Hi Ozb,
After many years of churning, we have collected enough points to go RTW in Business.
Has anyone managed to successfully book RTW Business using points.
I have been playing around with multi city tool and reading up on it, however I either get economy only flights or error.
Is it worth paying $1k (4 people) to get help via Frequent flyer team?
Thoughts?
For now, I am only playing with flexible dates to see how it looks (September 2023)
We plan to go in 2024 however those tickets have not been released as yet.
What you mean paying $1k to get help? I did not know there's paid help?
I honestly think it's near impossible to get rewards tickets for now/near future. The airlines have cut back on capacity and demand is through the roof. I've looked at Asiamiles that have multiple airlines (including qantas) on its program and nothing is available.
https://frequentflyer.com.au/member/award-flight-assist/ will do it for me. Will cost $1k in total for 4 people
Just a quick look at that makes it look little more than simply "give us all the information you would otherwise plug into the Qantas site and we'll tell you what it says … once you've paid us a fee". I can't see how this mob are going to do anything that you can't do yourself.
Personally, I wouldn't go anywhere near that.
I think the whole thing would be more around getting it right and using expertise.
For example, timing of when the award tickets are released, breaking the tickets by tagging 1 adult plus 1 kid etc.
I have been searching for a few months now and I cant find anything. If someone can do it for $1k for this trip then its worth it IMO.
That’s a pretty simplistic way of describing it. Some of the other things they could do include:
1. knowing more about the potential routes that you can piece together, and which routes are more likely to be available. Sure, anybody could plug in syd-lhr into the Qantas website and see little to no availability. But not as many people know to search for routes including (for example) BLR and the Middle East. Some people may be familiar enough with the rapidly changing route map of all oneworld airlines, but this service isn’t for those people. It’s the old adage of “you’re not paying for them to hammer the nail, you’re paying for them to know which nail to hammer” (apologies for the mangling of the saying)
2. If you’re a platinum or platinum 1, they can advise you which qf routes you’re more likely to have success in getting a seat released on, rather than wasting time trying for routes you have no chance on.
3. You may also be paying for them to tell you about potential minor changes that could save you money (taxes) if you’re prepared to be flexible about the city you fly out of. Again, you can probably figure it out yourself with trial and error, but if you didn’t know that was even a thing, you might not have thought of putting that into the search into the first place.
It is worth it as Matt and the team are absolute experts.
However be ready, you might be told that it will be easier if you split up by a day and go 2 then the other 2. Are you open to that?
Edit: I see other people have suggested the same
Is it worth paying $1k (4 people) to get help via Frequent flyer team?
Im more curious about this part. I know Qantas charges a small amount ~$50 per person I believe as I tried recently to book it through one of their agents, but $1k ? How?
They're referring to a third-party service that helps you book flights using your points. For most people this is a waste of money but for those who have very complicated itineraries and more money than time it makes more sense.
Yes, I managed to book 4 RTW tickets in Business for June/July 2023 school holidays flying through Singapore, Japan, India, UK and Philippines. This will be our third RTW Business on points with Qantas.
You need to be flexible with dates and routing and book about 330 days in advance.
The first time - I used the Frequent Flyer Solutions team and they came back with brilliant options that I booked successfully. This last trip; they came back saying they could not help as it was during school holidays and availability won't be there. So, I did it myself on the Qantas website.
I found each flight as a single point to point - restricted to Rewards only and then when I had the itinerary built; called Qantas and had them book it as a single RTW booking. Some of my options were not showing up as available to the Qantas agents; but they helped in finding alternatives and got the booking through. Depending on your status, you are also able to request Qantas release some seats for you… I had to do that to get out of and into Australia. All other seats were no issue.
Thanks for your reply.
Would you recommend Frequent flyer solutions team for someone who has never done this before.
My head hurts trying to do mock flights :(
Definitely. Tell them your needs and they are pretty good in telling you upfront if it is something they can help with or not.
ok thanks mate
I'm curious what routes/airlines you flew? Didn't think that many would release 4 seats per flight.
I will be flying
QF MEL - PER - SIN. Requested QF to release 4 seats on the PER-SIN route.
JL SIN - NRT - BLR. Lots of seats available every single day
BA BLR - LHR - NRT. Lots of seats on most days
JL NRT - MNL. Again, lots of seats on every single day
QF - MNL - SYD - MEL. Requested QF to release 4 seats on the MNL - SYD route
Yeah I think this is probably the biggest perk of plat, requesting reward seats. The plebs get screwed trying to use points in/out of Aus otherwise haha
I've been looking for months, it's near impossible to get a RTW itinerary as a red QFF in 2023. The flights in and out of Australia are the hardest to find. Hardly anything flying in and out of Melbourne too.
