Originally Posted by
baliktad
"Difficult to get" may be the understatement of the year. I honestly believe the QF F redemptions are now so difficult to obtain that it's borderline false advertising for AS to offer this award level at all. I spent months calling the partner desk for just a single first class seat on QF LAX-SYD. When they asked what my travel dates were, I would ask to search ANY day starting tomorrow through the end of the schedule.
Not only did I never find any seats, every agent I talked to said that they had never booked a QF First award.
When I first saw the title of this thread I was tempted to post a snarky response about the continual lack of availability of QF First tickets using AS miles. Then I saw your post,
baliktad, and held off because it appeared you beat me to it.
I've repeatedly tried in the past to find availability. No luck. Zip. Zilch.
Today I'm singing a completely different tune.
UNICORNS DO EXIST!!!
It took searching through 3 months of flight info before I found availability on QF SYD-MEL-LAX. The first leg is in J but then it was MEL-LAX in F, all for 70K + $61.20 fees. I jumped on it, even though it was routed through Melbourne. BAM. Booked.
But then - completely on a lark - I decided to search just a little bit further. Just 15 days later on the award calendar I stuck gold ... a single open ticket, QF #11 SYD-LAX in F, on their A380. ^
I booked it in a heartbeat (70K + $92.40), waited until I was certain it was locked into my account and then cancelled the earlier SYD-MEL-LAX ticket. Those miles were instantly put back in my account.
Before this I was a naysayer about the existence of Qantas First Class seats on Alaska Air's mileage redemption inventory. Hmmm. Maybe - just maybe - Santa Claus is real, too.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Addendum: Just booked the outbound LAX-SYD on QF #12 in F using AS miles. It was the only date showing any availability. My best guess is that someone had booked these 2 award tickets and must have recently let them go back into inventory for next summer.
I'm still going to look into CX for the LAX-HKG-SYD outbound as it looks like there's at least 1 seat available around the dates I want, but have to wait until the Partner Desk opens in the morning. *sigh*
(Side Note: You may think it's crazy to want to travel during July/August but US summer is when I prefer to travel to Australia. Their "winter" weather is comparable to summer weather here in Alaska. My favorite temps are highs in the mid-60s with lows in the mid-50s at night.)