blackmagic79

Hi!

As the title suggests, I'm trying to book 2 One World RTW tickets in business class on Qantas points. I figure that for 280,000 per person, these tickets are really good value (5 stops, 35,000 miles I think).

I'm even able to book 11 months in advance (in the hope that availability in business class will be better).

I am happy to pay the extra telephone booking fee as it's pretty difficult to match everything up online, but the problem I've got is that whilst I can see plenty of single seat business class availability for July/August/September 2011 on MEL-LHR and LAX-MEL (my 2 key segments), but NOTHING has 2 seats available? (Some dates have multiple premium economy and first class seats, but never business!!)

Is this because:
- these flights only have single seats available ever (I'm hoping not!)?
- Qantas only progressively releases FF seats in business class one at a time (so I might need to book one now and keep checking for further releases to book the second?)
- Qantas will release multiple seats in business class closer to the date (so I just need to keep checking until 2 become available)?
- it's just because July/August/Sep are really busy and October will have more seats from the outset?
- some other mystical magical reason?

I called Qantas and they confirmed they could only see single seat availability and couldn't give me any info about why this was or when more seats might be released.

Any help would be greatly appreciated!!!
Cheers
Michael

number_6

Yes, some routes and/or days of week do have single seat available for awards. This is adjusted by yield management as they see demand, but no guarantee when additional seats become available. You would be very wise to book the QF flights 355 days ahead, when QFF inventory is released, and not 330 days ahead, when Oneworld inventory is released (and BA/AA snap up the QF awards). You may have to route via SYD (tends to have more availabilty) or even ADL/BNE/PER to hub in SIN. Be sure to pick unpopular days of the week/month is you don't care about when you travel, there is a huge difference in demand and award availability reflects that. An option is to sign up for one of the commercial availability tracking services, such as Expertflyer or KVS, though they aren't 100% accurate. Good luck.

harryhv

QF redemption rates are among the world's meanest, but if you have to get rid of 2x 280k QFF points you ought to look at individual one-way redemptions too. Rather than one humungous RTW you could do 2 or 3 trips, perhaps with stopovers.

At that rate surely you'll have some other miles, *A or FB maybe, that could be pressed into service for certain sectors.

October/November is low season and you'd be sure to find 2 biz seats on any route. July/Aug on the other hand, QF planes are full of politicians and govt employees flying biz at our expense, so no more than 1 award seat at a time

Lonely Flyer

I assume that there is plenty of demand for paid J seats or the demand is so good for PE that they oversell and keep J in reserve for upgrades.

In booking a single leg to LHR I found very liitle J but better F some 11 months out.

Cedar Jet

For what it's worth I have just booked a QF J Award RTW.

I booked all early Sep this yr for AUG '11 and got a seat on each sector no problem(not sure if my plat status assisted but didnt need to request fo any redemption seats to be opened)

I also chose a route I'd have more luck getting seats on considering AUG is a popular month for travel. My routing:

SYD-EZE(QF)
EZE-IAD(LA&AA)
IAD-LHR(BA)-will book paid Y class BA tix to Olso, Prague and Cologne-
LHR-TLV(BA)
TLV-LHR(BA)
LHR-NRT(BA)
NRT-SYD(QF)

Try play around with your itinerary a little and seats may be easier to score.

Good luck.

CJ

Lonely Flyer

I have always seen plenty of availibility on BA and AA but have never looked at LA. You avoided leaving and returning to AU by the most popular QF routes. Smart move. As more experienced than I have said on FT you most think laterally.