Most of our readers would have heard that Qantas announced changes to their redemption pricing last week. As part of the overhaul, the popular oneworld Classic Flight Reward will also increase in price in Premium Economy, Business (the most popular) and First Class; Conversely, Economy Class prices decreased immediately from the time of the announcement.
Here is a comparison of the points pricing before and after the changes:
| Cabin | Until 17 September 2019 | From 18 September 2019 | Change |
| Economy | 132,400 | 132,400 | -6% compared to previous 140,000 price |
| Premium Economy | 210,000 | 249,600 | +19% |
| Business | 280,000 | 318,000 | +14% |
| First | 420,000 | 455,000 | +8% |
As a point of comparison, you can book a round-the-world Business Class ticket with only 210,000 Asia Miles or 240,000 KrisFlyer miles (cheaper than Qantas) or 372,000 Velocity Points (more expensive).
My advice
If you have been saving your points up for a round-the-world ticket in Premium Economy, Business or First Class, try to lock in your booking before 18 September. That can include travel for after this date, but you’ll need to ticket your itinerary before then. If you don’t, you’ll need 38,000 more points in Business Class, for example.
Economy Class redemptions used to cost 140,000 points—that’s dropped to 132,400 effective immediately. That means you will save 7,600 points and can book anytime from now!
Qantas has stated that there has been a 40% and 20% increase in international Business and Economy Class award seat bookings, respectively, since the announcement. In addition, there has been a 25% increase in reward bookings from members who have never previously redeemed points for an award seat.
Olivia Wirth, CEO of Qantas Loyalty has stated:
We’ve been overwhelmed by the level of interest in the changes to our frequent flyer program. Early indications show members are already seeing the benefits of more seats and lower fees.
The increase in international Business Class award seats has been backed up by some Point Hacks readers. However, it remains to be seen whether the increased award availability will remain at these levels in the longer term. Hopefully it does!
In this guide
I’d imagine that the majority of Qantas frequent flyers usually use their points to redeem award travel for simple one-way or return tickets to Europe, the US, Asia or domestically.
However, there is a great value points redemption that allows for up to 15 flights with Qantas and oneworld partner airlines—the oneworld Classic Flight Reward—which can be used for up to 35,000 miles of travel, in Economy, Premium Economy, Business or First Class.
In this guide, we outline how Qantas oneworld Classic Rewards work as a great way to maximise the value of your Qantas Points for round-the-world (RTW) trips.
Do note that these awards do not technically have to go around the world, but this is the most common use for them. See FAQs later on for more information.
We have a supplementary guide specifically for travellers in Perth and Adelaide.
And there is a RTW guide using KrisFlyer miles or Velocity Points.
Why does Qantas have four different award tables?
- Qantas Classic Flight Rewards: the cheapest price table for Qantas and its preferred partners of Airnorth, Air Vanuatu, American Airlines, Emirates and Fiji Airways
- Jetstar Classic Flight Rewards: for Jetstar flights only; this is 20% less than the Qantas Classic price
- Partner Classic Flight Rewards : for travel on one and only one of Qantas oneworld or partner airlines (excluding preferred partners)
- oneworld Classic Flight Rewards: for itineraries including two or more oneworld airlines; the focus of this guide
The key uses for the oneworld Classic Flight Reward are to fly:
- further (i.e. RTW)
- on more carriers
- on more flights
compared to redeeming an award using one of the other three tables.
Why does a Qantas oneworld RTW redemption represent good value?
A RTW itinerary booked as a oneworld Classic Flight Reward is one of the best ways to maximise the value of your Qantas Points.
The RTW ticket allows you to explore the world and stopover in up to five cities over a 12-month period, provided there is award availability and the total distance is kept under 35,000 miles.
If you bought a RTW ticket with cash, retail fares usually start from $3,000 in Economy, $11,000 in Business and upwards of $20,000 in First. We know that RTW Business Class itineraries are very popular with couples and with this guide, some of our readers have saved between $20,000-$35,000 in out-of-pocket costs.
With this award, you can choose from over 1,000 destinations in more than 150 countries covered by the oneworld alliance:
- American Airlines
- British Airways
- Cathay Pacific
- Finnair
- Iberia
- Japan Airlines
- LATAM (leaving the alliance on 1 October 2020)
- Malaysia Airlines
- Qantas
- Qatar Airways
- Royal Jordanian
- S7 Airlines
- Sri Lankan Airlines
Emirates is not part of the oneworld alliance and, therefore, cannot be included in this itinerary.
Comparing the different long-haul Qantas Point redemption options
If you analyse the table below, you can see that tacking on a significant amount of extra flying comes with only minimal additional points cost.
Until 17 September 2019
| Cabin | Melbourne to London return on Qantas or Emirates | Melbourne to London return on Qatar Airways | oneworld Classic Flight Reward |
|---|---|---|---|
| Economy | 110,400 | 132,400 | 132,400 |
| Premium Economy | 192,000 | 225,000 | 210,000 |
| Business Class | 256,000 | 278,000 | 280,000 |
| First Class | 384,000 | 406,000 | 420,000 |
| Miles travelled | 21,007 | 21,007 | Up to 35,000 |
From 18 September 2019
| Cabin | Melbourne to London return on Qantas or Emirates | Melbourne to London return on Qatar Airways | oneworld Classic Flight Reward |
|---|---|---|---|
| Economy | 110,400 | 132,400 | 132,400 |
| Premium Economy | 216,800 | 249,600 | 249,600 |
| Business Class | 289,200 | 318,000 | 318,000 |
| First Class | 433,800 | 455,000 | 455,000 |
| Miles travelled | 21,007 | 21,007 | Up to 35,000 |
Say you want to fly return to Europe on Qantas or Emirates (which is a preferred partner). You’ll be up for 256,000-289,200 points in Business Class or 384,000-433,800 in First, plus taxes and fees of $500-1000.
Or you could fly one of their non-preferred oneworld partners like Qatar Airways, Cathay Pacific or British Airways for 278,000-318,000 points in Business or 406,000-455,000 in First.
By comparison, you could fly almost double the distance (up to 35,000 miles) and have stopovers in five cities for the same price as flying on the latter combination of airlines (Qatar Airways, etc).
Just note that not all oneworld carriers operate a Premium Economy cabin, so you’ll want to target British Airways, Cathay Pacific and Qantas flights—other flights would be in Economy.
Example 1: 32,000 miles in Business Class for 280,000-318,000 Qantas Points
The following basic Business Class itinerary totals 26,000 miles flown, well within the 35,000-mile maximum:
- Sydney to Johannesburg with Qantas
- Johannesburg to London with British Airways
- London to New York with American Airlines or British Airways
- New York to Hong Kong with Cathay Pacific
- Hong Kong to Sydney with Qantas or Cathay Pacific
If you want to check the mileage of a range of flights, I recommend inputting the airport codes into Great Circle Mapper to get the total distance, ensuring you are keeping it under the 35,000-mile maximum.
Because the Qantas RTW reward allows you to have up to 15 connections, you do not necessarily have to fly the most direct route, as above. This is handy when there are no seats available on the most direct route and you have to fly to your destination via a different city.
Another benefit is that you can also stop in cities for under 24 hours. As long as it 23 hours and 59 minutes, it is considered a ‘transit’ rather than a stopover.
The sample itinerary above only has five connections, so let’s tweak it slightly and add more connections
- Sydney to Johannesburg with Qantas
- Johannesburg to London via Doha with Qatar Airways
- London to New York with British Airways or American Airlines
- New York to Hong Kong via Los Angeles and Tokyo with American Airlines, Japan Airlines and Cathay Pacific
- Hong Kong to Sydney with Qantas or Cathay Pacific
This sample itinerary now comes in at a little under 32,000 miles.
You don’t have to tack on long flights, of course. Adding on a number of smaller flights to reach non-hub cities, if that is where you want to go, is also a very useful way to get value from this award.
Example 2: 34,000 miles in Economy Class for 132,400 Qantas Points
Point Hacks reader Mark shared his round-the-world journey to South America, Europe and South Africa in the comments below, costing him 140,000 points (at the time) in Economy. The same journey in Business Class would have cost 280,000-318,000 points, or 420,000-455,000 in First.
When drawing his map on Great Circle Mapper, I can see that the total distance flown was 34,343 miles, within the 35,000-mile limit:
How to research and book a Qantas oneworld Classic Flight Reward
Like other award redemptions, seats are subject to availability and there is a decent chance you would not be able to fly on the date you desire, so you need to be flexible on dates and routes (as always when using points to travel).
To kick things off, you can use the qantas.com search engine to find most award availability, with the British Airways search engine providing back-up results. You can read more about searching for award space on Qantas partners here.
Once you are ready to book, the simplest way to find reward seats for a RTW itinerary is to search one flight at a time. It can be time-consuming, so have a notepad handy to write down the:
- Date of travel (e.g. 4 July 2020)
- Departure and arrival cities (Adelaide to Doha)
- Flight number (QR 915)
- Departure and arrival times (10:25pm – 5:30am)
Keep repeating this for each city, bearing in mind that sometimes you might need to connect via an intermediary city.
Then book online through the Qantas website or, if you need help and/or want to book a seat on a partner that doesn’t show up on the Qantas website, then phone Qantas Frequent Flyer.
Frequently asked questions
This guide is one of our most-read and has a long comments thread below, so we’ve picked out the most common questions to save you some time.
Please read carefully to see if your question has already been answered in the FAQ or comments section.
Routing
Do I have to go around the world?
No, not necessarily. The award is calculated on total mileage and doesn’t have to go in one direction.
Is backtracking permitted?
Technically, yes, however, some phone agents may apply geographical sense to your itinerary and prevent you from doing so. If so, hang up and call back.
Are transit cities calculated in the total mileage?
Yes, so if you are flying from Sydney to Johannesburg via Hong Kong, you will need to include the two segments, not the direct distance between Sydney and Johannesburg.
Are surface sectors counted?
Yes. A surface sector is when you fly into one airport, make your way on the ground (or a cheap airfare) to another airport to fly out of. For example, if you fly into Berlin, catch a train or bus to Paris, and fly out of Paris, then the mileage between Berlin and Paris will be calculated as part of this award.
Do I need to return to the same airport?
Yes. If you are flying out of Melbourne on a RTW trip, you need to return to Melbourne at the end of it.
Can I travel more than 35,000 miles?
No. Once you go even one mile more, it will recalculate as separate awards and be much more expensive.
Is it cheaper to start my redemption from overseas instead of Australia?
Yes, it can be! Read our two-part series on how to save points and taxes by starting your oneworld redemption from Asia or New Zealand.
Pricing
How do I add segments?
You can add segments for most airline partners (except Japan Airlines) online, but note that you’ll be charged a 5,000-point change fee each time you alter your itinerary, so try to lock down as many flights and dates as you can at the start.
If you need to phone the call centre to make a change and are flying in Economy or Premium Economy, you’ll be charged an extra 8,000-point service fee; premium cabins do not attract this fee.
Can I mix cabins, e.g. fly Business Class for most segments and First Class for one or two?
The award is calculated on the rate for the highest cabin, which means that even if you have one First Class flight and the rest are in Business, you will be charged 420,000-455,000 points instead of 280,000-318,000. This means you’re best to stick to the same cabin the whole way.
How are infant and child fares calculated?
If you have a child under two years of age, then you just pay the taxes, no points. If a child is two years of age of older, then they are charged the full adult rate for points redemptions.
Why should I avoid flying British Airways?
Because they charge high fuel surcharges. Read more in our guide to airlines and frequent flyer programs that charge the lowest fuel surcharges.
Why should I avoid flying out of the UK?
Because departing flights from the UK are charged the Air Passenger Duty. However, if your transit through the UK is less than 24 hours, then your departing flight won’t be charged the APD. Read more in our guide to cities and countries to aim for to minimise taxes and fees.
Booking
Can I book this award online?
Yes, you can, and we recommend it. Remember to use the multi-city search tool on the Qantas website, not the round-the-world tool on the oneworld website.
The only exception is that if you include Japan Airlines in your itinerary, you’ll need to phone Qantas. And be prepared for potential long wait times.
