I am new to points & just trying to get my head around a few things.
In June I flew economy from Adelaide >> KL (Malaysia Airlines) >> Doha (Qatar) >> Shiraz (Qatar). I booked this through the Qatar website and a few months later saw these flights pop up in my QFF account with 0 points. I queried this and it’s not in the “flight earning tables”.
I am now flying (economy) Istanbul >> DXB >> Adelaide tomorrow and this was booked through the Emirates site.
Am I correct in assuming that I always need to book through the Qantas site to earn Qantas points?
You assume correctly. The flight needs to have a QF flight number (code-share) to be eligible to earn Qantas Frequent Flyer points. Therefore, you need to book via Qantas to get QFF.
No, that is not correct. Both QR and MH are Oneworld members, same as Qantas and you are eligible to earn QFF provided the fare class is eligible to earn QFF points (see my comments below). In fact, Qantas has increased the point earn including status credits on QR flights:\r\n\r\nhttp://www.ausbt.com.au/qantas-boosts-status-credits-on-qatar-airways-flights?utm_source=internal&utm_medium=flipper&utm_campaign=home-flipper
BTW, if your booking has a QF flight number on it, the earn rate on both SC and points will be exactly the same as a QF operated flight so in many cases it will be higher earn rate, but it doesn’t mean if it’s not QF coded you won’t earn points. \r\n\r\nAlso it doesn’t have to be directly with Qantas, I have booked through travel agent on EK operated flight to SIN but QF coded and points just came through within 48 hours and I enjoyed all the benefits of a QC member including excess baggage and entry to the examplery QC lounge in SIN.
No, that is not correct. To earn Qantas points you don’t have to book through Qantas website. However, to earn points it must be:
Eligible fare class
Unknown to most people, not all fares are created equal. Most people only knows the fare classes as first, business, premium economy and economy. But amongst these classes, especially economy, there are discounted, heavily discounted, promotional sale fare....etc. They usually have a letter coding that may or may not show on your ticket.
In economy, for full fare it is usually Y, these are usually the most expensive economy ticket that are fully flexible and usually earns 100% of miles flown.
For discounted economy there can be so many letters, E, K, M, N, Q.........depending on the airlines. Their earn rate can go from 0-75%.
For QFF, if you have purchased a ticket that has a QF flight number, even if the flight is not operated by Qantas, you will always earn points, regardless whether you purchased the ticket directly from Qantas or not. (Except in special circumstances such as staff travel ticket or classic award ticket. Those ones do not earn points.)
When it comes to partners, it gets complicated. In your case, MH and QR has to purchase points from Qantas. So very often is a heavily discounted sale fare, when there is not much profit margin, those fares do not earn points.
The best way to check is check on your e-ticket and look for the letter in booking class (usually in the form of Economy (X) where X can be any letter. Then look up at Qantas' earning table on Qatar and Malaysia and see if you are eligible for point earn.
Very rarely, although it is not your case as you have purchased through QR website, that people have purchased ticket from a point barterer. (I just included this for completion sake). These are people who barters other people's frequent flyer points and got an award ticket and sold it to you at a profit. They are "legit" travel agents registered with their own country so it is hard to tell. So even though the ticket is valid, it is considered an award ticket and thus do not earn miles. If the fare is too good to be true airfare, it might be an award ticket.
That you put in your QFF number
If you put another programs number, you can't double dip. The point earn will go to whatever program that you put down at time of check-in.
If you have checked all of the above, and you believe you are eligible for point earn, I would contact Qantas. Sometimes they might made a mistake and credited you points to someone else.
So the situation might occur in which the airline website (non-qantas) that is a Oneworld partner and they have an option for my to submit my QFF number BUT because this specific route is non-eligible for points (or very few points) it MIGHT be in my best interests to sign up for the airline’s specific program and add the points to that one instead?