Hi, I’m a gold member of Qantas FF and was looking for a business class flight to North America mid 2020, on points. Plenty of points to get there and back. I’m relatively flexible with dates, but their search functionality seems to have changed such that if flights are not available on day X, then you have to search again for every other day. It used to show availability over the month or so.
Any ideas if they’ve changed search functionality or how to see it over the month? Also any ideas if there isn’t availability on Qantas to go to New York, if partner airlines within OneWorld would be somewhere to look at?
I’ve just tried a search and I’m able to see the availability over a month. Have you remembered to click on “Flexible with dates” when you’re entering the dates you want?
Other thoughts/observations:
There seems to be reasonable availability to New York in the middlle of next year, but less availability on the way back.
Remember that there’s school holidays during the first half of July, so FF availability will be harder to find.
New York has more than one airport. If you’re having trouble finding availability to/from JFK, try doing a search for flights to/from Newark (EWR).
Yes, definitely look at partner airlines. Options include American Airlines, Alaska Airlines … even Cathay Pacific is a good option (especially if you’re flying from WA … I note you haven’t told us where you’re flying out of but if you’re flying out of Perth I’d go so far as to say that Cathay via Hong Kong could arguably be your first preference). You can also mix and match airlines (eg. Qantas to LA and American or Alaskan the rest of the way).
We seem to be on different screens - when I search for Classic Rewards flights, in Business Class, I don’t see the monthly view (I would attach a screenshot but can’t seem to see how to do that here) but more importantly I can’t seem to see any Business Class availability eg I’m searching to go early June (let’s say 4 June) and to return 11 June, and there is nothing doing in Business Class. There is the odd Premium Economy flight through Hong Kong available. I’m a Gold member - not sure if Platinum members get any more visibility? It’s a bit odd.
On the other items - yes happy to go to any of New York’s airports.
On partner airlines - would I access rewards flights for these still through the QFF search engine, not direct through those airlines? I assume QFF points are not transferable to AAdvantage, Alaska etc
Which city are you departing from? I’m happy to do a search or two and see what comes up.
Yes, the Qantas website is generally the best way to go with partner airline searches, though the American Airlines website might also help with AA and other Oneworld flights.
Business class flights to/from the USA are difficult to come by at the best of times. But hopefully something will come up!
Thanks sixtyeight. I’m flying from Sydney. Almost anything going there in late May or first few days of June, and coming back 2nd week of June or thereabouts, would work.
I heard somewhere (now have heard) that Qantas releases these seats 9-12 months before the date of departure, so that if don’t book by then it’s all over?! Not sure how accurate this is
Well, I’ve just done a very basic, very quick search and it looks like there’s Cathay Pacific availability in Business to EWR on 2 June (CX110 & CX890), but I couldn’t see anything on the way back.
Great thanks for all the information and links. I’ve finally figured it out and managed to book decent flights - including that outbound flight which you mentioned. Thanks again!
Re-starting this post because it seems like Qantas has removed the calendar search function, even when clicking ‘flexible dates’ - has anyone has seen this? It just makes searching much more difficult.
Hopefully when international flights resuming soon, this functionality will come back, but just wanted to check with everyone.
Sorry let me rephrase, back in the day you could see the award calendar with what class of seats there were to redeem (Econ, Biz, First) etc, and it was set by different colors. So if you wanted to see First class, you could look far in advance, rather than day by day now.
Like I could see in 1 month there was Premium econ and First available, but not the day after etc.
I know what you mean. I sorely miss the calendar view where you could just see if there were any awards in your preferred class of travel across a whole month. Now you have to fiddle with the clunkier and dumber 7 day calendar screen!!
@lord_of_rings2 Yes I noticed this too and it’s quite frustrating that the month calendar view does not appear on a basic reward flight search.
Curiously it may be some sort of system fault with Qantas, because the “See Other Dates” icon with the symbol of a calendar is on-screen while the system is conducting your search, but then it has strangely disappeared when the system returns the result for the date you searched. You can only then click day to day which is next to hopeless.
Also, the “See Other Dates” calendar icon DOES STILL APPEAR and IS available to use when conducting “multi-city” searches!! When you do a multi-city search the old familiar calendar option is still there.
As it still works for “multi-city” searches makes me think it’s a system fault - BUT DOES ANYONE KNOW HOW TO TELL QANTAS TO FIX IT??? I haven’t got 4 hrs to waste sitting on the phone to tell a call centre operator whose not going to do anything anyway.
Checking the “Flexible with Dates” which used to cause the calendar view to appear makes no difference. Does anyone know how to tell Qantas??
I came here looking for the answer and you nailed it!
Simply search for your flights using the multi city option.
I’ve just searched for BNE to LHR this way and it shows the calendar view, thanks for your help