Can I include Emirates in my itinerary?
No, Emirates is not part of the oneworld alliance, therefore it is not eligible for this award.
What should I do if the phone agent doesn’t seem to know what they’re doing?
Hang up and call back.
Summing up
Qantas oneworld Classic Flight Rewards require a lot of points comparatively to redeem simple one-way redemptions but you can get a hell of a lot of travel squeezed into one itinerary.
You’ll be able to see at least five cities and, if you’re clever, add overnight stops of up to 24 hours in connecting cities too.
Just remember to keep your total distance flown to under 35,000 miles and try to book as many of the flights as you can at the start so you’re not slugged with change and service fees.
Have you successfully redeemed your Qantas Points for a RTW award and, if so, where did you go?
I was just reading another article on how to find awards flights, and the main recommendation is to book as early as possible. How do I reconcile that with needing to book all legs of a 6 month RTW trip in advance (meaning that the earlier flights in the itinerary can only be booked a max 6 months in advance?).
In relation to oneworld Classic Flight Rewards, the recommendation is to book your flights as early as possible to maximise your chances of finding award availability in your desired cabin class. There is no strict requirement that you must book all of your flights in a certain timeframe before your departure, but obviously, all flights will need to be booked before the departure date of your first flight in order to benefit from the excellent oneworld Classic Flight Reward pricing.
What some members do is book as many flights as they possibly can availability in, and as more availability opens up for the remaining desired flights, add them onto to the itinerary at that time. For Business and First redemptions, this comes at a cost of 5,000 points per amendment to the booking, but this approach increases the chances of finding all your flights for your itinerary, as you lock in those flights that you can find, and then only a small number of other flights are left to find.
We’ve been in touch with Qantas 3 times over SMS support and last night on hold for over 2hrs (not exaggerating) without success. What we have since last week is a re-issued itinerary from Qantas showing two identical flights with the correct date (Class U & I, 4 seats) but Cathay Pacific confirm that while they see this, the itinerary Qantas recently issued is not valid for checkin and still shows the messed-up date for the first flight.
What’s the best contact for getting through to someone competent at Qantas that can rectify their error, for what seems to be a complex issue?
I think your best bet here is to call them (try and utilise their call back option if it’s offered) and then explain that this is the 4th time calling to rectify an error from their end involving a complex oneworld Classic Reward flight itinerary. Then kindly request to speak to a Manager, highlighting that the previous attempts to rectify the issue through the normal customer service line were unsuccessful.
I also try to call during business hours as I have found that the staff working on customer service at that time are usually a bit more knowledgeable.
Is there a process to try upgrade this flight if availability becomes available and if so, do I talk to Qantas or Malaysia Air?
Also, is there an option to upgrade the BA HND-LHR to first (or any other leg where first is available) and if so, what’s the best way? Anyone with info or experience with this chiming in would be greatly appreciated.
So I use the multi city to search from Rewards flights, but use the RTW to book? Is that how it works? Thanks for you help. I always use your site to apply for my next credit card! Appreciate all the info you guys put out!
Yes, it can be confusing. You book through the multi-city if you are looking to redeem frequent flyer points for a oneworld classic flight reward. If you meet the conditions of this specific award, it prices accordingly and you then book. You only use the RTW option if you are looking to pay in cash.
Just wanting to know does status impact your availability when booking a RTW award flight.
If you are Qantas Bronze booking 2 x First class Qantas RTW Award, would this make booking more difficult ?
The availability is no different to if you were looking for each sector individually through the Qantas website. That is, availability can be better for Gold or higher Qantas members.
Thank you so much for this guide, it has been tremendously helpful.
Can I please enquire about baggage allowances?-
1. If I am booked in business class for most of the trip, and will have the extra baggage allowance, will this be affected if one of the sectors is in economy?
2.I see that different airlines within Oneworld also offer different baggage allowances. Baggage allowances also vary depending on destinations. eg US typically has allowances of 3 x 32 in business, but 2 x 20kg from/to other destinations. How does this work if one is flying from :-
Australia to the US, then to Europe
Europe to Qatar
Qatar to Australia (direct or via an Asian destination)
Thank you for your assistance.
Your baggage allowance is determined by the operating carrier for the travel class that you are booked in. For example, if you are flying AA in Business between Europe and US, the AA, Business to USA baggage limits apply.
In regards to your Economy sector, the Economy baggage rules for your airline will apply if it is a standalone sector. The exception is if your Economy leg is tagged on as a transit (<24 hours) with a Business sector on the same airline. In that case, the Business baggage rules will apply.
I understand if you fly into one city and leave from another after more than 24hrs you need to count this as a sector. Does the same rule apply if you fly into/out of a different airport in the same city (LGW/LHR or LAX/SNA for example)?
There are a number rules to consider here:
Up to five free Stopovers (ie stays >24 hours) are permitted; and
Only one Stopover is permitted in any one city in the Itinerary
Surface Segments are permitted as part of oneworld Classic Flight Reward Itineraries, but the distance between the disembarkation point and the next embarkation point will be included in the Reward Point zone calculation for that Itinerary
So arriving at say LGW and leaving LHR 25 hours later will be counted as a Stopover and use up your Stopover in any one city condition for London. Also, the distance between LGW and LHR will be added on as a Surface Segment when calculating the overall miles for your itinerary.
With not much luck finding any kind of business class availability on a few routes through the QF or BA websites, I tried using the AA search engine to seek business class availability to find that there are abundance of seats available for the same flights which showed no seats through the QF or BA websites.
I am not just talking about AA flights either. This is particularly the case for JL and QR flights.
Could I book via the QF call centre based on the availability I am seeing on the AA website searches and not QF’s website?
So, short answer, no—the Qantas phone agents will only be able to book what they can see on their system, not on AA’s.
A quick follow up question. Am I able to add Fiji Airways as part of the itinerary? Thanks heaps again for your help.
This is a good question. The oneworld classic flight reward extends to all oneworld members and their affiliates (eg Qantaslink), but does not extend to oneworld connect members. Therefore you will not be able to add Fiji Airways.
Could you please let us know which airlines you are using for each sector? Thanks.
Can anyone suggest why it can’t be done? It’s not a crisis as it’s easy (and not that expensive) to buy domestic fares home but it would be nice to maximise the benefit of our award booking.
We have been having similar problem with Qantas booked 14 flights around the world
With 4 different airlines in business class and had no problem but when trying to get business class seats on Qantas even when the seats are on the website the consultant can not book better than economy.
Consultants don’t know the rules or they seem to make them up in my opinion Qantas is holding back as many business class seats as they can until the chanjege of rules with the Qantas of points is enacted.
As for the rules can someone clarify all of them???
I am planning; hopefully, a 10 week long business class classic flight reward itinerary that commences July next year. As a bronze FF I know my availability will be limited and therefore am thinking I will start booking the trip in segments as flights become available rather than wait and book the whole trip at once. To do this, do I have to make my first booking with two different oneworld partners to qualify as a one world reward itinerary? Or can I book a business class trip with cathay and then ring up qantas two weeks later and add a trip with qatar and then convert it to a oneworld Reward. Any info or tips greatly appreciated
If you need to make changes to your booking after 18 September 2019, you will be subject to 5000 points change fee, an 8000 points service fee (which is waived for Business and First class redemptions) + any fare difference per passenger.
Therefore, you will be subject to the new rates due to the inclusion of “any fare difference per passenger”.
Thanks for your consistently great content!
Would you be able to help answer,
If one leg is changed of a multi leg award booking to a different arrival and depature city,
will the taxes and surcharges be refuded for the orginal leg?
Cheers!
If booking this one flight at a time, I understand I’ll incur change fees, but how do I make sure it is booked in accordance with the Oneworld Classic Flight Reward that caps out at 35,000 miles, rather than it just being booked as a Partner Classic Flight Reward. I noticed these have separate tables for the number of points required, and whilst the Partner Classic Flight Reward table provides lower points for individual flights, I want to make sure I actually get the Oneworld Classic Flight Reward to go round the world.
Thanks for all your help!
Taxes won’t be changing as a result of the change. It is only the carrier charge that Qantas levies that has changed.
Please see the following for changes to oneworld classic flight redemptions: https://www.qantas.com/au/en/frequent-flyer/use-points/classic-flight-rewards/tables.html
Business oneworld classic flight redemptions (in zone 10) will be increasing from 280,000 to 318,000 points on 18 September 2019, while in Economy class, this has decreased from 140,000 to 132,400 from Thursday 20 June 2019.
Can you please help with two questions regarding RTW award flights?
how far ahead does Qantas release the reward availability? I’m looking to travel around (US & Europe) during July 2020. Looking at the article & comments here it seems I could book up to a year (353 days?) ahead, but that sounds extreme to me and doesn’t give me any flexibility to change my travel plans. What do you think? Is the availability better a year out?
to what extent does QF status make a difference when booking a RTW reward flight. I’ll get to Gold by the time my membership year ends in October, but if I need to book a year ahead in July (see question 1), I may have to do a few extra flights so I can get to Gold before I book. Is it worth the effort – is the availability better if you’re Gold compared to Bronze/Silver?
Thanks very much!
Doug
Can you please help with two questions regarding OneWorld Classic reward flights (business class, two people)?
how far ahead does Qantas release the reward availability? I’m looking to travel around (US & Europe) during July 2020. Looking at the article & comments here it seems I could book up to a year (353 days?) ahead, but that sounds extreme to me and doesn’t give me any flexibility to change my travel plans. What do you think? Is the availability better a year out?
to what extent does QF status make a difference when booking a RTW reward flight. I’ll get to Gold by the time my membership year ends in October, but if I need to book a year ahead in July (see question 1), I may have to do a few extra flights so I can get to Gold before I book. Is it worth the effort – is the availability better if you’re Gold compared to Bronze/Silver?
Thanks very much!
Doug
I have a question regarding availability for an economy ticket. It is mentioned many times for business you typically need to book close to a year in advance to get availability for reward flights.
But what about economy?
I am looking to do a trip from March 2020 to August 2020 but may not have enough points for my partner and I until approximately end of November 2019. So if I am looking to make the booking around then, or early December, will I struggle with award seat availability in economy?
Thanks!
Thanks for your question.
Firstly with Business, while it is advisable to book around a year out to maximise the chances of seat availability, I managed to construct an itinarary with approximately 18 flights only 5 months out, so it is possible, albeit harder.
Economy redemptions are generally easier to find, but the same rule generally applies in that the earlier you book, the greater your chances for finding award seats.
Im planning a trip that would involve cities like Santiago de Chile, Sydney, Manila, London, Santiago de Chile (and lots of internal flights like PPQ, DUB, BFS, possible MAD).
The issue I have is that I want to do as much as possible in business, but a lot of flights don’t have business seats availability.
Can I book those legs in Economy (to save the business seats for other legs), and if new seats are released closer to the departure date, update them, and still have the 280,000 cap?
And also, if the previous is possible, would changing/updating flights incur in a 5,000 points fee PER flight/leg that I update, or per call?
What you propose is possible to maintain the 280,000 points cap, assuming you meet all the other requirements of a oneworld Classic reward itinerary, as Economy class is a lower cabin class than Business. Of course, if you substitute a Business seat to First for example for one leg, than the cost will jump to 420,000 Qantas points.
The change fee is applied per ticket reissue. So if you change 2 flights segments which are part of one ticket, then you should only be charged 5,000 points.
Has anyone any info for me about whether I’ll:
a. need to pay for a checked in bag, and if so when and how?
b. be able to include any Piedmont flights eg from Phiadelphia to Ottawa?
BTW you may be interested to know that:
Earlier in the year, after the usual massive amounts of time and effort, I booked (but later had to cancel) a multi flight 140,000 QFF points itinerary via the call centre (because I could not book all flights online myself) and
• After I complained to the Airline Customer Advocate, Qantas agreed to refund the 6,000 point booking fee.
• Months later my seat on one flight was cancelled but Qantas did not advise me of this. I only discovered it by accident. So, it pays to regularly check yourself that all your bookings are still OK. Fortunately, Qantas got me another seat on the same flight.