Its a massive pain tbh
Agreed. If you are Platinum, you can ring up Qantas and ask for seats on certain flights to be released for you.
In our RTW itinerary for June 2023 - in and out of Australia was the most difficult. In the end, QF released seats on the PER-SIN and MNL-SYD sectors for us; so we just needed to add on MEL - PER and SYD-MEL in the end - both easy enough to do.
Look at non-primary destinations as a way to get out - look at Manila, Jakarta, Bangalore, Seoul and Tokyo as places to exit to from Australia. From there, you can then look at British Airways and Japan Airlines to move onwards. Both of those airlines have lots of award availability.
I think I am gonna pay the $1k and get them to do it.
Too hard basket for me
Following this with interest, planning to do something similar at the end of 2023/2024. Thinking of splitting the trip up into 2 halves though.
Hey
how do you or other reward booking service does this? Do you just use the normal qantas booking site and just manually goes through a bunch of variations?
When I was looking, I made heavy use of ExpertFlyer to help guide my searches. But at the end of the day, I then plugged it into the QF site sector by sector and then stitched it all together.
Do you still have to pay the $1k even if they can't find seats for you? If yes then I wouldn't take the risk. There isn't much anyone can do if the seats just aren't there. 4 people is asking a lot.
no, only pay if they can accommodate
Get a LCC to Kl or Singapore,Manila,and the rewards open up from there easier than Oz.Qatar from Bali pre Covid was a good one,since the divorce with qantas not so viable.
Getting 4 seats is going to be very difficult. I'd recommend getting some professional to do it. There are several options available.
4 J seats is going to be close to impossible as noted above. If you can, I would look at splitting your party/booking into 2 and 2.
I had 1.1m FF and tried to look for any economy, premium economy or business classic rewards flights to europe for any date from may to September in 2023 and couldn't see a single flight. This was about 3 months ago with silver status.
Just out of interest how many points gave you got? I ended up just using the point plus pay system. 1.1m point covered about $7k.
Good luck!
I have 1.7m points
There is a lot of availability, especially in economy. 1.1m points will get you around the world 3 times in business class, with 200k left over. I'd recommend cancelling and rebooking.
Lots of availability was the exact opposite of my experience. I could not find one single flight. Forgot to mention it was for a family of four, but pretty sure in the end I was just searching flights for single tickets just to find a foothold. I will be moving my FF earn to another airline as Qantas just seems to have given up on their customers at this point.
Sorry to hear that. But even now I can see 4 for MEL-HKG on QF on 9/6/23 and 4 for HKG-AMS on CX on 10/6/23. Maybe those routes weren't open at the time.
Mate, you gave up too early. I got three of us on Qantas QF 9 in business one month ago.
The bigger problem is even if you get it booked, the risk your flights change and don't get re-ticketed and you lose them seems high. Lots of horror stories on Australian frequent flyer at the moment. Being platinum you should be able to talk to Hobart and get it fixed, but there's never guarantees.
Book as many legs on Qantas as possible to reduce risk. I understand QR and MH are the most likely not to ticket
unfortunately, I am bronze :(
When travelling above a group of 3, it’s generally best to split - maybe it’s on a different flight on the same day or different flights on another day. I’ve done this for RT fares from MEL-LAX in U and P class.
I highly highly recommend this website called expert flyer, you can set alerts to when available Classic Award air fares become available for not just QF but other airlines including other OW airlines. But have also gotten through the airfare alert SYD-DXB-LHR RT in P class for me and mrs on numerous occasions. It also shows out blocked out T-80 seats. It’s $9.99 USD a month but it’s worth it. https://www.expertflyer.com/
Keep in mind that taxes will be around $8k (or $2k per person). Add the $1k consultant fee and the 1.272 million points and these flights don't exactly end up being cheap.
I can find flights but just keep copping errors when I select next to go to the payment page
Typical Qantas problem, you will need to call the call center and be on hold for 3-4 hrs and deal with an agent to then be hung up on and have to do it again until you get a willing agent who will book it for you.
Yep…..and hope they don't stuff it up causing more phone calls
Yeah I think I aged about 30 yrs booking our RTW in just before COVID, availability then was very hard to come by. Can't even imagine trying to do it in the current environment with those OS call centers.
How far out are you trying to book?