Cost of free flight award?

I have tried to use my 70,000 Qmiles for upgrades which is impossible as always no availibility. Oh for the golden days when with EK when redeeming miles was as it should be, valued, straightforward and available.

This amount is enough (as far as I can see?) for a roundtrip economy award from LHR to HKT (Phuket)

I presume from remarks on this forum about having to go to a QR office means we have to pay the taxes on the free ticket?

I see and understand on PC website the costs of changing etc an award ticket but cannot find any information about taxes payable if any?

Thanks in advance for any advise
Robin

You can log into the web site and buy your award ticket on-line. It shows the cost in miles plus taxes. Unfortunately, it does not show you the cost until the very end where you pay.

I tried random dates in September. There was decent availability for LHR-HKT, economy-class round-trip for 70,000 miles plus GBP 290.79 in "Taxes and Carrier-imposed Fees."

The only time you'd have to visit an office, I believe, is if you made a change that required a re-price.

Having just done this myself, hopefully I can help...

Indeed you will have to pay the taxes portion of the advertised airfare for your journey. Use the QR booking facility to do a 'dummy' booking. When you get to the payment part you should be able to access the breakdown of the fare which will show the cost of the taxes. This will be the cost of your awards ticket.

Can't speak for other locations but in the UK, after your awards flight is confirmed by QR & you have a booking regference, you can ring up QR reservations, quote the ref number & pay by credit card.

To save some time it helps to establish in advance which flights & dates have awards seats available. I didn't use the awards facility online because I was booking 2 awards flights from 2 seperate accounts onto the same flight & wanted to make sure they were awarded together. From this forum the excellent AlexCM kindly provided the available flight info for my dates then I contacted QR Priv Club by email, but I believe in the UK QR reservations can provide the same info. I'd guess the same principal applies to upgrades by the way.

Hope that made sense!

Thanks both of you for your helpful feedback, Robin

I did as suggested a dummy booking, firstly LHR to HKT and had mixed class available for the dates requested (out mid Oct, back mid Feb)

Economy out and biz for the return, and without enough miles use the cash and miles option so I would have to pay about 1,200 GBP inc taxes etc. and 55,000 Qmiles.

I then did a dummy booking LHR to KUL (Kuala Lumpur) and got a roundtrip economy for same dates, 70,000 miles (which I have) and total costs of 298 GBP. Great BUT>>>>>>>>

The moral seems to be that the addon leg from KUL-HKT messes up the reward even more odd when QR state that such add on sectors do not incur extra miles.

So it seems my only option to use miles for LHR-KUL and purchase the KUL-HKT costing about 110 GBP.

Seems daft, or a glitch in the system?

Maybe because the return is so far in advance, but reward are valid 12 months?

Having used the Phuket-Kuala Lumpur many times (for visa runs) that sector is never full even in high season, so you would think rewards would be readily available?

Having only ever done this on a 'simple' awards tickets I can't help you much more except to suggest human contact with QR might be a better option. Perhaps PM the ever helpful AlexCM who's based (like yourself?) in the Land of Smiles with your query, he may be able to dig a little deeper into the system.

Thanks to a call FROM AlexCM he has very kindly made me an award booking as smooth as silk!

As many of us Flyertalk Privilege Club members know AlexCM service standards go way beyond the norm.

Well done Alex and many grateful thanks.

Regards
Robin