I have accumulated quite a few Qantas points and wanted to book a rewards business flight to LA.
Unfortunately there's no availability (unless I want to fly Melb-Perth-Sydney-La …ridiculous..)
I don't see the point in maintaining the points now I have to book economy seats or buy business, which defeats the entire purpose of collecting the points.
Is the system usually this frustrating? I'm looking 9 months in advanced so I thought this would be ample time
Direct flights to LA get booked almost a year in advance when the seats get releases. You can be a little creative with you routing and go via HK, Japan, or Fiji.
9 months is too late. People book these within an hour of the seats being released a year in advance.
My Mister travels a bit and having worked in the airline industry we had this issue before. Heads up the flights release just under a year, about 350days if I remember correct.
But if you are a bit of a nobody on Bronze or Silver, it will be even more challenging on a popular route like LAX for a business upgrade. I don't know the details for lower levels but it's probably another 2 months or so before the business seats get released to them, and 9 months sounds about right to me but if you can't find anything perhaps your looking at a busy period or, everyone booked in anticipation of the QFF changes.
In the future you might want to reach out to someone with a higher status or wait for your next trip / a less popular route.
If you're looking at selling put up a classifieds? But be careful with your details as I hear Qantas does crack down on this with enough threads on here but mostly buyers beware.
I don't see the point in maintaining the points now I have to book economy seats or buy business, which defeats the entire purpose of collecting the points.
Award flights are not easy to book given the competition that you are up against. You need to be more creative with your travel and/or be willing to change your travel plans if you want to make use of award travel.
If you're not flexible, award travel isn't for you unless you're extremely lucky. You could always sell the points, the going rate is around 1c per point (or slightly higher).
Is the system usually this frustrating?
Well you are getting something for significantly below its market value, so it's difficult to really complain about the process being frustrating.
Just sell the points dude and buy the tickets (or whatever else) with the proceeds. You'll end up way ahead.
You mentioned you could fly MEL-PER-SYD-LAX in business. That suggests there was business availability on the SYD-LAX leg, which is the most important?
I would then do a multi-city search for MEL-SYD, followed by SYD-LAX on the same day to try piece two flights together. Failing that, I would just book SYD-LAX now and pay for a MEL-SYD cash fare.
You do have to be creative with business redemptions on popular routes, unfortunately.
I managed to find one that is Melb-Brisbane and Brisbane to LA with a 2 hour stop over in Brisbane. Now ideal but still business for the entire journey. Thanks for the suggestions.
How can I sell my qantas points? Is that legal?
you are in the right place! ozb is the way….
legal ? im not lawyer sorry
It's against TOS so you might lose your account/points. But no you won't get a criminal record for selling Qantas points.
You could always buy the economy seats and use the points to upgrade to business class