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. 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.
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.
And of course it's not $10,000 per person. You can fly around the world - including four or six segments on Qantas in a fare class they're slightly more generous with - for around $5,000, depending on where you begin. Not that $5k doesn't buy a lot of sushi, of course. But you'd spread the trip(s) over a year, and essentially make a couple of holidays out of it, so unless that kind of money makes absolutely no sense to you, take a look at the sticky for OWE fares at the top of this forum.