The itinerary we went with for the OneWorld reward in Economy class, coming in at 33,472 miles:
AKL-SYD-HND-PEK-LHR-YYZ-LGA-MIA-GIG-EZE-SCL-LIM-CUZ-LIM-SCL-AKL
Five stopovers in Tokyo (HND), London (LHR), Toronto (YYZ), Rio De Janeiro (GIG) & Lima (LIM), with a total of 12 flight segments. We have a 23h30m “transfer” in Beijing, as well as some overland travel segments in North America & South America.
It took three phone conversations, plus a chat session with Qantas on Facebook with about eight different contacts. I have to say that dealing with them through the Facebook page is quite a nice option. I found that none of the Qantas staff understood the rules of this type of booking, and so it was useful to be able to paste in the T&Cs back to them to help them learn (they actually apologised at one point for not understanding the rules). It then meant that the next person you dealt with was up to speed and you didn’t need to keep repeating yourself. It does take them a few hours to respond to each message though.
Something else that I found is that even if you find a reward seat when searching yourself, it didn’t mean that it would show as available for the Qantas booking agents – this seemed to mostly happen for LATAM, so there’s perhaps some lag in the timing of information being updated.
34,844 miles on Great Circle Mapper! It did require a significant amount of patience, planning and flexibility but was worth it in the end.
Does anyone know if it is possible to change a segment or route once you have commenced one of the legs of the around the world ticket? e.g. changing a segment from Rio to Barcelona (with Iberia) to Rio to London (with British Airways).
Can this be done? if so, should it just incur the 5,000/8,000 point fee and any other ticket re-issue fees.
Any help appreciated.
Thanks
The following condition appears for all Classic Flight Reward bookings, which includes Classic oneworld bookings:
Once any travel has commenced on a Classic Flight Reward, the Reward is considered used, even if the remaining travel is not completed. Points will not be re-credited to the Member’s account for unused ticket coupons.
I have spoken to Qantas about this and some airline partners permit it. It is best you double check with Qantas, AFAIK Malaysian Airlines is the only partner that will not allow Qantas to amend bookings once the journey as started.
However that advice was from 2 years ago and things could have changed.
Anyone know why points aren’t being capped for this itinerary:
SYD>SIN (BA)
SIN>LHR (BA)
LHR>YYC (BA)
SFO>NAN (Fiji Airways)
NAN>SYD (Fiji Airways)
Thanks.
My journey is Sydney – Hong Kong – Doha – Venice. Own flights from Croatia to Oslo. Oslo – Helsinki -Prague – London – Miami. Own return flight to Cuba. Key West – Miami -San Francisco. Finally LAX – Melbourne – Sydney.
I’m looking forward to every part of it, particularly my cheeky Key West – Miami sector, $5 taxes and a birds eye view of the Keys as opposed to $100 car hire battling Miami traffic!
And thanks for dropping by and letting us know, I love reading about the creative routings and trips people go on. Have a glass or more of bubbles! enjoy 🙂
A couple of tips:
Specify “oneworld Classic Flight Reward”, not RTW.
I WAS able to make ONE change to my booking using the multi-city tool. Apparently, you are allowed just ONE change, from then on you need to phone.
When searching for availability on the Qantas site there were a few airports I could not enter into the first “From” field of my plan (ie “LCA” and “DOH”). I got around this by using the Multi-City tool and starting with a random first leg (eg MEL-SYD) and then entering the flight from LCA or DOH that I was after.
In case you are interested, this my booking: MEL-SYD-SCL . SCL-CUZ . UIO-MAD . MAD-LHR-KEF . BCN-LHR-LCA . LCA-DOH-HKG-MEL. $1065 in taxes.
How do I check without making bookings and spending 30mins filling in he schedule to find or get a gauge of how much the surcharges or taxes are?
Is there such thing as a table that shows main destinations and points requirements?
I have read all your post and also the questions and answers. Sorry, but I’m still a little confused. I have enough points to get the business class trip for both my husband and me. If I want to book my first leg 353 days out, when I have the best chance of getting a business class flight out of Brisbane, it will mean that my other legs of the multi trip will not be available. I believe that is correct. If I then book further legs as they become available how do I make sure they are linked together so that I only pay the 280k points for each person and it will eventually (with all bookings) be considered a multi-trip? Won’t each leg be considered a different booking if they are booked weeks apart? I’m happy to be on the ball and try and secure the bookings as they become available and add them to the booking but I’m confused as to how that actually happens. Am I to quote a booking number and ask them to add to that? I read in a reply of yours, Nelson, this:
“If you booked them as single leg flights one at a time, they will be ticketed separately, so you will be charged multiple awards, which could easily add up and the redemptions would end up costing more than the rate for 140,000 economy, 280,000 business or 420,000 first class.”
The thing is, if I wait until all the flights have become available there’s a good chance the first one out of Australia for business class will be gone. How can I avoid this? How can I book one at a time so that they are all treated as the one booking even though the legs are booked separately? If I can book them separately and somehow add them is there a fee for adding another business class booking? I read your reply for economy but how does that work equate for business class:
“If you book the flights separately, you would need to call Qantas and add them as they become available.
That doesn’t sound so bad if you were booking a business/first award.
But…. for Economy class redemption, Qantas will charge you a service fee of 8000 points per passenger every time you make changes.
On top of that, there is a 3500 points to “change” the award.
So every time you call to add a city, you are getting hit with 11,500 points charge per person.”
I’ve read so much of this now I’m wondering whether I’m reading out of date information. I’d much appreciate you clearing this up for me. I know it is a pain to ring Qantas but if that’s the way to go then I’ll do it.
Once again, thank you for your invaluable information and I hope you’ll be able to set me on the straight and narrow. 🙂
You can chance it and wait for all the travel dates to open up, but in my experience, sometimes the award seats might have disappeared, so you are stuck.
For business class, each change is 6,000 points per passenger.
I’ve run a test booking of SYD-LON-MIA-LAX-SYD each a week apart, all economy: 160,000 points.
My actual plan is more detailed than that but still under 35,000mi – comes to much more than 160,000 points.
What am I doing wrong? Has Qantas changed its system?
Thank you so much for this article! I found it very informative and used the information provided as a basis to map out our honeymoon. We are looking at going from
I just would like to ask when is the best time to book Qantas business flights? Every time I have looked, they are all not available even a year out in advance, not sure if this is based on FF tiers. Looking at Sydney to Singapore around beginning of June and Honolulu to Sydney mid July next year.
Thanks,
Jacinta
Sydney to Singapore, if there are no direct flights, you could try looking at Brisbane or Melbourne to Singapore.
Thanks for coming back to me!
We are going from Sydney to Johannesburg, Madrid, Frankfurt to Austin, Hawaii then Singapore or reverse travelling around the 1st of June to 13th of July 2019 and already 2 or 3 of the legs dont have business class available :(.The Sydney to Singapore or reverse leg, every business and premium economy is already booked out, even through Brisbane or Melbourne, could it be to do with my FF status? As I read on the pointhacks page that lower tiered members have access to premium cabins on long haul flights after 308 days.
I am looking at a flight I can see on the QF booking engine for HEL-DUB. It is a AY flight operated by Nordic Regional Airlines. Is that flight eligible for the OW Award booking?
Up to DATA(LIMIT) flight interruptions (ground transportation between one arriving city and the next departing city) can be defined in your itinerary. Please modify and resubmit your request.(#7122)
My itinerary is as follows
MEL – LAX (via BNE)
JFK – KEF (via LHR)
ARN – AMM (via DOH)
AMM – ATH
CDG – DOH
DOH – MEL (via KUL)
Any ideas what I did wrong? I have mapped out every surface and it is still below 35K miles
Great Circle Mapper
I have even added every single transit into the calculation and is still below 35K miles
Great Circle Mapper
I have tried calling the Qantas helpline – but it’s an hour plus expected wait …
Thanks all
It would appear the problem could be around the surface sectors.
Because there are fewer than 16 segments in that itinerary.
If you call Qantas, see if there an option for a call back service.
Great article!
I’m hoping you can answer something for me. Can you return to your home city and have it count as a stopover? I haven’t been able to find any info on this.
I’d like to split up my travel throughout the year and visit Japan early in the year, head home, then head to the UK a few months later.
My plan is ADL-NRT-ADL then a few months later ADL-LHR-ADL. With transits it comes in under 32k miles. Although it may not be the most efficient use of a RTW redemption it still seems a lot better value than separate return redemptions.
Thank you.
I just read in the terms and conditions “14.3.5 – A Classic Reward Flight itinerary must contain no more than one departure from the city or country of first departure on that itinerary.”
So I would say no, not possible.
Can anyone see why this itinerary would not price at 140,000 QFF points?
PER-HKG-JFK-ground leg-LGA-YYZ
stop Toronto
YYZ-LHR-HEL
stop Helsinki
HEL-ICN
stop Seoul
ICN-HKG-PER
It’s not even 30,000 miles, and the stops are all on different continents with no transits more than 8 hours all the way along. Any help?!
The only airline that I ever looked at to fly to Havana on award points was Virgin Atlantic. I never looked at the One World alliance partners.
As others have said – this article is very informative.
I’ve been trying to work out a way to book my itinerary on the Qantas multi-city tool but it literally crashes every time I try to work it. Wondering if anyone has done something similar to my idea.
I’m wanting to visit all the wonders of the world (excluding Great Wall as I’ve already been there). I know there are too many stops – but surely it can be achieved with a little magic. I think it would be amazing if I could pull it off.
The example itinerary is follows:
SYD – Cancun
Cancun – Lima
Lima – Rio
Rio – Rome
Rome – Amman
Amman – Cairo
Cairo – Delhi
Delhi – Syd
Is anyone able to lend their expertise re the above? Perhaps I could leave Amman & Cairo out and do this externally?
Any help to brainstorm is appreciated 🙂
The engine crashes for a number of unknown reasons, I would write down the Error Code that it generates, and speak to a Qantas phone agent.
They should waive the phone booking fee if you prove to them that you made an effort to book online however the website keeps generating an error.
However, for the purposes of a Qantas redemption, as long as the flight you selected is listed under the Business column, then it will be classified as a business class redemption.
So the Qantas engine will not reprice the redemption as First Class.
Trying to book our first RTW using multi city tool but the website doesn’t seems to recognize its RTW booking. Using Great Circle Mapper website our total miles is less 35K miles including surface sector. Can anyone please help what I’m doing wrong? Qantas wants me to charge 414K for business class
PER DOH 5,789 mi QATAR
DOH WAW 2,451 mi QATAR
WAW CDG 837 mi Surface Sector
CDG GRU 5,829 mi LATAM
GRU LIM 2,160 mi LATAM
LIM SCL 1,524 mi Surface Sector
SCL LAX 5,569 mi FIJI
LAX NAN 5,519 mi FIJI
NAN MEL 2,403 mi FIJI
MEL PER 1,681 m QANTAS
That trip sounds like its going to be a hoot, thanks for sharing.
I stumbled across this quite a while ago and decided that i would save up our points for my husband and i to do a business or first class RTW trip for my 40th which is in 2 years.
Even though it’s 2 years out i’m starting the planning (half the fun hey!) and had a few questions i was hoping you might be able to help with?
I have never flown business or first class, not even domestically, so for me part of the excitement of this trip is the actual flights, so i want to include the best airlines available to make it the trip of a lifetime.
I haven’t done too much research at this point as far as the exact legs but i think i would like to take in New York, London, France, Italy, Portugal & Spain.
Given that is too many stops, i was thinking about not flying to London and instead travelling there from perhaps France. Your advice on not flying out of London due to cost has been noted!. I would find other means of travelling between Spain & Portugal also.
Do you have any advice or reccommendations on the airlines that have the best business/first class experiences that i could start researching? And on what type of plane ?
I understand that some of the more premium airlines have higher taxes, but depending on cost, i think i’m willing to pay for the ‘experience’
As the flights is part of the experience i don’t mind getting to destinations in a round about manner to capitalise on flying with a great airline.
The idea of having an extra leg (under 24 hours) in a city to experience a little of it would be fun too.
I’ve had zero experience in booking reward flights as we’ve always paid for our overseas travel, so any tips, advice or ideas would be VERY much appreciated!!
