Getting to Australia in Business Class
 

Hi all,

I have currently 186.000 miles on my Qualiflyer account, together with 70.000 Lufthansa Miles & More miles.

I am getting marrried in Feb'03 and want to surprise my bride with a honeymoon to Australia.

Since it is such a long flight I would love to fly Business Class with both of us.

What are my best options (free ticket or upgrade, which airline?) taking into account we leave from Brussels and fly to Sydney.

I don't mind paying for one ticket if really required, but would prefer to be 'creative' with my miles.

Any help is appreciated !

Thanks !

Jan

Remarks:

- No Qualiflyer airlines currently serve SYD, but partner airlines do (CX via HKG, MH via KUL, QF).
- Of these three, only CX can be upgraded with Qualiflyer miles (and is one of the best airlines on this route anyway).
- Qantas awards only ex Asia.
- There are currently no direct flights from BRU to HKG, thus travel has to be via LHR, FRA, CDG, AMS or ZRH.
- Your LH miles balance won't get you anywhere near Asia or Australia, and wouldn't even suffice for oneway upgrades for two.


Your options:

- One free C ticket Europe-Australia rt comes at 210k miles. The missing 24k miles could be accumlated with 3 European mileage runs (making use of online booking bonus and eticket bonus) for around 600€ to 750€. Second ticket paid C, at around 3000€ rt(consolidator fare for CX).

- Buy two Y rt tickets Europe-Australia at around 1000€ each and upgrade with miles. Oneway upgrade 45k miles per person (according to the QF online mileage calculator, which is cannot always be trusted).

If at all, you may want to use the LH miles to pay/upgrade for inner-European connections.

Regarding the segment Europe-HKG:

- Swiss flies this route with MD-11. Most of us agree that the C class on LX M11 is substandard. Thus CX is to be preferred.

- CX is currently introducing a new business class with 180 degrees reclining seats. Make sure that your Europe-HKG segment is on a route served by an a/c which already has the new setup (eg. LHR-HKG).

I hope that this info is accurate. Hope this helps.

[This message has been edited by HajoFlyer (edited 09-11-2002).]

[This message has been edited by HajoFlyer (edited 09-11-2002).]

Can Qualiflyer awards on CX be interlined with SN or LX? Otherwise you'd have to buy tickets from BRU to your preferred CX destination in Europe (e.g. LHR, FCO) and start from there with the award.

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airOli, the Swiss Air Line. ;)

HajoFlyer,

Thanks a lot for your reply. I guess my best try would be to pay EUR 2000 for 2 economy tickets with CX and then upgrade using the miles.

Remaining question: Can I use my miles to upgrade my wife's ticket ? Doesn't this only work on your own ticket ?

Thanks for your help ! I really need it !

You can upgrade anyone's ticket (so long as it is in the correct booking class). I imagine that you'll want to fly CX out of either LHR or AMS so you'll have a train ride first.

Another way of doing it would be to buy Y class tickets to Asia and then get (for 70K miles) a C class ticket Asia- Oz on Qantas or Malaysian. If you get Y class to Asia on LX you can upgrade for 35K points (am I right you can do one way upgrades for half that?) so this may give you another option.

The C class ticket on Qantas is a good deal as it allows you eight segments, one destination and one stopover (a stop of less than 24 hrs is not a stopover) and so you can build an interesting itinery in Oz.

Stephen

Stephen

I'm afraid not. C upgrade Europe-Asia is 30k oneway, 60k return.

This is another important point. A 1000€ fare Europe-SYD may not be in an upgradedable booking class (a typical problem with most Oneworld airlines, and some others). You are more likely to pay around 1500-2000€ for an upgradebale class fare. Thus the first option I described above could be the cheaper alternative.

Question to all: Can CX and QF be interlined in Qualiflyer award tickets? That way one could build a nice eight segment ticket Europe-Aussieland with four domestic segments in AUS. But I strongly doubt it is possible.

HajoFlyer asked: [/i]Can CX and QF be interlined in Qualiflyer award tickets?[/i]

No, CX and QF are QG partner airlines (source: www.flyertalk.com/forum/Forum40/HTML/000706.html )

AFAIK, one of the big advantages of Qualiflyer is that the principle of non-upgradable fare classes is alien to them.

So, while you can't combine CX with any other airline on a Qualiflyer award, you can at least upgrade any (published) fare.

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airOli, the Swiss Air Line. ;)

Hi All,

I forgot to mention that my wife has 28000 miles on her Qualiflyer account. Could this be used to work towards the 210.000 needed for the free ticket ?

Cheers,

Jan

Sorry but it is not possible to ad miles from two or more accounts to get an Award or an Upgrade from what I know.

kooks.

starting next year SNBA will allow to forward miles to another account..

A business class ticket using points can be had to Australia for as little as 190,000 miles. This would be the case if you combined two airlines, for example, using Swissair to Asia in Biz Class is 120,000, then combine this with an MH or Qantas award in Biz for 70,000. (Note however that you still get this issued all on one itinerary and it all appreas on one PNR - your travel is technically broken into the two segments - so you have no worries in terms of the airline recognising you are doing through travel.)

The only time you need to use the full award level is if you travel on a single airline for through travel - eg you use CX for all travel and it is issued on a single ticket.

If there are two of you travelling perhaps you could take advantage of the Swissair / Qantas partnership for flights to Australia. One person gets award travel (ie using SR/Qantas for 190,000 miles), the other pays a recognised Biz Class fare offered by these two airlines in combination. The only caveat is that while QF and SR offer joint fares FROM Australia, I'm not sure if it works in reverse. Is anyone able to confirm this?

Regards

WG

Edited in placed to change my references from 'QF' to read Qantas. For clarity we should stick to using 'QF' as an indicator for Qantas - not Qualiflyer!!



[This message has been edited by LHR/MEL/Europe FF (edited 09-12-2002).]

Upgradable classes in Cathay Pacific economy
B, H, K, M, L, S and Y are upgradable with Qualiflyer miles.

I just called Qualiflyer:

They can only request an upgrade IF you already have a booking reference. They are unable to tell you in advance whether it will be available. This basically means you would be playing a risky game if you want to book non-refundable, you might just end up in economy after all !