It is not so much ticketing with Qantas to be avoided, it is using Qantas to book in the first place.

For example, I am booked on a Qantas (081- plated) DONE4 but used a (very competent) travel agent to book it. Yes, the TA charges a fee, but this was more than offset by a reduction in +++ charges by avoiding certain carriers on certain segments.

Status earn from this one booking is expected to provide at least 80% of the requirement for Qantas based Emerald each year for two years.

Thanks for pointing out this very specific detail of ticketing vs booking. I'm so sorry to have greatly confused and misled everyone. Everyone, please continue to ticket your QF RTW trips with your competent travel agent.

I felt it was important to differentiate and meant no disparagement.

For me as a Qantas oneworld Emerald, there are significant additional earn benefits in having 081- tickets. Combining that with a desire for avoiding use of Qantas as a booking agent for this type of fare makes using a competent TA my preference.

nope, they cant.
phone agent can only change dates at best

those spent time on this forum will know about Qantas RTW issue, but not everyone is aware of this forum.
further, if you use the OW tool, the default ticketing is QF

People should absolutely post about their experiences with QF agents.

Oh, but they have. Multitudes of experiences, all of which point to the same general conclusion -- QF agents are inconsistent, ranging from fine to completely making up false "rules".

On that note, I have created a separate thread for all of such relevant comments. One place to share experiences with QF customer service re: xONEx, xGLOBx, xCIRx
https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/onew...qantas-qf.html

And they should continue to do so, so we learn more about what is and is not allowed and what the best practices are. That's the whole point of having a forum and a discussion like this one.

That's reasonable.

What are the added benefits for a QF elite when ticketing on QF paper?

I guess the Emerald part is not really relevant other than the Status bonus.

Paying for these tickets using Qantas Business Rewards Amex, nett points earn can be almost doubled on a Qantas Marketed and ticketed (081-) flight. My business is level 2 so gets a 30% loading on base (bronze) points; the Amex triples that.

e.g. HND-SYD in discount business, base QFF earn is 7800 points. 30% is 2340, so 8140. Paying with that card adds "triples" that, so another 4680, getting to 14,820. Being Qantas Platinum adds another 5200 ... so, for myself, 20,020 is the nett earn for a Qantas Platinum. Of course, paying with the card also earns 2 Qantas points per $paid (capped).

So the Qantas elite status bonus only applies when the ticket is issued by Qantas?

And do you need Qantas elite status to book with a Qantas Business Rewards Amex?

Getting off topic.
Benefits from QF status and using QF Amex card can stack
https://www.qantas.com/au/en/business-rewards/home.html

I don't see anything in there that provides a status member with greater benefit by ticketing with QF, though, as seems to have been suggested. Maybe it's niche. I'm not familiar with the program.

You are correct. I inferred this at the start of my prior post.... and, yes, it is not relevant. Without status, the Qantas Business Reward bonus in the above example for an 081- ticketed flight is 7020 Qantas points making a total of 14,820 base earn.

To reiterate, this 7020 point additional earn via Qantas Business Rewards requires an 081- ticket.

So in my case, it is desirable to have 081- tickets while at the same time avoiding any hassle in needing to contact Qantas.

YMMV