Thanks Nelson, look forward to your expert input!
Cheers,
Cath
Thanks for your great article. You have inspired me to start planning a trip for next year.
I’ve read most of the comments but can’t find the answer to my query so…. I know I can’t book Emirates but can I book a QF flight that is operated by Emirates or will that void the 280K points?
Thanks very much for your help,
Rachel
Any flights Emirates, whether it is a codeshare with QF (so it has a QF flight number) in your itinerary will reprice the award and you’ll end up paying much more than 280k because the engine will price it as two or more awards.
Most of the airlines in the One World alliance are great, Cathay Pacific, Japan Airlines, Qantas, Qatar, you can’t go wrong with them.
I have flown only first class on British Airways and I liked it, but their business class product looks really crap in my opinion, plus the taxes are high and British Airways charges you a fee, up to $120 to select your seat in Business!!! the audacity.
Planning these itineraries are frustrating but at the same time, exciting.
If you must fly out of London, try transit through by originating out of another European city (which is great if you are already in Europe) to save yourself paying the high London departure tax.
That is one of those strange quirks in the system, the same thing happens with Singapore Airlines.
Unfortunately there is no way around it, unless you try and call again and speak to another agent who can try to piece it together.
Ive had issues in the past before and one QF agent couldn’t solve it but when I called again, I got a different agent and she booked it without any issues.
I just read in the terms and conditions:
“14.5.3 – ….Oneworld Classic Flight Reward itineraries finishing in a port other than the port of origin must include the distance to return directly to the port of origin when calculating the number of points required to redeem the flight reward and the maximum distance for the itinerary.”
So I would say, yes, this would be possible.
So in a nutshell
Keep under 35k
Use same cabin class
Book in advance
Max 5 stop overs.
Avoid the high tax carrriers.
No emirates
I flew malaysia airline from syd to paris business class and used almist 300k points plus 1100 in tax. Great experience but felt a bit ripped off by the 1100 tax.
Is there a way to pay absolute minimun tax.
I have accumulated 1.7m points. And want to takr me and partner for 1st class bliss. One this year and another one the year after
Are there any other advanced tips?
Adding in 5 stops for less than 24 hours. Can i arrange a daytrip at various countries.
Also i dont want to go on a crappy first xlass. Obviously emirates would be up there but is unavaialablrm what other airlines are up there in paradise?
Also as per your example. Eg first class
420k points to go around the world and multiole stops. But if you used your points to do a return trip via airlines its 408k ppints for a single destination.
Seems like the value of the rtw is magnitutes better for points redemption. I csnt think of a better points to dollar ratio. Am l missing something
I think there is just no way to compare the One World airlines First class product to Emirates, in terms of food, beverage, service, shower etc.
The closest for me, would be Japan Airlines but they stopped flying First Class to Sydney last year.
With the One World alliance, I’ve flown First Class on British Airways, Qantas, Japan Airlines and Cathay Pacific.
They were all good in their own ways and some where better than others, but no one compares to Emirates.
If you have 1.7 million points, I’d try First Class at least once, because the difference in taxes between First and Business are not much, probably $20 or $80.
It is. For me even simple Melbourne to Paris flights i have trouble booking sometimes.
It is frustrating.
This probably won’t help. but scroll right to the bottom on your page and see “Viewing Tips”
click on that and make sure that all your browser status “passed”.
Not sure if it will help, but worth a shot.
Does Qantas have any issue with you booking additional flights outside of this ticket through them but on separate itineraries?
Basically, I would like to use my stopovers as hubs to travel from, but at the same time I still have my loyalty to the program and would like to claim the additional credits from flight I would pay for!
Has anyone ever done this?
Great and informative article, I’ve been researching the RTW for a while and only recently have I started making attempts at booking.
I’ve constructed a business class itinerary that fits into the criteria <35k miles, etc.
ADL-AEP (via SYD/SCL) [Qantas/LATAM]
AEP-BOG (via GRU) [LATAM]
BOG-MEX (via LIM) [LATAM]
MEX-MAD [Iberia]
MAD-HKG [Cathay]
HKG-ADL [Cathay]
Flights between Nov ’18 and Dec ’18.
All hunky dory capping at the 280k points, but at the final step to calculate the fares and taxes the Qantas website returns a “We could not find fare for the requested itinerary (5685 UI)” error.
Has anyone else experienced this issue? Or is there something I’m doing wrong?
Thanks in advance,
Tom
That is a great itinerary. Wonderful way to maximise your points!
And unfortunately the Qantas website has been buggy lately.
I tried to book my flights and have had a lot of issues trying to reach the payment page.
I would suggest calling the agent and booking via the phone, but also letting them know of the website problem so they dont charge you a phone booking fee.
Regards,
Nelson
We had the same problem and was never able to resolve. Qantas advised that it was actually a problem with LATAM, the flights you were seeing were actually not available.
We ended up booking completely different business class itinerary SYD-NRT-LAX-MIA-BOG-JFK-MAD-DOH-SYD (a few indirect flights not listed).
We only wanted to go to BOG though at one stage were looking at other South American destinations and there did seem to be more availability with AA rather than LAN
Hope that helps
Thanks for the replies, agreed that it was both the website being buggy and an issue with LATAM.
However, 3 months after my first attempt I finally got a working itinerary albeit via a slightly different route. Somehow the LATAM system was playing ball with the Qantas Multi-city search and managed to book everything.
ADL-MEX (via SYD/LAX) [Qantas/AA]
MEX-BOG (via DFW) [LATAM]
BOG-SCL [LATAM]
SCL-MAD (via GRU) [LATAM]
MAD-HKG (via BRU) [Iberia/Cathay (on the A350)]
HKG-ADL [Cathay]
33,490 miles, Business class – 280k pts $744 in taxes.
http://www.gcmap.com/mapui?P=adl-syd-Lax-mex-dfw-bog-scl-gru-mad-bru-hkg-adl
I have a few basic questions.
I have been saving points aggressively for years now and have a nice little pile
I want to go all out at minimal cost of course
Years ago I used my qff points to do return business class to a single European country for personal reasons. The trip cost me about 280k points and $1100 on taxes and fuel. At this time there were sale fares to the same destination via economy for about $1200. So I felt I got a free business upgrade for 280k points. Rather than a full trip. I I would have liked to pay very little tax
Your article mentions which airlines have high taxes but is there a way to work out the cheapest taxes. Or how much tax can I possibly pay the least for and do one of the examples posted on the article.
I understand a rtw trip. Via business would cost 6k and above however If I’m using 280k points via rtw and having to pay 2k in taxes feels a bit silly.
Also. Second question. You can have multiple 24 he stopovers without counting as a stop. What’s the point of a 24 hour stopover? I suppose some stops may be a transit and you can’t leave the airport or if you can 24 hours isn’t much to do anything
Any itinerary that involves Qantas, Qatar and British Airways is guaranteed to have high fuel surcharges. Thats from my experience. Cathay Pacific doesn’t charge as much.
The 24h stopover is not technically 24 hours, you are transiting for 23 hours and 59 minutes.
If it is 24 hours or 24 hour and 1 minute, the airline will count that as a stopover.
Reason why I’m asking because I’m interested to try their new A350 for my trips from LHR – KUL next year.
Anyone?
Around the world in 30 days it was a blast. My Itinerary was Sydney Shanghai, Cruise to Kochi Japan, Osaka London, London Milan, Milan London, London NYC, NYC Vancouver, Vancouver San Fran, San Fran Sydney.
All booked through Qantas. I highly recommend this!
Doing my next trip in August!
The planning process wouldn’t be easy but the end result is worth it, crisscrossing the world in the lap of luxury.
In 2015 I flew economy RTW
Melbourne- Sydney- Dallas – Huntsville-Washington DC-London then by high speed train to Paris-Ashford-Brussels-Bruges-Brussels-Amsterdam then back on the plane for Amsterdam-Hong Kong – Melbourne.
In that trip I visited the grassy knoll in Dallas (where JFK was killed), Huntsville Space Centre, Smithsonian Air & Space Museum, Lincoln Memorial, British Museum, Hyde Park, Montmartre, Eiffel Tower, Arc de Triomphe, Palace of Versailles, War Museum, Sacre Coeur, Atomium, Bruges town centre, the Rijkesmuseum, Van Gogh Museum, Kinderdyke, Dysneyladn Hong Kong, The Peak and the Star Ferry and various other attractions. on top of that I also got to steer aq tourist boat down the canals of Amsterdam. Best 140,000 points I ever spent.
For those interested my itinerary is:
MEL-HKG,/HKG-LHR,/LHR-YVR,/YVR-JFK,/JFK-BNA,/JFK-HKG/HKG-BKK/BKK-KUL/KUL-MEL
all up 32.316 miles
Thanks for taking the time to comment.
That is a great itinerary and really wonderful use of your points. You really maximized it with 32,000 miles. What was the taxes on it?
Yes I know, having planned a number of RTWs myself over the years, I know how difficult it is. But it is worth it in the end.
Glad to have helped and I really appreciate the feedback from readers who have found it useful.
Let me know how you go with your trip when its completed.
Regards,
Nelson Yap
.
Thanks for your article and also to the other contributors on the site. I’m new to this but have a Q Amex card for private and business. I’m planning a trip for 2 years away and plan on having enough QFF points for 2 Business RTW flights. Just as well I’m planning this far ahead as there is a lot to learn I am finding out. Not sure how anyone would do it without the help of this site.
Anyway my question (which was sort of answered earlier but I’m still a bit confused):
I am planning a 6 week trip basically Melb/Oslo/Paris/London/New York/ Toronto/ Vancouver/Melb. Probably a surface sector or 2 in there. Obviously it’s best to book 353 days in advance however over 6 weeks from first flight to last how do I do this? I’ve checked Melb/Oslo 6 weeks ago and there are no Business seats left so I can’t leave booking until 6 weeks prior to my last leg.
Thanks for commenting.
In these cases, you will have to book the flights as availability opens up.
Some readers have had success booking 300 days out, and you can take that risk and try to do it then. But it would mean you have given other people 50 days head start.
The only problem with booking it one at a time with qantas is that they will charge you an amendment fee each time,
So if you do that, try to lock in as many flights as possible, so the “amendments” are minimal.
Regards,
Nelson
After a couple of calls to the QFF call centre (which fortunately now seems to operate 24/7) I have the impression that only some affiliates (non budget) can be used, for example Qantaslink but not Jetstar. Also that American Eagle (an AA affiliate) and Cathay Dragon (a Cathay affiliate) are OK.
The full list of oneword affiliate airlines is here:
http://www.oneworld.com/member-airlines/oneworld-airline-affiliates
Also, I am I correct in assuming that, even if there is oneworld airline code sharing, flights on non oneworld airlines can not be used?
It’s a few years since I used points for this type of itinerary and am keen to have accurate up to date info before I invest more time into exploring my options.
Thanks
That is correct, those affiliates are excluded from the RTW.
If you flew Jetstar, even just for a 1 hour flight, you will automatically trigger the ticket to be repriced and it will cost extra.
Non-one world airlines are also excluded, such as Emirates and Alaska airlines or China Eastern.
Are you choosing Emirates? or Pay + Points?
https://www.pointhacks.com.au/qantas-change-cancellation-fee-increase-dec-2016/
Am trying an itinerary, can’t get it down to the 140,000 points. Looking for Feb / March, using Qantas site, all flights have availability on desired dates but showing 197500 points required
bne-hkg (Cathay)
hkg-lax (AA)
Lax-sea-lax-den-dfw-was-ord (all on AA)
overland from ORD – LAX
Lax-hnl (AA)
Hnl-syd-bne (QF)
The distance is 26614 miles, only using oneworld (Qantas, Cathay, American). Am I breaking a rule somewhere?
Am just trying to get all those USA cities and Honolulu for 140k points – only included Hong Kong stopover to get a third OW airline. Any other ideas without the Hong Kong extra also appreciated
I.e. In my itinerary below, I am travelling from Melb to Rio but travelling via Aukland (stopping there for 23 hours) and Santiago (stopping there to 6 hours) and onto Rio. Both are transfers and the main stop is Rio.
