What is Qantas Playing at?

[robolb]

Just looking at Econ Award flights for next year for my wife to visit family in BKK. (Mar/Apr 26)

SYD-BKK. No problem. lots of seats,.

Coming back. Not a chance!
Only seats are via BNE or MEL.

The reason for this can surely only be........to make people buy tickets on the return rather than use points?

Not only a waste of time, but not great for the Planet is it? Adding in sectors (and all that added fuel) just to make people pay more. Or maybe I'm missing something here?

My wife just said "No way"
"I'll pay for the return ticket on Thai Airways or another airline".

It kind of makes you wonder, with all these routing games, what the actual result of it is....
All sorts of one way load imbalances across airlines?

 

[StayGoldPonyboy]

Easter and school holidays perhaps

 

[JohnK]

Yes Easter and School holidays but what's wrong coming back via BNE? Easy connection and does it really cost more points? It's JQ so should cost less points.

Note I booked one-way SYD-BKK for 3 of us on Christmas Day 2023 and we were coming back around 20 January 2024 and there was no Qantas award availability until mid-May 2024. None on SQ either. I paid one-way for 3 of us and that was 4 flights via Vali.

If you can find some availability take it and don't get too hung up about connection via BNE.

 

[Mwenenzi]

Not only a waste of time, but not great for the Planet is it? Adding in sectors (and all that added fuel) just to make people pay more. Or maybe I'm missing something here?

Its not a private flight for you & wife. Flights will operate if you are a passenger it or not a passenger.
Incremental fuel burn for occupied seat vs unoccupied seat is negligible.
Highly like someone will occupy the seats.

Transiting via MEL is easy (3 min walk). None of that silly SYD nonsense of taking a crowded bus between terminals.
Also look at the scheduled departure and arrival times.

 

[drron]

Getting QF classic awards back into Australia is often hard and nearly impossible in school holidays when you are looking at. In the past those seats would have been released in Late April, early May 2024 for the highest tier QFF members For bronze they are released about 2 months later. In school holiday time just the left overs after the elite have gobbled them up.
These days QFF can release the CR awards at any time and may even be close to departure. That is basically unpredictable but I imagine QFF would release awards later on leisure routes later in school holidays when more certain of the number flying. Why shouldn't they do that?

I do note that even during those school holidays an option on MH via KL is offered. Also later on in the year the cheapesf classic awards are usually on JQ and via MEL. SYD is obviously the popular choice.

I also looked at my VA account. Looked for 2 adults + 2 kids. Y classic awards still available on some days flying SQ via SIN. But only Tuesday to thursday basically.

 

[flyingfan]

IMHO (and it's only my guess) it is about forcing you to pay $$ for one of the flights, often the return, or take an undesirable stopover. I bet they have analysts crunching the numbers and dedicated to maximising profits and filling seats. It's not about polluting the planet further.

Even with high status it can be difficult to get the perfect routing and dates, let alone J or F rewards, and the higher cost of Classic Plus is offputting.

 

[offshore171]

Coming back. Not a chance!

Your return date may fall in NSW school holidays, in which case you would have needed to book some months ago to secure award seats.

The reason the award seats disappear quickly during school holiday periods is because many of the bookings are for multiple pax, eg: families of 3, 4, 5 etc travelling. This quickly exhausts the awards availability.

Solo travellers and couples have a lot more flexibility to travel outside school hols, and find it easier to secure awards at those times. This probably explains the ease at which you secured the outbound availability in March.

Check your dates here:

NSW school holidays

Find school holiday and term dates for 2025 and 2026.

www.nsw.gov.au

Only seats are via BNE or MEL.

Decent options. Take them while they are still there. Perfect is the enemy of good.

 

[AuSammy]

Perfect is the enemy of good.

 

[ANstar]

With 18 milion members and trying to secure award seats on 1 daily flight to SYD in school holidays I'm not surprised you can't get seats, The Y seats would of been snapped up months ago.,

 

[Human]

I've been very successful (in fact, surprisingly successful!) at using Qantas points to get into and out of Australia recently. But you have to be willing to compromise -- a lot.

Case in point: I'm about to use Qantas points to fly to Paris. But my route is MEL-SYD-BKK-HEL-CDG, and the first two legs are in Economy.

When I used Qantas points to get home from NYC in January, the only route available was JFK-HND-SIN-MEL.

If you want direct flights, be willing to pay for them and be (very) pleasantly surprised if/when you can get the routes using points.

 

[robolb]

Yes, I get the impact of School holidays. I looked either side of those and as early as Feb.
And of course there is nothing "wrong" with transiting via BNE and MEL.
It was just surprising that I could almost pick any flight SYD-BKK over a period of some weeks.
But there was nothing on the return.
Looks fishy to me!

 

[DejaBrew]

It was just surprising that I could almost pick any flight SYD-BKK over a period of some weeks.
But there was nothing on the return.

Out of curiosity, is this looking via multi-city search or the standard search? Reason I ask is there have been some search discrepancies noted recently where multi-city shows no return CR flights for a given routing, but standard search does.

 

[robolb]

Out of curiosity, is this looking via multi-city search or the standard search? Reason I ask is there have been some search discrepancies noted recently where multi-city shows no return CR flights for a given routing, but standard search does.

I tried both. as well as flightseats.io (which whilst more user friendly, may not be as accurate I suppose)

 

[offshore171]

It was just surprising that I could almost pick any flight SYD-BKK over a period of some weeks.
But there was nothing on the return.

Looks fishy to me!

It's easy enough to test whether it's "fishy" or just the impact of school holidays.

Try a ghost booking. Instead of March, try putting your outbound as the first day of school hols.

Suddenly the outbound award availability is horrible. It's Classic+ at twice the price, or routings via KL etc.

It's the school holiday impact. This is classic Occam's razor stuff