Qantas Classic Award availability changes

[Rickd]

Hi,


Does Qantas Classic Award availability ever change a few months out? I was wanting to book a flight to Nadi in July but there's nothing on the dates I can go, should I just forget about getting an award (or use points+pay) or wait a bit longer to see if any extra dates open up?


Also, around the same time I've notived only some Qantas flights to Auckland can be booked as Classic Awards, is this because they don't give out seats on those flights or they've already been booked?




Cheers

 

[ozbeachbabe]

Hi,

Does Qantas Classic Award availability ever change a few months out? I was wanting to book a flight to Nadi in July but there's nothing on the dates I can go, should I just forget about getting an award (or use points+pay) or wait a bit longer to see if any extra dates open up?

Also, around the same time I've notived only some Qantas flights to Auckland can be booked as Classic Awards, is this because they don't give out seats on those flights or they've already been booked?

Cheers

Sometimes with Nadi you're better off just buying an airfare outright however it pays to do a comparison each time with a commercial airfare vs award ticket.

Award bookings appear to be the same year round where as airfares are seasonal. As a lot of July is high season due to school holidays it could well be beneficial to do an award rather than a paid ticket.

Eg on Fri 19 Jul there is economy availability for a Classic Award (no points or SC earn) SYD/NAN on JQ119 0850/1455 for 14,400 points plus AUD132.18. Alternatively on Thu 17 Jul FJ910 SYD/NAN 1300/1850 points 18,000 plus AUD83.48.

As some of July is school holidays I wouldn't leave it too long before booking as there are never any super specials in school holidays as the flights end up being full anyway.

I'm not sure how many seats you're looking for but you'd also need to ask yourself whether you would want to part with 120,000 points for return award travel eg if there were 2 adults & 2 kids or if you'd be better saving the points as you could get 2 one way business class tickets SYD or MEL to HKG for that as you get better value for redeeming points in premium cabins eg J & F.

It's important to note that 'Points & Pay' is not award travel and if you do a comparison with that versus just paying outright for an airfare, in most cases you're far better offer buying the airfare & not touching your points.

 

[Danger]

Hi,

Does Qantas Classic Award availability ever change a few months out? I was wanting to book a flight to Nadi in July but there's nothing on the dates I can go, should I just forget about getting an award (or use points+pay) or wait a bit longer to see if any extra dates open up?

If you have Platinum status with Qantas you can request an award seat be made available for you.

Also, around the same time I've notived only some Qantas flights to Auckland can be booked as Classic Awards, is this because they don't give out seats on those flights or they've already been booked?

Cheers

Qantas decides which of their flights have award seats and how many. It's possible that some flights will have none.