Happy planning – it’s half the fun of travelling 🙂
Stop 1: AKL – SYD – LAX – LAS
Qantas, Qantas, American
Overland: LAS – PHL
Stop 2: PHL – FRA – TXL
American, Air Berlin
Overland: TXL – MAD
Stop 3: MAD – MEX
Iberia
Stop 4: MEX – LIM – BOG
LAN Airlines
Overland: BOG – SCL
Stop 5: SCL – AKL
LAN Airlines
Total miles travelled: 34,695
We put together a small guide and map of our route if anyone is interested
http://www.auswallet.com/fly-around-the-world-for-less-than-800/
Thanks so much for an incredibly useful article.
My partner and I are looking to take a year off traveling and use our points balance to book RTW business class flights for the bulk of our trip’s major legs, roughly: BNE SCL EZE LIM SJO YYC JFK CIA DEL KUL DPS BNE, starting March next year.
However, as reward flights are only published about a year before scheduling we can’t book the entire trip now and/or run the risk that some business seats won’t be available if we book closer to departure. Based on the comments on here I see two options and wanted to get people’s thoughts:
1) Book the entire trip at once, probably about six months before travel, compressing the back end flights into the final weeks of the ~355 day period. Then rebook the later half of the flights to the later actual desired dates almost a year later, wearing the 3,500 points/change on the final 4 legs or so. Total cost = about 294k points / seat.
2) Start booking the trip now and add the other flights sequentially, hoping the rules don’t change and the points balance will be righted once RTW rules are met. Total cost = 280k (but might be higher intially)
I’m leaning towards option 1 in around Sept (as I’ll have silver status by then) as I think this would provide greater certainty in case the RTW rules change. What do others think?
Really appreciate everyone’s input,
Tam
I’ve just booked my honeymoon (Iceland, Paris, Kenya, Tanzania, Maldives, HongKong) travelling in November in business, and would like to share a few additional tips
Syd>[Doha]>Paris (Qatar)
Paris>[London]>Nairobi (BA…unavoidable unfortunately)
Nairobi>[Doha]>Male (Qatar)
Male>[HongKong]>Melb (Cathay)
Melb>Syd (Qantas)
Incremental Tips:
– Book using a Platinum or Platinum One friend’s account! Practically speaking there is no risk or cost in borrowing a friend/relative’s status in booking. This gave much more seat availability than my poor 0 status credit Bronze. Given I booked only 4 months out from my trip, I was lucky to get all legs in business except HK to Melb, which is in premium economy on Cathay – not possible with my on QFF account.
– A previous reader asked this too – You CANNOT have 3 stopovers at the same location. I had to use BA rather than Qatar because 3 transits through DOHA was not eligible for the 280K award.
– Augment your trip with additional non-Oneworld flights. I have separately booked Paris to Iceland return, and Nairobi to Tanzania return flights, as trying to find schedules that worked using points is almost impossible. Given they are short distances, booking them in economy did not add much cost to the overall booking
– As mentioned, avoid BA if possible… expensive taxes and charges.
– Use an excel spreadsheet – whenever you find a good potential flight, record the flight number and time onto your spreadsheet. After a few goes (hours) on the multi-city search tool, you’ll have a built up a database that you can mix and match
Does Cairns- Hong Kong- New York (with Cathay) – New York – Toronto (American) -Toronto- Hong Kong – Cairns (Cathay) meet all the rules for around the world ?
Thanks
It started with a friend recommending the Amex Velocity Card (long story short, applied and I now have 150k points). Then applied for the Amex Explorer Card (I know it says you’re not eligible if you have had an Amex card within the past 18 months. I just ticked the box ‘I haven’t had a previous card’, it was approved and before you know it I’ve got 120k points). So, it worked with Explorer card, so why not the Amex Qantas card? (Yep – it did and got 130k points from it).
Then I read this page and it got me thinking – so I applied and got the NAB Qantas Card (65k Qantas points there) and ANZ Black card (95k points in that one). So I’ve ended up with around 150k Virgin points, 295k Qantas points, 120k Explorer points and already have about 30k Qatar points.
So it got me thinking, if I could go anywhere in the world flying Business Class – where would I go? So I designed my bucket list tour – going to continents and places I’ve never been before. It’ll be grueling, but a lot of fun.
First, the One World itinerary and then I’ll go into more detail about the extra’s.
Melbourne to Rio de Janeiro (via Auckland and Santiago)
Rio de Janeiro to Cape Town (via London)
Cape Town to Doha – Hong Kong
Dubai to Hong Kong
Hong Kong to Melbourne
All this come in at just under 35,000 miles (34,340!)
But the actual trip starts in Australia (using the free Virgin flights with the Amex Velocity card) to fly to the Gold Coast (and climb Australia’s tallest residential tower, QV1), then to Sydney to climb the Harbour bridge, then to Darwin to jump in the Croc cage), then to Uluru and skydive over the rock, then back to Melbourne (all this using the Virgin Velocity points).
Then from Melbourne to Auckland (there for less than 24 hours – enough time to jump off the Sky Tower), then to Santiago (6 hours to quickly explore the city) then to Rio! In Rio I will be paragliding over Ipanema beach (and a side trip to Buenos Aires and Montevideo) then off to Cape Town (via London – 8 hours to get to check out the city). Half the trip is the journey and enjoying all that Business Class has to offer.
Cape Town is about getting up and close with great white sharks and then off to Doha. Now you can change your Amex Explorer points to Emirates points. So I’ll use my Qatar points to get to Cairo (great Pyramids), and then jump onto Emirates to get to Petra, Jordan and Agra, India. Then to Dubai and flying Cathy Pacific to Hong Kong. I’ll use that base to get to Beijing (Great Wall) and Seoul. By that stage, my 7 weeks annual leave will be over and time to head back to Hong Kong to fly back to Melbourne.
Trip of a lifetime – thanks to PointsHacks!
Cheers,
Tania
I was lucky where I dont have any debt; a stable job and income and a clear credit history. You’re right – it isn’t advisable to apply to a lot of credit too soon. I checked my credit history with Veda and my score hasnt changed too much.
With Amex – even though I applied for 3 credit cards, only one credit check was done on my file (they already had performed the check so didn’t need to do it again). the application and successful outcome literally took 3 minutes. This may be different for each person depending on your situation. But I applied and received the cards within a 8 month period. I had read that Amex had tightened up people getting the into 100k point bonus offer if they already had the card in the previous 18months – but then also read of a guy who wrote that he flies business every year by applying for the cards every year, getting the points and then closing the account.
Good luck!
Im trying to travel Cairns to Toronto return. The return points flying direct using Cathay Business (Qantas Points) are much higher then 280000. As such can I go Cairns- Hong Kong- New York (with Cathay) – New York – Toronto (American) Toronto- Hong Kong – Cairns (Cathay) and meet all the rules.
Thanks
SYD-MNL on QF
MNL-SFO (via NRT) on JAL
LAX-DUS on Air Berlin
LHR-SIN on MH
PEK-SYD
Individually pricing up all of the flights (not that anyone would pay the individual rates necessarily) came out at close to $40k USD.
I’m now ready to do my next RTW redemption. I’m a little confused as to what constitutes a ‘stop’ and when the backtracking rule kicks in.
E.g.
MEL-KUL
MNL-WAW (via DOH)
DUS-MNL (via HKG)
MNL-SFO (via HKG)
SFO-MEL (via SYD)
Are the stops counted as KUL, MNL, WAW, DUS, MNL, SFO (hence exceeding the 5 stops rule)?
Or are the stops counted as KUL, WAW, MNL, SFO only? (effectively taking the right column of the listed flights)?
Thanks!
That is a great redemption and even better when you know you saved $40k!
A stopover is when it is over 24 hours in a city. If you are in a city for 23 hours and 59 minutes, it is considered a transit.
QF doesn’t really have an official backtracking rule and they are quite flexible, so it is possible to zig zag around.
My trip was as follows, can anyone see if i missed anything… Total was 401,000
Qantas/QantasLink Brisbane – Los Angeles (stop) 96000 8 (7166) Business Qantas
Qantas/QantasLink Los Angeles – New York (stop) 50000 4 (2467) Business Qantas
British Airways New York – London (stop) 53000 4 (3440) Business Partner
British Airways London – Athens (stop) 38000 3 (1500) Business Partner
British Airways Athens – London – Hong Kong (stop) 104000 8 (7491) Business Partner
Qantas/QantasLink Hong Kong – Brisbane (stop) 60000 5 (4315) Business Qantas
Thanks all 🙂
Did you use gcmap.com to tally up?
the Qantas website is a bit glitchy at the moment, so you might need to ticket that via the telephone.
I noticed it the other day when I try to price QF and EK business, it was well within the maximum miles, but QF priced it as 2 awards, from Melbourne to Sydney with QF and Sydney to London via Dubai with Emirates, all up wanted to charge me around 150k points, rather than 128k.
QF seems to be pricing multiple awards when you try online and the glitch isnt going away right now, so our best hope is call and price the itinerary via the telephone and explain that there is a glitch on the website so the agent can waive the phone booking fee.
I am just using this tool: https://www.qantas.com/travel/airlines/multi-city-flight-search/global/en and no amount of date swapping gets me a fare that takes 280000 miles only for business. The best I could get was 475K with a few economy flights to boot.
I have tried all the examples given in this post, including the ones in the comments. There are no Emirates, Malaysia Airlines or Japan Airlines in my bookings.
So I am wondering if I am doing something wrong 🙂 Is that still the right tool?
Yes the post is old but the rates are still current.
Is Jetstar included in any flights or other non One World airlines?
Can you list city pairs (to and from) and airline flying that route.
I tried the same route as Alpha Yankee (for example):
Sydney – Singapore – Helsinki on Qantas and Finnair;
Helsinki – New York on Finnair;
New York – San Francisco on American Airlines;
San Francisco – Phoenix – Honolulu on American Airlines;
Honolulu – Nagoya – Tokyo on Japan Airlines; (with the 1 hour Nagoya – Tokyo flight in economy)
Tokyo – Sydney on Qantas.
No there is no Jetstar option. I get the same airlines as Alpha Yankee, but my total is coming much higher. Further, the option from Tokyo – Sydney doesn’t allow me Business at all.
if that is the case, you probably have to call Qantas once you find the award seats one by one.
You can’t book Japan Airlines with Qantas, that has to be done over the telephone.
Keen to know if I am doing something wrong – I’m having a play around with a RTW trip via the mutli-city booking tool, using classic rewards. I’m keen to do a RTW trip in economy with the 140,000 cap (no potential for extra points).
I’ve put in SYD-HKG-DXB-BCN-JFK-LAX-SYD – comes in at 174,000 – should it be capping out at 140,000? Only 25,000 miles. Let me know if I’m doing something wrong!
Cheers,
Luke
What airlines have you selected?
We monitored and researched all flights through the Qantas and BA search engines (only used BA to search for JAL flights) online before we called Qantas. By the time I picked up the phone, all flights’ availability were researched and written down – the phone call took no more than 15 minutes.
Distance wise it’s not pushing the boundary – a total of 28,978 miles (46,636km) according to Great Circle Mapper, but it takes us to exactly where we want to be:
Sydney – Singapore – Helsinki on Qantas and Finnair;
Helsinki – New York on Finnair;
New York – San Francisco on American Airlines;
San Francisco – Phoenix – Honolulu on American Airlines;
Honolulu – Nagoya – Tokyo on Japan Airlines; (with the 1 hour Nagoya – Tokyo flight in economy)
Tokyo – Sydney on Qantas.
Great redemption and great use of points, truly well worth the 18 months month.
Multi-city and RTW are my favorite redemptions.
I always look forward to reading about readers taking advantage of this redemption and maximising their points.
Why visit only one city when you can visit a number of cities for only slightly more points.
Barcelona was fantastic, 1.50 euro margaritas, 3.0 euro tapas dinners, washed down with 2 litre sangria for only 4 euros, it is wonderful! Just be prepared to have dinner at 9-10PM haha
The Cathay Pacific noodle bar has delicious succulent prawn dumplings, made fresh and on demand, definitely a great way to end your trip on your way back to Melbourne.
