MilesBuzz! - problems/horror stories with Inside flyer>*wood>quantas>Concord

Has anyone actually had a problem? Horror story securing a Concord Reservation using this promotion?

Whats "the word on the street". Is it too late now? Have I missed the Boat?I quess that I am fence sitting and looking for reasssurance http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif


I remember someone posting that they called a CTO to reserve without points being in the Acct, I have searched this board for hours and can not relocate this info.

So could this kind soul repost the info here, or,for that matter, anyone else successful in making a reservation without having the points in the Acct. If I could make a reservation and THEN spend my hard earned dollars-then I'd be ready to jump on this!!

Rich-

QF can't book any award seat until points are in your account.

However, the process to get *wood points to QF miles is painless. Check the QF forum.

Spend the $$$ on IF.

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by writetorich:
Has anyone actually had a problem? Horror story securing a Concord Reservation using this promotion?

I remember someone posting that they called a CTO to reserve without points being in the Acct, I have searched this board for hours and can not relocate this info.
</font>

There aren't too many horror stories -- most people who have used this deal have been delighted. Concorde availability is excellent (most people got their first-choice dates), points from InsideFlyer posted quickly to Starwood, and points from Starwood posted to Qantas within the designated timescales. In short, most people got everything they bargained for.

Your memory is correct -- there was someone here who managed to talk Qantas into reserving Concorde seats before the points had posted. But this was very much the exception, not the rule.

I wouldn't worry. The Concorde award isn't going away, for reasons which have been covered numerous times on this board. Do a search, do your homework, and if you're still comfortable with the deal, do it.

Smugly holding my Concorde tickets for later this month, I can honestly say this is one of the best, smoothest promotions I've been involved in.

Write to the rich -- the other horror story/problem is that your spellchecker has missed both "Qantas" and "Concorde".
'aveagreatrip'
Koala

I 'quess' that writetorich wasn't looking for 'reasssurance' about his spelling. http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/wink.gif

While there may have been some 'tense' moments as FT'ers awaited the transfer of Starwood points to their QF accounts-- I think all appears fine now. This was not a one time only/expiration date kind of deal. So you shouldn't be too worried about being left out. The procedure is pretty simple:
Either you buy enough subscriptions to Insider Flyer and have the bonus points moved to your Starwood account or if you (as I did) have enought points from stays in Starwood hotels, just have them moved to your QF account. Of course, it should be understood that you have to have both accounts already set up prior to doing any of these transactions.
The transfered points usually show up at the end of the month in Qantas. You then call the QF desk and make your reservations. As others have stated, given the 100 seats on each Concorde, there has not been any problem in getting your chosen date.
Good luck!
PS--I was awaiting your call, but will be out of the office today at the US Open.... http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif

writetorich - Since everything I was planning to say regarding the promotion has been amply addressed above, I can only add that my experience has been "painless".

If your accounts are set up with the EXACT name on each the transfers will go smoothly, tho perhaps not as quickly as if you did it yourself, and all should be fine.

Enjoy your travels, and Best wishes.
P.S. - Have fun at the open Mauld!!!

Now, we all know it's QF and BA's fault for misspelling those names. http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/wink.gif

Just wondering - Does anyone know if the concorde award is available as a one-way?? I need to book NYC-LON for late Aug, but the return won't be until July '03. Would much prefer to book as 2 one-ways, rather than wait for the return avail or run into problems with a one year ticket expiration...

Robin

I beleave all awards are for round trip.

I am happy with my experience,it was a little stressful waiting for the points to post,but after that no problem.Called qantas booked my trip and got the flights and dates I wanted.

Has anyone been able to book the Concorde reward from an airport other than JFK? Are there restrictions on gateway cities?

I'm wondering whether I could book the award from SFO and get a first class flight to NYC, or whether I'd have to book a separate ticket to get to JFK. I'm worried they'll try to put me on a sub-sonic, non-stop SFO-LHR flight. Thanks.

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by DaveSF:
Has anyone been able to book the Concorde reward from an airport other than JFK? Are there restrictions on gateway cities?

I'm wondering whether I could book the award from SFO and get a first class flight to NYC, or whether I'd have to book a separate ticket to get to JFK. I'm worried they'll try to put me on a sub-sonic, non-stop SFO-LHR flight. Thanks.</font>

The 125,000 mile award redemption covers trips of 5,401 - 10,000 "Return Miles". SFO-JFK-SFO is 12040 miles so you would need to redeem the 200,000 mile award to do that http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/frown.gif

birdstrike

birdstrike: Thank you for the info (even if it's not good news!)

I noticed a more detailed discussion of this issue in this thread, if anyone's interested. (http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/Forum1/HTML/006677-4.html)

[This message has been edited by DaveSF (edited 06-12-2002).]

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by DaveSF:
Has anyone been able to book the Concorde reward from an airport other than JFK? Are there restrictions on gateway cities?

I'm wondering whether I could book the award from SFO and get a first class flight to NYC, or whether I'd have to book a separate ticket to get to JFK. I'm worried they'll try to put me on a sub-sonic, non-stop SFO-LHR flight. Thanks.</font>

To the best of my knowledge, BA's Concorde flies LHR-BGI (seasonal) and LHR-JFK (and BGI-LHR and JFK-LHR, that is http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif ).

Booking from the west coast has two (maybe 3) problems that I see:

1.) with connecting travel on AA, it becomes a Oneworld award, which is 25,000 more points to redeem in F for 5,401-10,000 miles of travel. Since the west coast is &gt; 10,000 miles r/t, it would be a 250,000 oneworld ticket, and a 200,000 point SFO-LHR ticket on BA.

