-party reward programs that give you the option to transfer points to a choice of airlines as needed). Each program is good for different things.