The Qantas lounge in Hong Kong also has yum cha too but only operates when there are Qantas flights operating, so worth checking to see if your departure is timed with a Qantas flight departure.
But obviously the lounge food can’t beat the real delicious food in Hong Kong.
Melbourne to Santiago (overnight but not more than 23h55m) on to Lima and then Cusco
Cusco-Lima-Miami
Miami-Madrid
Madrid-Johannesburg
Johannesburg-Hong Kong
Hong Kong-Melbourne
This article has been so helpful. I have known what route I wanted for a while and checked seat availability on BA first so as soon as the points went on I was able to ring and score the seats. I had to book via the call centre as I couldn’t access the flights on the Qantas website. They charged me 6000 points per seat for assisting.
I’ll echo other comments here and say the call centre can be good, but it does depend on who you get. The first person I got I had to really step through the process. It required about three further phone calls as they were having trouble calculating the taxes but finally it all went through yesterday. (One of the calls was to get most of the flights back as they’d been cancelled by other airlines because Qantas hadn’t sorted the fees out in time).
I’m flying LATAM, Iberia and Cathay Pacific and the taxes came to $1400 each (of which $950 was fuel surcharges). Thanks to everyone for all the helpful comments – this is such a great way to use points and I can’t wait!
The taxes and surcharges are stinging but when you consider that $1400 is not even enough to fly one-way economy class to USA, I think you have done really well to do this entire trip in Business Class!!!
A retail fare on One World for your itinerary would have cost at least $10,000, so this is a bargain.
By the way if you had trouble with Qantas website, normally the agent is supposed to waive the 6,000 points booking fee.
It is up to you, you can probably chase it up and get it refunded, although the thought of being on hold for 2 hours on QF (I don’t have status), probably not worth it for 6,000 points haha.
Enjoy your trip, I’ve never been to Madrid, but I heard great things about it.
If you have time, take the high speed rail to Barcelona, it is around 2 hours 30mins, and Barcelona is a beautiful city – one of the favorite destinations in Europe.
From Barcelona you can also take high speed trail to Paris, only 5 hours! haha sorry I’m getting carried away.
Anyway, don’t forget to enjoy the multiple Cathay Pacific and Qantas lounges in Hong Kong, they are my favorite places to get dumplings and won tons.
Thanks for stopping by and sharing your experiences!
I’m trying to do this, but it’s really hard… check out my challenge on the link above…
Unfortunately it is first come first serve.
And trying to book First class 4 months out will be difficult.
When i booked my RTW F class award three years ago, I booked it 11 months out.
My advice is to keep looking, revenue management could release more seats.
Booked 2 x business class flight reward seats for 280,000 QF points each, in all the sectors in July 2016 for travel in June 2017 for:
Sydney – Stockholm (Sydney-Adelaide QF, Adelaide-Stockholm via Doha Qatar, Stockholm-Lisbon BA via London, Lisbon-Barcelona Iberia via Madrid, Barcelona-Hong Kong Qatar via Doha and Hong Kong-Sydney with Cathay.
Since it was an early booking there were some flight changes that caused connecting flight problems, but calls to Qantas fixed the issues – they were very helpful – and was not charged any additional points.
That is a great redemption Ian, and great value out of the points when you consider that QF charges 139,000 points one-way for redemption flying One World partner airlines.
So your Sydney to Europe trip, would have cost 278,000 points booked as two one-way journeys, and you would have to pay extra $$$ for the internal Europe flights.
But for an extra 2,000 points, you have been able to secure all the internal flights within Europe as well, which has saved you between $1000-$3000, assuming you are flying business within Europe.
I know business class intra-europe is nothing special but lounge access is a godsend.
If you are going via London, you can probably stop by the new Cathay Pacific lounge, it looks fantastic or try out the new Cathay Pacific Hong Kong lounges.
Can you only see Economy seats?
Normally internal US flights, they call their business class as “first class”. so be careful when selecting, because you don’t want to pay First class award rates.
Yes correct, select classic flight reward.
Your guide has been so helpful, thanks greatly for writing it!
I’m a little confused about the five stopover rule. Your “example two” has Sydney as origin plus 12 cities. Does this mean 7 of those cities had under 24 hours of tourism time in each?
When does it make sense to make something a “surface sector”?
If you don’t wish to change counties every 24 hours is the trick then to pick the six most expensive flights (Origin – City 1, 1-2, 2-3, 3-4, 4-5, 5 – Origin) to include in capped amount, and fill anything else in with “surface sectors” paid out of pocket?
It depends on your itinerary, a surface sector gets added into the total mileage.
But in my mind, I suppose if you are in some random European town and you want to drive to another European town/city but don’t want to head back to the airport which is 600km away, get on a plane and fly to the another city, then you just drive or take the train.
I dont understand you last question? This itinerary does allow you stop in each city you are visiting and could be more than 24 hours.
I.e. If you want to fly into Paris and take the train to Barcelona and fly out of Barcelona, the distance between Paris and Barcelona is added towards your mileage allowance.
Otherwise you can take the train Paris to Barcelona and back, and fly out of Paris, and no extra mileage will be added to your itinerary.
ADL-KUL-BKK (Adelaide to Bangkok)
BKK-HKG-DFW-CUN (Bangkok to Cancun, Mexico) + make own way to Austin
AUS-LGA (Austin Texas to New York)
JFK-TXL (New York to Berlin)
TXL-ZUR-MAD (Berlin to Madrid, with transit layover in Zurich) + make own way to Dublin
DUB-LHR-HKG-ADL (Dublin to Adelaide)
140,000 points for economy + $1021 taxes
FYI: It took a little over 2 hours on the phone, which did include trying to find alternatives to two legs as mentioned (I’d been on hold for 25 min before getting answered, Monday 9.15am AEST approx).
Also doing it via the phone means you can redeem on One World partners not searchable via the QF online search engine. Partners like Japan Airlines and Malaysia Airlines just to name a few.
Melbourne to Tokyo. Japan Airlines. 4 nights
Tokyo to Hong Kong(transit) to San Francisco. 6 nights.Cathay Pacific. First leg may be Japan Airlines?
San Francisco to New York. American Airlines 7 nights
New York to London…..Are taxes less at Gatwick or Heathrow and do all one world airlines fly into both (Need to stay here for a couple of weeks ) Not sure who best to fly with as It is suggested that BA have high taxes?? American Airlines?
London to Copenhagen, again staying for a month or so .. Who will be cheapest with taxes and surcharges in Europe? Air Berlin? Cathay Pacific?
Copenhagen back to Melbourne. Cathay Pacific via Hong Kong.
Sorry for so many questions but I am trying to get it right the first time so I have less changes to make. We are flexible with where we fly into or transit through.Thanks in advance for your help and suggestions of alternatives from anyone are welcome.
Nanette
The One World airlines to avoid are British Airways, Qantas and Qatar. Although Qatar is not as bad as BA and QF.
Unless the flights originate from Hong Kong where the surcharges are lower due to government regulations. But because your flight originates from Australia, that won’t apply.
If you depart from London and your flight distance is less than 2000 miles, you won’t pay a huge Advanced Passenger Departure (APD) tax.
From April 01 2017, APD taxes for business/first class passengers departing is up to 150 pounds per passenger compared to 13 pounds if you fly out of UK to a country less than 2000 miles.
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/rates-and-allowances-excise-duty-air-passenger-duty/rates-and-allowances-excise-duty-air-passenger-duty
However you can avoid that APD, if you are transiting
Also, I’m likely to end my trip in Europe before home to Adelaide, and my searches keep throwing up Emirates as the only option on the final leg, which means the points don’t get capped with the inclusion of Emirates. Any thoughts on alternatives?
Mel – dubai
Dubai – london
London – paris
Paris – berlin
Berlin – London – New york
New York – LA
La – mel
All around Easter in 2016, but booked a full year in advance.
Taxes about $1000 but a great use of points.
Could you clarify one thing for me? “Avoid flying out of the UK”… does this mean only LHR? Say, does London City still charge the same surcharges/taxes/fees, whatever they may be?
Thanks, Deb
Cathay Pacific, British Airways (Sin-Syd) and Qatar are all searchable on Qantas engine.
Yes you can.
I would suggest having a look at Cathay Pacific, Qantas, British Airways, Qatar flights across all capital cities.
Cathay flies to Perth, Adelaide, Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane and Cairns and they typically open up unsold seats 2 weeks out from desired travel date.
And the cost to tag that flight with QF at the call centre would be 3500 QF points if you are booked in Business Class or First. Costs more if its an economy class redemption.
We just have to be flexible.
In my upcoming trip, I couldn’t get any seats out of Melbourne, so I’m transiting via Sydney instead.
Economy Reward 110,000 Qantas points
Carrier charges and taxes £529
Economy Fare £38
Carrier charges and taxes £529
Valuing 110,000 points @ £38 seems a bit rubbish.
I’ve never been a fan of using points for economy class redemptions, particularly with carriers which charge a hefty surcharge.
It is not good value for money in my opinion, since economy class tickets are so cheap.
Can I clarify infants charges though?
Infant is 22 months at the date of the first flight.
Trip is 6 months long, so the child will be over 2 years at the conclusion.
Aside from the infant taxes, will they be charged all, some or none of the points for the trip?
Obviously, the entire trip would need to be booked on the single booking number.
If you are an AMEX cardholder or hold another card which transfer to Asiamiles, i would look at Asiamiles because a similar itinerary costs 190,000 miles (5 stops and up to 35,000 miles) in business or 270,000 miles in first class, vs 420,000 QF points.
However some people will argue that QF points is easier for them to earn.
Is there a similar option to RTW fare using velocity points?
Thanks
Eyal
Thanks very much. Unfortunately velocity doesn’t allow it. however you could look at transferring velocity to Krisflyer which does allow RTW redemptions on Singapore Airlines and Star Alliance partners.
With krisflyer you can also to multi-city trips on the one itinerary with Singapore airlines,
https://www.pointhacks.com.au/maximising-krisflyer-redemptions-using-free-additional-stopovers/
I did have one of these RTW itineraries booked up a couple of years ago, but the additional charges were off the scale – in the region of $2,000, so I cancelled, simplified the itinerary and saved a sh-t load of cash.
At that time QF were collecting fees for flights on AA, which didn’t even qualify for a surcharge (QF seems to have stopped that outrightly unethical practice).
If I used Alaskan points to go RTW in first class (SYD-HKG (bus)-LHR (first)- LAX (first) – SYD (first)) I could do that for 30,000 + 70,000 + 70,000, +70,000 = 240,000 pts and fly CX for the SYD-HKG-LHR to minimise surcharges: in that context the 280,000 pts plus big cash from QF to fly business is not a very good deal: sure you can get more flights, but for each extra flight add another sector surcharge (which can be around $300 per sector)….
Yep – if you already have the QF points it might take sense – but then if that’s the case you most likely haven’t got your frequent flyer strategy optimised in the first place…(read more Point Hacks articles!!!).
I agree people should definitely read more Point Hacks articles on other programs!
This guide is definitely for Qantas FF who are sitting on a mountain of points.
Also in Aus, everyone defaults to QF or VA.
But I prefer to keep my points in AMEX and transfer to whichever program gives me the best value of money at the time.
This guide was geared to Qantas FF and we didn’t want to confuse people by providing different links because they might think they can transfer QF points to those other programs, because the most common question we get asked is “Can I transfer my frequent flyer points between different airline programs?”.
Personally I keep my points balance in AMEX and transfer them to different programs.
I’ve got to admit that RTW or multi-city trips are my favourite redemptions, I like the concept of getting more value out of your points, like using Singapore Airlines Krisflyer stopover to fly to Europe as well as the USA, for an extra $100 USD and 12,500 miles in Business and 5,000 miles in First Class.
I may have missed it but could you confirm how points are deducted when you have to dribble book.
Do points get deducted from your account in excess of 280K and then get refunded when you meet all the requirements and qualify for award? If this is the case then would certainly have to have an excess of 280K.
Thanks & regards
Michael
It won’t exceed the 280k cap as long as 1. you don’t mix Emirates
2. include a first class leg in your itinerary.