2.) People have written that you might be able to fly SFO-LHR-JFK on BA for 125,000 points, but I'm not sure about that, as QF rule 10.4.3 states "... itineraries finishing in a port other than the originating port must include the distance to return directly to the port of origin...."

3.) the kicker if you redeem a oneworld award is "Not valid on British Airways Concorde services"

[This message has been edited by landspeed (edited 06-12-2002).]

May I ask for some help, please? What is the URL for buying the magazine, and is it confirmed that the extra starwood points are still being awarded?

Thanks for the help, it is truly appreciated!

Thanks!

[QUOTE]

2.) People have written that you might be able to fly SFO-LHR-JFK on BA for 125,000 points, but I'm not sure about that, as QF rule 10.4.3 states "... itineraries finishing in a port other than the originating port must include the distance to return directly to the port of origin...."
QUOTE]

This I can confirm as I wanted to book STR-LHR-JFK and back from SFO - which in terms of mileage flown would be just be below the 10000 miles threshold. However QF told me that I had to consider the mileage between JFK and SFO despite making my own way http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/frown.gif and hence I do the trip next week to JFK and back from MIA - which was the most I could optimise towards 10000 miles - 9978 to be exact http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif - and in addition I added three days in Cancun to recover from the Concorde and preparing myself and the misses for the FC return ....

Cheers

Thomas



[This message has been edited by tcswede (edited 06-13-2002).]

The URL is: http://www.insideflyer.com/starwood

and the promotion is still going on however ends on June 30th so to earn 2,500 Starwood points per subscription to InsideFlyer you better hurry. The bonus after July 1 drops to 1,000 points per subscription.

I am very seriously considering doing this. One question. The 5k bonus SPG points you get for transfering the 20k points at a time, do they automatically convert to the 10k Qantas Miles without a problem? Or does it just show up as 5k Qantas miles. Thanks for the help.

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by tcswede:
QUOTE]
This I can confirm as I wanted to book STR-LHR-JFK and back from SFO - which in terms of mileage flown would be just be below the 10000 miles threshold. However QF told me that I had to consider the mileage between JFK and SFO despite making my own way http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/frown.gif and hence I do the trip next week to JFK and back from MIA - which was the most I could optimise towards 10000 miles - 9978 to be exact http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif
[This message has been edited by tcswede (edited 06-13-2002).][/B]</font>

Thanks for the confirmation, even if it is bad news http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/frown.gif

For West Coasters not detouring via Cancun, SEA-LHR (the "Peter Buck flight"), LHR-JFK should work, as SEA-LHR is &lt;5000 miles.

Edit- actually maybe not, as SEA-LHR-JFK-SEA is &gt;10,000 miles. It's unclear to me whether the distance to return to port of origin is calculated from point of turnaround or destination.


[This message has been edited by landspeed (edited 06-13-2002).]

I'm sitting down with my dad tomorrow and going through the nitpickings of this deal. Since we are all WC based, it seems that the best way to do this trip would be to buy a cheapie san-jfk, sea-jfk rt, upgrade with miles and then do the concorde Jfk-lhr-somewhere else for kicks.

I am just now figuring out what to do with 26 -52 subscriptions to IF. Has anyone had luck donating them to libraries and if so, can you gain a tax deduction?

I know more about my FF mileage balances than my 401K. Sigh.

lala

Joh and I just did the Concorde both ways with QF points. Will work on some kind of trip report I guess. An experience of a lifetime. Sign up for those subs by June 30 or you will regret it forever. http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif Remember you get 10,000 miles of BA travel for the $1256. That will cover JFK to LHR AND ongoing travel to pretty well anywhere in Europe BA flies.

Phone BA and ask how much a round trip London to Moscow costs up front of their plane. And add THAT to the $US12,700 for the Concorde flights. From BA Australian office I was quoted $A23,000 a person to do our flights. This way you are paying about 10% of the "REAL" price.

OR for European residents, or anyone visiting Europe, you can do it in REVERSE. i.e. pick virtually ANY city if Europe to commence from, fly from there to London, then on the Concorde across to New York, and return to original gain. Or 'open-jaw' it either direction if you wish - i.e. fly from Moscow to New York and fly back to Casablanca etc if you prefer is how I understand they work the mile figurings?

IF you wish you may fly on from Heathrow to a huge range of other cities in Europe or North Africa in the "pointy end" of the BA fleet. This will cost you NO MORE. i.e New York to London on Concorde - then to Paris, or Germany, or Scandinavia etc is all part of the same $1256 deal - round trip. And this includes VERY EXPENSIVE to get to places like Leningrad, Istanbul, Madrid, Oslo, Athens or Moscow - even to North Africa and Casablanca or Marrakech etc, etc as far as I can see. Hundreds of choices.

------------------
~ Glen ~

OZ:
What did it cost you to fly to NY from Australia to take your Concorde flight for $1200+?

CF

Rich: What are you waiting for? There has been nothing but good, positive stories about IF/*wood/Qantas. Many FTers have posted that they bought the subscriptions, transfered the miles and booked the flights. How would they know or why would BA treat our miles any different than any other miles?
Now that no one has posted any negative stories in this thread, what will you do?

CF

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by Randy Petersen:
The URL is: http://www.insideflyer.com/starwood
and the promotion is still going on however ends on June 30th so to earn 2,500 Starwood points per subscription to InsideFlyer you better hurry...</font>

After Inside Flyer notifies Starwood that you've got earned the Star Points (which takes several days?), you have to transfer the StarPoints to Qantas miles in increments of 20,000. Is there a currently-known deadline on that?


[This message has been edited by Middle_Seat (edited 06-18-2002).]