enzian

I am hoping to score two award seats on Qantas later this month for January 2015, using our Avios. I have been "practicing" now and then over the past two months, logging in to my EC account and trying a dummy booking. A month or so ago, when I found award seats, I could select them and proceed all the way to the payment page with no problem. Yesterday I tried this after finding the seats "available." I clicked in the button and it changed To "selected" but an error message appeared at the top of the page: " Sorry, there is a problem with booking this journey online." Then the suggestion to call in to book the seats I selected. Hitting the " Continue" button was fruitless. Nothing happened, even if I waited and tried again.

Two questions:

Is this a website glitch, or is that the way it works now? No online booking for Qantas award seats?

And if so, does the message mean that the seats I selected are on hold for me while I call? In other words, should I leave the website up with the seats selected and then call in? With all,the people calling at this time, what are my chances of getting through? I have seen so many complaints about the phones; it is so much easier to book online if I can.

Thanks in advance for your help.

enzian

Tried it again just now and I do not get the error message, but the "Continue" button does not work.

Edit: error message still appears; I just didn't look far enough up onthe page ( it is way at the top). I have now tried this on iPad and Mac, with both Firefox and Google Chrome, with the same results. Seats are still available, but the website won't allow borking.

Poxball

I don't think it holds them while you call in or more precisely blocks them to you on the internet. If it did that I would think the bA agent would not be able to see them either.

I think the phone system is not that bad, just over the last week or so with the US weather problems things snarled up.

I would suggest if you see the seats just grab the phone immediately and certainly leave the page open so you have the details etc but it is not a clever holding system at play.

What dates/route anyway?

enzian

Dates are flexible and will be looking for LAXto SYD, MEL, or BNE. I have found seats in late December (355 days) on my test run but these are the ones that produce the error message.

I have had such good luck in the past booking with Avios to LHR on BA online. The Qantas flights seem just as smooth, but only up to the point where it gets stuck and displays the error message. Seems like a website malfunction but since I've not used the website to book awards on partners, I can't know for sure. And if itis a glitch or malfunction, is there any hope it will be fixed soon?

Poxball

Tried it. Same result. The phone is your friend! ^

oscietra

Always call - remember you no longer have to call the BAEC centre in your country of residence, so out of hours or if busy the UK line might be better than dialling the notoriously slow-to-answer US line.

PS unsure if it's the same on US-Oz redemptions, but you might find AAdvantage redemption rates AAdvantageous when compared to those used by BAEC - LHR-DXB for 40k AAdvantage miles in A380 F is not to be sniffed at!

:D!

This seems to be par for the course when booking QF (and CX) using BA's website, although it only happens for me when booking Y seats.

BA would allow me to get to the payment page and proceed, but it would fail to issue any tickets, and my card never got charged.

When calling up the agent could not even see the seats as available.

I don't know why but I tried every day for nearly 2 months, and suddenly it worked. The availibility of award seats kept changing though, and perhaps it only worked once a seat really became available.

I was not in a rush to book with avios anyway, since the cash price was not bad, cash seats availability was good, and I was waiting for the Aussie dollar to continue dropping to reduce the price in GBP. It sounds like your seats are only available intermittently, in which case you should probably call as soon as you see them appear online.

HIDDY

I was doing dummy bookings yesterday for MAD-LHR-GLA.

I selected flights then got the dreaded red text error message informing me to phone the service centre. So I tried the same using my wife's account. After choosing the flights I clicked on the continue button but the same page just kept refreshing.

enzian

OK, so one is simply not able to book the Qantas flights online? Even if I could get to the payment page, it would still fail? To this point I have done so well using Avios to book on the website, but those have all been BA flights. (Website does appear to work for dummy bookings on BA, but I haven't gone past the payment page there).

We are looking for J seat, FWIW. We are old and cannot abide a long-haul flight otherwise. And going via Dubai is not an option, as we are on the West Coast of the US. I thought about CX via HKG but that adds significant time and expense to the trip.

So. The consensus is I should forget online booking and call in? And if the US call center is busy, I should try another? Is the UK call center open 24/7? This will be in the middle of the night in the UK. If they are closed,,what other one should I try?

So why do they make the website act like it works for booking QF flights when it doesn't?

(checking again today. for some dates I get the error message along with the available seat display; for other it says seats cannot be booked more than a year in advance, although I am looking at less than 355 days and it shows seats available).

oscietra

My point is not that you would have to route via Dubai.

My point is that redeeming AAdvantage miles on your chosen route might be better value than BAEC redemptions, particularly with a cc joining bonus, but possibly even if you have to purchase them.

Globaliser

Perhaps because the website does normally work for booking QF flights?

That's my experience.

enzian

Globaliser, that is what I was hoping to hear. So it must be a website malfunction I am encountering? Others have found the same thing---error message and the Continue button does not work.

I would love to hear that this is a glitch that will be fixed soon, and not the norm.

Oscietra, we do not have any AAdvantage miles and I do not wish to join yet another FF program. We already have two very useful ones,mand a third wouldmspread our spending too thin. I prefer to use Avios for this trip, as we can book Qantas earlier (355 days) than we can with our other program (Alaska, 330 days).

Globaliser

That's what I think is most likely. And if it's still there when you need to actually book, you may therefore have to do it by phone. But if the website isn't doing what it ought to do, then you should not be charged a phone fee for booking by phone.

small em

As it happens I booked some QF award flights on the BA site just a couple of hours ago. As far as I can tell it's all gone ok, though not ticketed yet.

enzian

Thanks for the info. I just tried again and got the same error message, three times. Grrrrr.

Maybe I need to clear cookies? How do I do that on an iPad?