leigh787

Hi everyone, I fly primarily with Star Alliance airlines so please excuse me if I this is a newbie question. I need to get from Singapore to Santiago, Chile. The best route (ie. just 2 flights) is to fly to either Auckland or Sydney and then take a direct flight.

Since I have spare credit card points, I wanted to convert some to Asia Miles to redeem a Qantas return flight for the AKL/SYD-SCL leg. The travel dates are 10 months away but already it seems impossible to get such a redemption flight. I've tried +/5 days and oneworld is saying there are no redemption flights available. This is true for Economy, Biz and First Class. Pretty frustrating and surprising to me because I've never had problems getting the redemption flights I want on *A and my travel dates are 10 months away...

So my question is, is it typically this hard to redeem points on oneworld or am I missing something? Are there any tricks to help increase the chances of getting redemption flights? (other than being an Emerald)

And in case anyone's wondering, no I haven't converted my CC points to Asia Miles yet. Worst case scenario is to fly SQ to Barcelone then Sao Paolo then on to SCL but would really want to avoid that itin.

Thanks in advance for any insights anyone can offer!

Mwenenzi

What class of travel?
What web site are you looking for awards on?
"OneWorld" does not offer awards as such: is just a marketing organisation
Have you tried HKG-SCL?
Have been reports before of poor availability with LAN

Mwenenzi

Searching on Qantas for Oct economy award seats SYD-SCL are available most days.
No premium economy or business showing

DomesticGoddess

On the Qantas website I'm seeing plenty of award seats in Economy SYD-SCL in October/November, and a bit of Premium Economy and Business in November/December. AKL-SCL there's plenty of Economy but no Business class.

leigh787

Yes, but to redeem via Qantas directly I need to have THEIR miles, as opposed to Asia Miles, right? My credit card only allows conversion of points to Asia Miles or *A, and not to other airlines. So if I understand correctly, I have to make the booking via the Asia Miles website and it can't be done via Qantas?

leigh787

Open to any class of travel, but Y is preferred.

HKG-SCL would mean taking 3 flights to get to SCL since I'm starting out from Singapore, and I want to avoid a 3-flight itin.

Adam1222

No that's not correct. Your Asia Miles are redeemable for Qantas Flights. Take a look at the Cathay forum for advice how to do it.

Like others, I have no idea where you've been looking as there is no "oneworld" site that would tell you there's no availability. ( Similarly there is no *A redemption, only individual star alliance programs)

It should be doable online if there is award inventory. http://www.asiamiles.com/am/en/about/news/detail?refID=298d458f7fe41410VgnVCM1000000ad21c39R CRD

leigh787

Yes, I was trying to redeem via the AsiaMiles.com website. Sorry for the confusion; earlier I was using the terms Asia Miles and OneWorld interchangeably. And when speaking with Asia Miles customer service officers, they are saying they don't have any award inventory available for dates that are 10 months away on both Qantas and LAN. I found it a bit hard to believe, and hence the original post here.

Thanks for the lead - will go check the CX forum.

Mwenenzi

Cathay AsiaMiles, LAN, QF, BA, AA and others are all members of www.oneworld.com. While at time’s there are differences in award availability between the airline ffp’s, generally all have the same access. Especially with economy awards. But you need to be careful in what you ask. Also some airlines only have booking available 330 days out and others 354 days out. (QF is 354)

leigh787

Mwenenzi - could you explain what you mean by "need to be careful in what you ask"?