Building up miles with anyone else and then trying to use them on any Oneworld partner is irrelevant. QF just has certain restrictions on award redemption on popular routes and they have every right to restrict award availability to anyone else not on their own frequent flyer scheme who do get preferential access to such seats. It is not to say that one cannot get any award seats at all to australia, but it just requires careful planning using a combination of airlines there. There are other airlines just as wonderful as QF such as AIR TAHITI NUI, and AIR PACIFIC who go to Australia. Did you not even want to try them perhap?

Nonsense.

QF is a wonderful airline. Using miles or buying a ticket. And I have done both.
If that is how you feel , then DON'T fly with them! You wouldn't want to fly on an airline that gives you problems now, don't you? Even if the seats are available! Being sacarstic about them will not win you any favours in having seats made available to you.

Writing to QANTAS is not going to get you the seats. Writing to AADVANTAGE isn't going to do much either. They have no control as to what QANTAS wants to do with them. But QF seats are being available to other routes .. just not on the exact routes that you want! You'd just have to keep trying and look for other alternatives and routes. Or perhaps you would consider going another time. Remember it may be winter for you, it's summer in Australia - that is a peak time for all travels to / from USA to the South PAcific.

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.

I was hoping for suggestions, not to be judged. I am completely allowed to be frustrated and by the way, I'm hardly part of a minority on that issue. I will take the constructive suggestions that were made and work from there. Thanks to all who were kind and helpful.

You could always write on QANTAS and AAdvantages' forums and provide a link to your thread here and see if anyone there have any suggestions to your plight. What you may eventually have to do is to either do 2 awards via asia, or one award plus paid ticket via asia.

Good luck.

From looking through the availability, there's certainly Business Class availability from LAX-SYD via NRT departing LAX on the 18th of December anyway. For non-stop flights I think it's *very* unlikely you'll have much luck, but at least the transit times flying via NRT aren't too painful. For flights back from AKL-LAX, the earliest non-stop Business availability I saw was 16th of January, so I guess it depends on how long your holiday will be for how much use that might prove.

I feel for you. There's nothing worse (OK there is, but you know what I mean!) than signing up for a frequent flyer program, only to find you can't then book the awards you want.

Living in Australia, it's hard not to fly Qantas on an award sometimes. They can be, depending on route and time of year, very difficult to nab.

All of the airline programs are different. It's up to them how many awards they make available, how much they "cost" etc. That's competition and you vote with your feet. That's why I'm AA EXP and QF nothing. For me it's about the miles I earn and how many I need for the awards I want with One World in general. It "costs" a lot more to earn an award in the Qantas program than with AA for example.

As it costs so much more for a Qantas FFer to earn an award (in most situations), it makes sense that QF gives them priority. Your own award partner tends to treat you better than the competition (may make an award available - but I don't think QF do that often/ever in F, possible upgrades on their flights etc) depending on your status with them. NB it depends on status - you need to fly with them rather than transfer points from a credit card etc.

People pick the FF program that's right for them and take the pros with the cons! If there was the perfect program for everyone we'd all join!

Of course, this is all too late for you but you can always change for next time!

Have you joined the Qantas FF program? The last time I looked it was free and that way you can look up their award availability online. It can change from day to day as they adjust for loads/ other commercial considerations.

BTW - Welcome to flyertalk.

Perhaps for $99.95, award planner might be able to alleviate some of your frustration (no guarantees though, of course). I've not used them myself, but there have been good reports around here which a search ought to turn up. Note that this outfit is run by Randy Peterson, our host here, and that I have nothing whatever to do with them.

Good luck with your trip,

Michael

Actually, it isn't AA's fault, QF release the seats in Z, U and X class (for First, Business and WHY respectively) and it is then open slather as to who gets them from the various FF programs. Sure, QF members get access to the seats at 355 days, whereas everybody else gets them at 330 days, so we QF FF's have an extra 25 days to get them, but that is hardly AA's fault.

Dave