3. exceed 35,000 km
what you will find is, when you book as many flights as possible at the beginning, the number of points required is 280k.
You can add more flights later on by calling Qantas but they will charge you 3500 points to amend the booking each time, so you end up paying more than 280k points if you did it that way, particularly if you make many changes.
As part of the flight I want to take the following legs:
COK – DOH – CDG
BOS – DOH – DXB (stopover)
DXB – DOH – ADL
Does this exceed the maximum transfers in DOH?
If so can I just pay the DXB – DOH legs separately which would then give 1 stop and 1 transfer.
Also if I take an AA flight with AA number but it is operated as Envoy Air as American Eagle does this comply.
Thanks a lot for your help
I’ve just had a qantas rep who seemed to know what they were talking about tell me that we cannot transfer thru hong kong twice.
I was under the impression you could transfer in each city twice if it was under 24hrs??
I also had a chat with an online agent who told me that it is 8000 per passenger for service fee plus another 5000 points for a change when booking economy multi city. Now THAT may be news to some of the readers here. However booking on the phone will cost 3500 points per passenger. I think it used to be 6000.
I guess I will just have to wait for the return fights, to be available and then try my luck. I am flexible with dates and airlines (an to some extent even destinations) so that might serve me in good stead.
And Qantas recently raised the cost of award fees.
https://www.pointhacks.com.au/qantas-change-cancellation-fee-increase-dec-2016/
The biggest sting is for economy class award bookings where Qantas charges a service fee of 8,000 points + 5,000 points change fee.
The 8,000 points service fee is waived for premium cabins.
So people who book an Economy award have to be aware and keep changes to a minimal because each change will cost you 13,000 points.
Otherwise if you book an economy class multi-city or RTW award for 140,000, every time you call up and make changes, it could easily add up to and before you know it, you could have just booked a 280,000 Business Class award instead.
Great info.
I am waiting to book RTW on Qantas economy for four persons leaving Perth around 10 Dec 2017 returning end Jan 2018 and am a bit confused how this can be done in bits and pieces. I thought it cud only be done on the phone and one go. Are you saying I can already book my flights out which are now “open through the Qantas multi city option: and then add the inbound flights into Perth when they open later next month. Wont that take me over the 140,000 FF points for a RTW?
My IT is Perth-Tokyo-Honolulu-New Orleans (surface to Houston) -Dublin, -Johannesburg and back to Perth.
Also somewhere on this thread the advice is to select/tick “use point-classic awards only”. Is that on the Qantas website in which case you will need to select a multi city itinerary and not a RTW. I can’t seem to find such a tick box on the one world site. Or do all RTW trips have to be booked on the phone.
All advice/tips welcome thanks
You can complete most of the itinerary online via the multi-city search tool on the Qantas site.
You can all the flights in one go or book whatever you can now and add more flights as you go along.
However if you book as you go along, you won’t be able to complete the itinerary online, you will need to call Qantas and make changes to the booking.
Each change to an economy class booking is 8,000 points per passenger, so you could end up with a very hefty award.
So my advice is to book it in one go to avoid paying 8,000 points per passenger each time you want to change the flight.
A couple questions as I start the planning:
(1) guessing I will only be able to book all legs around 330days prior to my last leg (which would be late Jan 2018 – hence booking for that leg will only open Feb/Mar 2017). Alternative is to book incrementally as outlined above? Please confirm if that’s correct….
(2) re: suggestion to avoid BA/LHR. I am looking to do a leg from Europe to Cape Town….Given member airlines, was looking at Finnair HEL-CPT (which goes via LHR and might code share with BA). Question if a if operating under a Finnair code, would I still get slugged the equivalent BA/LHR fees etc which I would try to avoid and if so, any idea how might get to CPT from Europe (within 15-20hrs)?
W
You can book Classic Awards up to 353 days in advance, so if you are able to piece together your itinerary then, I would go ahead and do it.
Yes you can book it incrementally using the online multi-city tool if you are flying on the one world partners found on Qantas search engine. Some One World partners do not show up on Qantas engine.
If you do decide to use the multi-city tool to book, I would try and book as many segments/cities/stopovers as possible and minimise changes to the award/itinerary because Qantas charges 5,000 Qantas Points per person per booking to make changes.
I.e. for your return flight to Australia, the award calendar has not opened and you need to wait for the 353 days to book it via the phone with the agent.
Answer to second question, if you book Finnair and transit via LHR on your way to CPT, then you do not pay the LHR Advanced Passenger Departure Tax as long as you keep your transit in London under 23 hours and 59 minutes.
But if you fly on BA metal, you will pay BA’s hefty fuel surcharge, that cannot be avoided.
The alternative is to fly Qatar Airways from Europe/LHR to CPT via Doha. It is a bit of a hassle, 5-6 hour hop between EU and Doha, followed by a 9hr 45 minute flight to CPT.
Whereas LHR to CPT is a direct 11 hr 30 mins flight.
I have left out the complying connecting flights from the flights below
Currently I have
Melbourne – Shanghai
Kochi – Atlanta
Boston – London
Rome – Melbourne
Is this considered three or four stops for the conditions of the ticket? I am not sure if Melbourne is considered a stop or a final destination.
Thanks
Alex
a stopover is when you are in one city for over 24 hours.
I am going to book
MEL – SYD – SHA
PEK – HKG – MNL
MNL – HKG – CMB
COK – DOH – DFW
BOS – LHR
FRA – DOH – MEL
Comes in at 56,109 km against a maximum of 56,237 km with 14 flights/surface sectors so should just sneak in. Thanks for your article and help – it is much appreciated.
As long as it falls within the 35,000 miles, you’ll be alright, you can do it all for 280,000 points, which is amazing value when you consider that Qantas charges 128,000 (QF/EK/AA) and 132,000 points (One World Partners) for one-way redemption and you aren’t allowed to stopover.
I used the RTW planner to get an idea of which flights/dates and airlines to use then called Qantas for advice 6 months before starting to book. Each flight was booked separately and charged accordingly until the cap was reached.
We only had seven weeks in which to complete the trip and ended up adding an eighth as we couldn’t get home in business class with Qantas.
Couple of tips: if one of you has silver FF and above use this account as you get first dibs on reward seats, some may not be available to bronze members until later and may have all gone. (Only found out 3/4 of the way through the bookings and you can’t change over accounts without cancelling everything prior!). I thought Qantas club also got priority but alas no!
One flight in first class automatically defaults the points to the full RTW first class fare despite being booked into business so if you are going to book one sector in first class then book the lot!
Also silver FF and above are dealt with by the Hobart call centre who seem to have a more experienced team with more knowledge on the dos and Donts.
Finally check and double check the advice given, we tried to book Los Angeles back to Brisbane with transit in Hong Kong and were told this counted as a double back, I checked 3 times after getting told originally that we could, hence the extra week!
Booking this is not for the feint hearted, it can be stressful when your ducks don’t line up, but perseverance and a good attitude to the call centre agents go a long way. If you need to, book an economy seat and change it when a business class seat becomes available, it will cost 2 change fees but may be worth it for peace of mind that you won’t have to pay for a flight home! Total $$$ were 1.5k each taxes and charges!
Having planned my own RTW first class with One World, I know your experience of booking these flights.
Having said that, we are saving $8000 and over $20,000 in First class, so patience and perseverance pays off in the end.
And it is stressful during the planning process, but once you get to the airport, no queuing, enjoy the lounge, get on board and you are sitting in the front, sipping champagne and dining on a lovely meal, its all worth it!
Are there conditions on the 140000, 280,000, 440,000 points cap that you must fly out of and into Australia using QF flights or can you use another one world flight?
Cathay Pacific out of Melbourne, Sydney, Adelaide, Brisbane, Cairns, Perth.
Japan Airlines out of Sydney
British Airlines out of Sydney
Qantas out of Brisbane, Melbourne and Sydney
Qatar Airways out of Perth, Adelaide, Melbourne and Sydney.
Just depends on availability, but you can tag on a domestic leg if you can’t find a flight departing from your home city.
I have a Qantas points flight to Hong Kong with Cathay and a connecting Qantas points flight to Milan on Cathay but different reference numbers as the Qantas website would not let me book as one flight. Can I now link them to start to form a RTW flight. ?
I believe you could cancel one of them if you can find an alternative flight that you know would be available to book – for example, say you can find a seat for HKG-Milan now before you cancel your HKG-Milan redemption, you could add that hypothetical HKG-Milan flight into your existing SYD-HKG Qantas redemption (paying the 3,500 point change fee) – along with any other flights you wanted to add into your itinerary to turn it into a round the world award. You’d want to do all your research first to ensure all the flights you wanted to book were available before cancelling one of the itineraries you already have, of course. Hope that makes sense.
In short, no way of combining two existing reservations, but you can absolutely make changes to one of the existing reservations if you can find the availability to suit your plans.
I’ve encountered problems with booking with Qantas, Cathay and US Airways now American Airlines.
Normally I would thank the agent, hang up and call again, and hopefully the different agent has a better idea.
But if the rules are strict that means you will need to tweak your itinerary. It doesn’t mean your entire trip cannot go ahead now, you would need to look at alternative routes and work within the airline rules.
I recently booked a RTW Business class ticket using points, which had one sector in the USA. I booked the US domestic sector as Economy and thought I would be able to change it to First class by calling Qantas. Do you have any experience regarding this. i.e. should I be able to use US domestic First class with a Business class RTW ticket?
Cheers,
Wazza
Use the qantas search engine and search for that specific flight and see if it falls under the Business Class or First class award category.
That should be a good start.
I’d call them and check anyway. Qantas agents can be helpful, I haven’t had a bad experience with Qantas frequent flyer agent.
Thanks
Irene
Particularly for peak season, seats do tend to get snapped up really quickly.
If you booked them as single leg flights one at a time, they will be ticketed separately, so you will be charged multiple awards, which could easily add up and the redemptions would end up costing more than the rate for 140,000 economy, 280,000 business or 420,000 first class.
A multi-city booking allows you to string all the flights on Qantas and One World partners in the one itinerary and the maximum points is capped at 280,000 business or 420,000 first class, as long as your total travel distance (including surface sectors) is under 35,000 miles.
One mile over, 35,001 and you will trigger a new award.
I have an American Express card and if you have one, the other option is to look at Cathay Pacific Asia Miles for One World multi-city fares.
Asiamiles is an Amex transfer partner at a 1:1 ratio.
Keith wrote a guide on it, and for 275,000 miles you can redeem a First Class multi-city award compared to Qantas’ 420,000 points.
My question is this: Should I book separate flights as they become available or wait and try to book the lot in one hit with their multi city booking? Do you pay the same fees and taxes (which I think are VERY high) if you book legs separately as you would by booking a multi or is it dearer?
If you book the flights separately, you would need to call Qantas and add them as they become available.
That doesn’t sound so bad if you were booking a business/first award.
But…. for Economy class redemption, Qantas will charge you a service fee of 8000 points per passenger every time you make changes.
On top of that, there is a 3500 points to “change” the award.
So every time you call to add a city, you are getting hit with 11,500 points charge per person.
Before you know, you could have used those points to book a business class redemption instead.
Taxes depend on the airline carrier and airport fees depend on the country, regardless of whether you book the flights all at the same time or separately, because every time you make a change, the ticket gets repriced.
So if you book the legs one by one, each time you add a city, the ticket gets repriced.
And different airlines charge different fees.
I.e. flying British Airways or QF is dearer than flying Cathay Pacific, which charges like $78 for Paris to Sydney compared to $300-600 for QF I think.
The article and responses are extremely helpful for redeeming FF points. I am in the process of redeeming a RTW business class with my Qantas points. However, it can take all day to get any answers waiting online for Qantas.
So far I have booked Sydney (via Doha) Johannesburg -> surface segment, Nairobi -> Lisbon BA -> surface segment, Rome -> New York (via London BA). These are the next legs I want to book. -> San Francisco -> Miami surface segment, Mexico -> Sydney. I calculate the stops are within the miles (I could be wrong) but I am unsure if I have gone over stops. Any suggestions?
I’m not sure how Qantas goes about calculating the surface sectors.
Perhaps they calculate the surface sector the same way they would calculate the flight distance, so you could use gcmap.com to calculate the distance between the cities.
