US Airways Dividend Miles (Pre-FlightFund Merger) - No More Qantas Awards from JFK

Nov 23 is the end of the Qantas gateway at JFK for award travel. They just keep whittling away at the program. This new development makes a long trip more painful. To top it off there's no seats out of LAX in F or C until April. They're killing me!

That's too bad, because they just opened up those seats on the JFK flight a few months ago. That same piece of metal stops in LA, so you're just going to end up getting on a US jet to LAX and then connect to the same exact flight. Doesn't make much sense, but I suppose Qantas has enough traffic out of JFK to warrant not giving up any free seats originating there.

It is a perfect scenario - get on in JFK, have a nice relaxing dinner on the 5 hour transcon. Maybe even take in a movie. Then, for the big hop over the Pacific, stretch out on the fully flat sleeper and get a good night sleep.

Now that US is flying more 767s on the PHL-LAX flights(see skeds after Jan 1), it might not be so bad to take US to LAX in Envoy/First, and then hop on your QF flight.

That's a great suggestion PHL. What is the condition of the US 767's are they as decrepit as AA or UA 767's?

QF has reduced their flight frequencies from daily to 3X or 4X a week. I was told that they are going to be eliminating that route sometime soon, but haven't confirmed that with QF. I was booked on their JFK-LAX route with an award with AA, but changed my date of travel to a date with no award availability, so had to leave out of BDL, which is fine too. When I checked back later, I found out that the flight was discontinued on that day.

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by vector:
That's a great suggestion PHL. What is the condition of the US 767's are they as decrepit as AA or UA 767's?</font>

I flew in Envoy last week on a 767 PHL-AMS and return. I was also booked in "first" on a 767 from PHL to SFO but at the last minute they substituted a 757.. ****!

Anyhow, I thought the 767 was fairly decrepit and showed it's age. Individual video screens, yes, but this was no new plane.

The 767 Envoy cabins were introduced in early 97, if memory serves me well. They are in bad shape because nobody's kept the plastic clean. It's still a great ride and the service is wonderful - even without the linens.

the jfk-syd route has been eliminated by qf until at least march 2002. this is not us' fault this time. i'm just surprised as i though summer down under was the biggest travel season for them. maybe they need 747's down there to fly people across australia now with no ansett around. could you imagine? 435 people on a 1.5 hr flight from syd-mel?

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by lonman:
could you imagine? 435 people on a 1.5 hr flight from syd-mel?</font>

QF does fly 744's between MEL-SYD (in addition to other aircraft). http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif