Aussie in Distress (Almost)
 

Hi folks, I'm new here so forgive me if I post in the wrong place to begin with.

I must say, I thought my first trip to the States was going to be a walk in the park, until I came accross this site in my cyber travels for real travel bargains. I've now come to the conclusion that this travelling business is a work of art! After reading as much as I can on these forums so far, I've decided it might just be easier to ask the advice of those who actually know. So far, I've joined almost any FF options available to me after much reading here, however... a few questions. (It will take me a month of sundays to get through this whole forum - I only have under 3 weeks left before I leave tho)

If I explain my itinerary first, perhaps it will make it easier as far as answers to my questions are concerned.

Townsville - Brisbane Qantas
Brisbane - Auckland Air New Zealand
Auckland - San Francisco Air New Zealand

(return fare, same deal)

From San Fran - Seattle American Airlines

The flights are for 2 people and my questions are:

1. Is it best for both travellers (married) to apply for FF deals and each claim individually, or can one claim for both fares?
2. I see there are different partner companies with the various airlines - which is the best to claim flying points from? eg. Qantas Frequent Flyer points or AAadvantage (for the San Fran - Seattle flight)

I don't think Im going to have this down to a fine art before I leave, it may be a lot of trial and error, however, any advice anyone can give me specifically on this trip to the States would be very much appreciated.

It's likely an AA codeshare on Alaska aircraft, as AA does not fly that route. You'd also have the option of crediting your miles to an Alaska account, and they have plenty of partners, if you elect not to put them on AA or QF. You might want to look at the Alaska website for a list of their partners.

A lot depends on how often you're going to fly, and if you'll fly enough to accumulate miles for award tickets. SFO-SEA is only 678 miles so there's not a lot of miles to be gained there. If you credit QF tickets to AA, you'll only get 50% credit on discounted tickets. There's a lot to look at, and it all revolves around what your travel patterns will be (and I have to admit I know nothing about the QF or NZ programs, which might be worth looking at).

As to miles, they go in the account of the person actually doing the flying.

If you're in Seattle Aug 4-5 we do have an FT event there--see Community for details.

Welcome to FlyerTalk :)

Thanks Tom911, that gives me a little more to look into. Back to studying all this.

Also, I don't expect to be in Seattle until the 11th August so I'll miss the FT event. Cheers for now and thanks for the welcome

Welcome to Flyer Talk FlyingKangaroo :)

Be aware that the cheapest economy fares on NZ are non mileage earning. Do you have the fare name or booking class so that we can check that?

While all Qantas fares are mileage earning on the Qantas program, some red e-deals are not mileage earning when credited to other airlines - eg American Airlines (again fare class will help determine if this is the case for you). For someone based in Australia and not an overly frequent flyer, the Qantas program will probably be best since you can easily earn miles through credit card and other local spend.

Air NZ's frequent flyer program, Airpoints, usually requires a $50 (AU or NZ) joining fee. So unless you will be flying a lot on Air NZ I would not recommend joining it, instead choose United Mileage Plus (awards are relatively cheap even though they just increased miles needed to/from australia, and no joining fee).

Enjoy your trip :)

Thanks KiwiFlyer

All flights so far are economy class if that's the information you're after. I've been eyeing off the New Zealand 'Airpoints' however as yet, haven't joined. It would be a waste of $50 to join and get nothing for it after reading your post. Seems a long way to fly and not pick up anything for all those miles.

Need what the fare was described as (eg Global Max Saver) or even better the booking class (on a paper ticket this appears as a single letter on each coupon/line near the date of each flight). If your ticket/receipt shows something called fare basis, it is the first letter of that.

Just in case you missed this forum...

http://flyertalk.com/forum/forumdisplay.php?f=391

It's the Global Airline Alliances forum. American is part of oneworld. I'm sure this forum will provide you with multiple hours of 'pleasure reading'. :D Loads of useful info too!

Welcome FlyingKangaroo.

Dan

Well KiwiF, search as I might I can't see any fare type on my e-tickets. (Just flight numbers) The information supplied says I may need to call my travel consultant for that information and that, as you say, many fare types and discounted airfares do not accrue FF points. I'll get onto that tomorrow since I just MUST know now.

Just a bit of fyi for everyone, I was searching for best hotel deals on various different sites. I came accross what looked like a great place with reasonable prices to stay at in Midtown NY. I found it on Orbitz.com and to my frustration, they don't accept credit cards with billing addresses in Australia just at the moment. Trying to secure the accommodation via direct contact with the hotel for the same deal offered by orbitz hasn't got me far in the last day or so either, with the time zone differences and lack of email replies at the moment.

Apparently orbitz.com will be putting us aussies on their list of credit card billing addresses.... SOON!

You might like to have a look at Wotif.com - they do some USA pricings, including properties in Midtown, NYC. The prices aren't exactly the same, but close enough to it (Radisson Lexington for tomorrow night through Wotif - $189 for a standard room. Through Orbitz - $177.90). Wotif are an Australian company and accept all major cards.

You both must join a freq flyer program. Some programmes allows point transfers to others (family) :- others do not.

Options are QF AA & Alaska. The US programme’s are generally better than QF. Many of us here in Oz are jumping to AA due to better earn & burn rates. However with QF you can transfer points from Aust credit cards (Amex, ANZ, Westpac etc for a fee to joining the cc reward scheme). This can boost your points a lot. Or join AA & QF as many of us do here (Flights to AA and cc to QF)

As KF said I would go for UA on the Air NZ flights is they are eligible for points and QF for the rest

Major hotels chains also have loyalty program. Go direct to the hotel web sites

Kiwi F... the fare basis is KUS1YA they tell me.
Mwenenzi, thanks for your info too. I take it I can join UA Mileage Plus program and add my already booked flight without a problem?
Thanks dannyr for the wotif.com site too. I'll add that to my already bulging folder of information.

I thought holidays were supposed to be easy!

At least you were smart enough to ask ahead of time, versus holding onto the boarding passes and deciding what to do weeks or months after your flights. There really is a wealth of information here on FT, and I hope you've been able to do some exploring.

With that fare basis the booking class is K. Unfortunately K on Air NZ is non mileage earning, both with airpoints and with any other frequent flyer program.

IIRC K is the highest non earning class - it may be possible to pay a modest extra fare to get mileage (plus change fee). However you'd need availability in a cheapish booking class (eg Q, V or W or T) for this to be worthwhile. Unlikely this close to your trip.

Folks, I have to say thank you very much. You were all as helpful as you could be under the circumstances to someone as green as me. I guess I will miss out on some benefits this time round. "Ya get that on big jobs" as some of us say in Oz. This is a great site and one of the friendliest forums I've come accross. I'll have to do a bit of study for the future, and let me say... there's plenty here! Cheers to all that tried to help.

Could I make a suggestion? As I know there is much to read here, would it be worthwhile adding a section up where you have the "Miles & Points"... "Miles Buzz" options.. what about a section that explains from go to woe of how to go about "Frequent Flyer steps and options for Dummies"

That may be a bit harsh however, I've noticed in life that different trades/cultures have their own 'speak'. Being very new to this particular brand of speak, I thought that to me, as someone that stumbled accross this site by accident could find a place with steps clearly defined. I know all the information is there but as I'd said earlier it would take a month of sundays to read. What about a 12 step program to get started kind of thing. If it's there already, ignore my suggestion. I just didn't find it in plain view at the time I stumbled accross the site.

Cheers to all and thanks again

FlyingKanga