Originally Posted by schuey7
My issue is that I cannot afford to spend $10,000 US Dollars per person to fly to Australia business class. When I knew I wanted to plan this trip, I contacted American's Advantage customer service and they instructed me to use my miles and build them so that I could fly on Qantas. I did and now I have tons of miles and cannot use them, even though they are a One World Partner.
Building up miles with anyone else and then trying to use them on any Oneworld partner is irrelevant. QF just has certain restrictions on award redemption on popular routes and they have every right to restrict award availability to anyone else not on their own frequent flyer scheme who do get preferential access to such seats. It is not to say that one cannot get any award seats at all to australia, but it just requires careful planning using a combination of airlines there. There are other airlines just as wonderful as QF such as AIR TAHITI NUI, and AIR PACIFIC who go to Australia. Did you not even want to try them perhap?
I have used miles for other One World partners with no issue. The more I call and talk to people, the more I learn that it's a miracle to even get a seat and that despite all of my persistance and planning, I'm at the mercy of Qantas who is allegedly known to travel agents and travelers alike as a very difficult airline to do business with.
Nonsense.
QF is a wonderful airline. Using miles or buying a ticket. And I have done both.
If that is how you feel , then DON'T fly with them! You wouldn't want to fly on an airline that gives you problems now, don't you? Even if the seats are available! Being sacarstic about them will not win you any favours in having seats made available to you.
So I am frustrated because next winter was the only time my husband and I could go and we're even trying to plan a family around this trip, so you can only imagine how discouraging this is.
Writing to QANTAS is not going to get you the seats. Writing to AADVANTAGE isn't going to do much either. They have no control as to what QANTAS wants to do with them. But QF seats are being available to other routes .. just not on the exact routes that you want! You'd just have to keep trying and look for other alternatives and routes. Or perhaps you would consider going another time. Remember it may be winter for you, it's summer in Australia - that is a peak time for all travels to / from USA to the South PAcific.