QF Reward RTW
 

Considering doing a J Class 280K rtw with QF/OW (5 stops abd 32K mileage limitation) .

Is this good value for point spend..anyone else done this?

Thanks for any comments.

CJ.

Yes.

(Maybe worthwhile if you have some specific questions...)

Yes as in you've done it or yes as in it's good value?

I've heard of many doing/that did the Y Award RTW at ~143k.

I'm interested in this myself, although I'm a little confused at the conditions of the award; certainly I've realised that the maximum mileage is 35000 mi, but what of conditions on where you can travel, etc....

... any available award seating on oneworld flights (must at least include two oneworld carriers other than Qantas). The rules are the same as for the 140K oneworld award, 'cept that it's booked into Business class.

Just think if you had posted all your earned miles to AmericanAdvantage you would have enough for 2 OW FIRST CLASS Miles RTW

Enjoy Business Class

Understandable, although I'm still chasing status with QF for a while. AA will be in due course...

My quandry is that my points currently sit in Amex MR. Given that at the moment 1000 Amex MR = 330 SPG = 330 AA, even if you factor in the bonuses given for mass conversion of SPG to AA, it's still cheaper in Amex MR points to sweep to QF for a 288k J Award RTW.

On the other hand, the taxes & charges with QF J Award RTW are going to be higher than that of an AA J Award RTW, but I'm not sure whether the difference is enough to justify the extra 80k+ Amex MR points required to burn for the latter.

288k J Award RTW sounds certainly better than a AUD 10k++ DONE4 ex-AU paid in cash :eek: even if the latter has better conditions/less restrictions.

Another quandry: go alone with 1 x QF J Award RTW, or invite someone else and have 2 x QF Y Award RTWs?

Also, 35k miles is so easy to exceed on a RTW.... :(


Perhaps we should stop calling it a RTW - it's really the oneworld award ticket that allows you to travel almost anywhere as long as your trip doesn't exceed 35k miles......

Eh. I've used one as an around the world. And one as a trip to europe and some bouncing around. Didn't have too much problem getting availability I wanted, though one was 6 months and one over 9 months in advance. I think some seats were requested to be opened up. Bless. I don't think it's too bad a reward, considering you fork out almost 200k for a J seat to LAX.

RTW with Points
 

I completed a RTW J with points in April/May of this year. I personally believe its great value especially if you chose your destinations carefully and max out the 35,000 miles.

My trip was BNE-SFO-JFK-LHR-IST-BUD-ATH-LHR-CAI-LHR-SYD-BNE. I booked it about 9 months before departure and it intially cost me 280k +2,500k for over the phone booking fee plus approx $1200 in taxes. I personally find it too difficult to book multi-destinations on the QANTAS site ever since it changed to the new format, however I still used the web site to work out availability. Ended up paying another 10,000pts on top to rejig my routing as more seats were released before departure.

Things to remember: Can only have one stopover and 2 transits under 24hours at each city - ie JFK - LHR - stayed in London for a week, but only transited LHR-CAI-LHR-SYD

Must used three different One World Carriers.

If you call Qantas, and get someone who has no idea or just can't be bothered making the effort for you hang up and try again. Some phone calls lasted over 1 hour due to some Call Centre staff being extremely helpful and great at locating Award seats on the flights I wanted.

I will definitely do it again and recommend it.

I booked 2xF and 2xJ RTW awards earlier this year.

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=862604
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=842237 (While this thread is more for F travel, the same conditions apply. It just costs you more points.)

The route for the F tickets:
WLG-SYD-JFK-xYVR-LHR//LGW-xKRK-xLGW//LHR-xNRT-xHKG-SYD-WLG

Taxes are ~AUD$1200 each.

The route for the J tickets:
WLG-SYD-xJFK-xLHR-xMAD-xFCO-LHR-xHKG-SYD-WLG

Taxes are ~AUD$1000 each.

There're some fine tuning you can apply to maximise your experience, e.g., use more trans-continent flights and use the <24 hours stop rule (as mentioned). While using more trans-continent flights is probably more relevant in F than J, you can still argue minimising intra-US or intra-Europe J and use them for long-haul J is a good thing.

Also, don't forget you're likely to incur the 2500 points booking fee (per ticket) when you book over the phone. Personally, I think it's a price worth paying if you get a good agent.

NM and others have also given me some help on mine, so thank you to them.

The taxes on QF RTW seems much HIGHER than AA
 

I read this thread with interest.

Last month I cancelled 2 AA J RTW awards - actually AA does not call it RTW, but simply OW award with different miles requirement.

Anyway the itinerary was MIA(AA)-YYZ(BA)-LHR-IST-LHR(X)-HKG(CX)-TPE-HKG(X)-BKK-SIN(BA)-SYD(QF)-AKL-SYD(X)-BNE(JL)-NRT-SFO.

It was booked in Aug for Apr 09 travel. I had to cancel it and lost $20 each nonrefundable telephone booking fee.

Miles required 190K, tax paid US$272 (at the time of ticketing back in August this year, the AUD was approx 0.86 to USD)

Then last Sunday I booked a Circle Pacific type AA J OW award for travel in May.

MIA(AA)-LAX(QF)-AKL-SYD-SIN(JL)-KUL(CX)-HKG-TPE-ICN(JL)-KIX-CTS-NRT-SFO(AA)-LAX

Miles required 150K, tax paid US$203 + $20 phone ticketing fee.

It seems AA miles worth much more than QF miles, esp using the AMEX conversion table. The tax is also much lower. Hmmm.

Are you kidding? Flying anywhere from Australia requires a longhaul, and you want to do it in Y when you can do it in J?!

If you can get BA J, definitely go for that instead of QF J. I just realize that QF's Skybed is not really a bed at all, just a 171 degree lie-flat seat - a slippery seat actually. The BA Club World is a comfortable Flatbed, though I prefer the NZ's setup more.

Here's another option into the mix, CJ.
You know this one already. ;)
OZ, that 20yr old airline in StarAlliance, codeshares QF to ICN, so you could possibly plug in SYYD-ICN-HKG if there was ever an issue with QF.

As a QF codeshare (you know) you will be in the QF lounge anyway.
Interestingly, a QF staffer was wheeling someone around the KC this morning.
Possibly a QF J lounge access limitation?

I just wanted to note that there are some out-there QF codeshares, in the spirit of the old QF-GF codeshare. :D

(This is zero news to CJ but interesting for new players)

[BB in ICN... J not F lounge, unfortunately, due to a lack of knowledge at the time. :rolleyes:]

Qantas don't call it a RTW ticket either. It's an OneWorld Classic Award. There's no rule that you have to go RTW or in one general direction like a xONE type ticket.