Each time I go onto the Qantas website and search reward flights + RTW it keeps taking me to the oneworld website RTW planner so I don’t have any idea how to investigate how many points my planned trip is. I’m only getting a US dollar figure.
I want to go Sydney-Santiago-New York-London-Jo’Burg-Sydney in April 2017 in Business class x 2.
Any ideas as to how I can check how many points this would cost as a round the world ticket on the Qantas website?
You can book the RTW online, by using the multi-city tool, not the RTW tool.
However, you would not be able to book flights on some airlines such as Japan Airlines or Malaysia Airlines, because they are searchable on Qantas online tool.
Using the multi-city tool, you can piece together the flights and the total will be capped at the 280,000 points for business or 420,000 for first, as long as the maximum distance is 35,000 miles.
if you go over, it will cost more.
And do not include emirates in your itinerary.
We are travelling from Sydney – Cape Town (via Jo’Burg) – Athens (via Jo’burg and London) – London – Hong Kong – Sydney.
All business class. Yes, you are right that significant taxes are incurred with BA, but sometimes that’s just unavoidable…and ultimately a fraction of the price to pay compared to paying for the whole thing in actual money!!!
Yep the BA taxes are high, I think last time I got slugged $480 for BA First Class between JFK and LHR.
$480 is a lot of money but when you consider that Economy class costs $600 between JFK and LHR, its not a bad deal to pay $480 to fly First Class, enjoy the Concorde Room in JFK and LHR and sip $300 bottles of champagne. Pity there was no caviar though.
When you click on the round the world tab, it takes you to the oneworld website, which is frankly useless. If it wasn’t for this website, I’d highly doubt I would have known to click multi-city, and I’d wager nor would 90% of the rest of us either.
So, thanks thanks thanks!!!
You can call the desk and book via the phone but I don’t have a status with QF and that means waiting on hold for a long time, so the online option is the way to go if you can find all the flights.
The only reason you would call QF is if you wanted to fly on Japan Airlines, Malaysia Etc which the Qantas search engine doesn’t show up.
So, to clarify, if you are booking legs in the USA, which category do you book to keep it all a RTW Business points redemption? Thank you
After the calendar, the next page is the available award seat page.
On that page, there are 4 columns, or sometimes 3.
Economy, Premium Eco, Business and First.
If the seat you are after is under the First column, that means it has been classified as First class award seat, so you will be charged for First class instead.
Thanks mate. I knew you would have a simple explanation.
Thanks again. You mentioned not to included Emirates in the multi-city booking. Can you please explain why?
Cheers,
Wazza
Emirates can only be combined with Qantas.
Thanks again for your insight.
Can you book a RTW award online using Qantas FF points? I can’t see anywhere during the RTW process to select ‘award only’ when you choose the cities or flights. Also, the RTW planner is a oneworld website, so I can’t see how they would be able to use Qantas points.
Sorry if this is a silly question.
Thanks, answer to your question. Its yes and no.
You can book the RTW online, by using the multi-city tool, not the RTW tool.
However, you would not be able to book flights on some airlines such as Japan Airlines or Malaysia Airlines, because they are searchable on Qantas online tool.
Using the multi-city tool, you can piece together the flights and the total will be capped at the 280,000 points for business or 420,000 for first, as long as the maximum distance is 35,000 miles.
if you go over, it will cost more.
And do not include emirates in your itinerary.
Reason for asking is that Asia miles have similar one world award (better rates) but CX must be included if 3 or more airlines used.
But if you need to book Japan Airlines, you would need to ring QF.
Also, are surface sectors included as one of the 5 cities you can fly to. e.g. say you fly in to Berlin but surface to Paris. Would both Berlin and Paris be a stop over city, or only Paris?
Great article and website by the way.
Yes that’s right, you do not need to return to the port of origin to complete this ticket, you had decide you want to stop somewhere for several months before flying back. But I would probably book it anyway, since its like 10,000 points only to fly business class. see example below.
I did a mock itinerary, Melbourne – Hong Kong – London – New York JFK – Paris (stay for 4 months) and the total was 270,000 points.
And then I did the itinerary all over again, added Paris to Melbourne 4 months later, and it was 280,000 points.
So thats flying Paris back to Melbourne in business class for an extra 10,000 points!
Yes surface sectors will be counted towards your 35,000 mileage cap.
So if you flew into Berlin and took a train or drove to Paris, or even fly a random airline, QF will count Berlin and Paris as stopover cities as well as calculate the mileage towards that 35,000 mileage cap.
The sticking point though is the 5 stopover cities. You say that if a one does a surface leg then both cities are included as a stop over. Is that really the case? Millage between them I understand but to classify them both as stopovers? E.g. if one fly’s into London from Sydney, and then onto New York etc.., London would be one stop-over (as well as New York of course). if one arrived in to London but flew out of say Paris by surfacing from London to Paris, then both London AND Paris would be deemed as a stop over city? If this is the case then the 5 stop over limit using surface sectors would be quite restrictive as your entry and exit points are included separately as stop overs. Would be best to not use surface sectors so to get the most out of it, or exit the place as you enter.
(Sorry my previous post was less than clear hence I want to confirm this, Marks post above seem to suggest that surface sectors are not deemed as multiple stop overs)
But its easy, if you wanted to avoid the mileage calculator ticking up, you can base yourself out London for example and just buy intra-europe flights and fly back to london to depart.
Im looking at booking a trip Adelaide to Cancun to Las Vegas and home all on classic reward flights. Just wondering what happens if any of your flights are cancelled before travelling or delayed and you miss conecting flights. Does your insurance cover this and/or do you get points refunded.
Thanks Felicity
While I’m not familiar with a child redemption rules, because different airlines have their own rules and I don’t have any kids, so I’ve never had to redeem an infant ticket.
But I looked at the website and it says “Children aged two years and older will need to redeem the full number of Points required for a Classic Flight Reward.”
I can provide some insight into using your points for a round the world in economy.
Yes a return flight to LA costs already 135,000 points but if you use the multi-city tool, you can add more cities and build a round-the-world itinerary and the cost will not rise above 140,000 points.
On top of that, you have to look at the cost of fuel surcharges, which could be in excess of $1000 per person.
So depending on how many cities you want to visit, I have seeing retail RTW fares as low as $2000 per person in economy. If you went down this road, you can save your points for business class.
Thanks for the article, I just have a quick query on calculating mileage.
We are looking for a round the world booking but i’m not sure how to calculate the mileage? For instance our first flight we are aiming to take Sydney to Cancun, but we will have to go via Dallas. Does the mileage calculate as Sydney to Cancun, or are the two legs calculated separately?
Thanks
Ian
one of the most accurate mileage calculators is at http://www.gcmap.com.
please refer to the article above on how to input airport codes to calculate your total mileage.
Regards,
nelson
Sorry I just read your question again and realised my answer wasn’t sufficient.
The answer to calculating mileage for that award is that you need to add the connecting stops too.
So Sydney to Dallas to Cancun.
Unless it is one of those flights with the same flight number like QF1 Sydney/London or QF10, where they make an exception because it is deemed as a technical stop, unless you had a stopover holiday in Dubai, then assume that all routes with different flight numbers are calculated separately.
Recently I flew to New York from Melbourne, via Manila, Hong Kong and Tokyo because there were no award flights to LAX or Dallas.
The 3 transit cities were calculated as part of total mileage flown.
Earlier this year, after another rip-off incident with this suspect airline, I opened up a QR privilege account and have since been depositing all my miles in their. Much better value than those thieving bastards at Qantas.
I have 130,000 points left to get rid of and as soon as they are gone, bye bye Qantas. I’m tired of being ripped off by those mongrels.
Used it as the backbone for continent to continent RTW and then road trips, buses and cheap flights booked separately in each continent…
35% off Classic Reward Flights – Qantas. 20% off Classic Reward Flights – Jetstar
Book an eligible Economy international Qantas or Jetstar Classic Flight Reward* between 16 December and 11.59pm (AEDT) 22 December 2015. Your discount will be automatically applied to the points required. Taxes, fees and carrier charges payable in addition to points required.
Travel on Qantas between 13 January and 2 December 2016 or travel on Jetstar between 13 January and 30 September 2016.
I do have a couple of questions though…
1. Can I include two cities in the same country (eg LA and NY) or am I better of booking a cheap internal flight?
2. Is it possible to mix and match travel classes? Or will I need to ( be able to) request an upgrade via the Qantas site… I would ideally like to squeeze in a business segment or even a first class segment if my points stretch that far.
Thanks in advance
Airlines have a habit of charging the higher award rate. I played around with the system a bit and once I added 1 first class leg, London to Dubai on QF, the points redemption immediately jumped to 320,000 or 302,000 I think.
But when I selected the London to Doha to Melbourne in business, the points was recalculated and went back to 280,000.
450,000 points is a lot, having said that, points are meant to be earned and burned – not for hoarding, because you never know when the airlines will change the rules or award redemptions.
This is probably the best way to use Qantas points, seeing 5 cities for an extra 14-24k points, which is equivalent to flying between Melbourne and Brisbane in business class.
this is not strictly a round the world product. It is a mileage award. You do not need to go around the world. You may still plenty of value out of this ticket even on a return to europe with a sidetrip.
Due to restricted seats and the timeframes that the airlines release seats, the chances of being able to book this ticket in a single phone call to Qantas (when redeeming in premium cabins) is unlikely…particularly if your trip is longer. In my case I booked each of my legs the day the award seat became available (so around 360days out – dependent on the various airlines).
Generally, you book the first leg (or as many legs as possible) online as a normal one way award ticket. When the next leg becomes available, you call up Qantas, give them your booking reference, add another flight and pay the applicable taxes. Once your booking becomes a complying booking (2 non qantas, oneworld airlines etc etc) it will cap at 280,000pts (for business).
Note, you will be charged a 3,500pts change fee for each additional flight you add. But the phone service fee is waived for premium cabins. So you would not want to be taking the above approach for economy… as it would get expensive very quickly. Book the whole economy ticket online in one swoop if possible (which generally should be okay as economy award seats tend to be more readily available).
Be flexible and patient. I have spent a lot of time on the phone. Don’t expect to be able to get everything you want… ie you want to fly SYD-HNL on QF in business? Good luck! But you might be able to go via Tokyo (as someone on another site just did).
As stated, avoid BA. But also avoid departing from the UK as it has higher taxes (like, you’ll notice it).
After you book and before you receive your e-ticket, make it a habit to check your booking via qantas.com or other sites (like qatar airlines site or checkmy trip). Flights drop off (it has happened to me and to a friend) and you can’t always get them back.
Although recently, I’ve been charged 3,500 points 3 times, to amend my QF bookings and they were first class flights. Maybe I was unlucky.
The service fee (for using a human via the qantas call centre) is the fee waived for business and first. I believe it’s 6,000 or 8,000 pts (can’t remember off my head).
The service fee (for using a human via the qantas call centre) is the fee waived for business and first. I believe it’s 6,000 or 8,000 pts (can’t remember off my head). It’s not waived for economy (so if you were paying a change fee AND a service fee each time, it would get expensive quickly)
But you are totally correct, service fee + change fee for every change can add up very quickly, and probably better to book J or F award in the first place.
You mentioned with an economy ticket to book the whole trip online, how do you book it online? All I get is a dollar value through the Qantas one world planner.
Another question for anyone who knows, in the 5 cities stopover, does the origin city count? I’d like to fly Sydney – Athens – Oslo – Halifax(making own way to here from Oslo) – Vancouver – Bangkok – Ho Chi Min(making own way to here from Bangkok) – Sydney. Is this a viable option? Could I add another city if origin city does not count?
I haven’t done much redeeming in the past so am unsure how to try these online and see it in points value whether it works or not.
Thanks for your help, Wez
When you are searching for cities make sure you tick the “use points – classic rewards only”. so you only see award redemption seats rather than the $$$ value seats.
No the origin city does not count as a stopover.
just remember that when you make your own way Qantas will count that towards your 35,000 miles threshold.
best way to calculate is use http://www.gcmap.com so you can work out what distance they would add to your itinerary.