Hi new friends,
Who’s up for a challenge? Hopefully someone smarter at this points booking game than me…
I want to go to France in Aug/Sept 2023 to watch the Wallabies underperform in the Rugby World Cup. Pretty flexible all round, but it will be the first international trip for my wife and I with kids and I’m dreading the flights. Kids will be 6 and 5 when we travel.
The OneWorld RTW Classic Reward with Qantas looks appealing; I have 660,000 points so enough for 2 business class tickets. The idea of a flatbed for the kids alleviates my dread…
So:
Starting from MEL (and ending here too!)
660,000 QF points, obviously happy to pay cash for the balance
2 adults and 2 kids (not infants)
Need to be in France sometime from maybe late August or early Sept, through to late Sept
If we’re in business class, not really fussed where the stopovers are (eg SIN, KUL, HND could stop for a day or two, HKG would just transit)
Also doesn’t really matter where in Europe we arrive, probably LHR or HEL being OneWorld, could just connect to CDG/LYS/GVA on a separate flight
Perhaps the only fixed point is leaving Europe (LHR? CDG? GVA? LYS?) no later than 26/27 Sept
Since there seems to be zero reward flights available anywhere at any time in business class, maybe we could do the Melb-Asia part in economy during the day. If that helped…
I could ruin my back in Economy while the wife and kids sleep in business if that helped too. I just want the kids to have the bed and the experience
Am I being ridiculous with this idea? I couldn’t really find anything just searching for one person in the multi-city tool on Qantas’ website, for any combination of Melb-Asia-Europe, let alone for 2 people. Or how to work how to buy 2 tickets using the points RTW thing, and 2 others with cash.
Anyway, if you’re able and willing, help appreciated! Thanks!
In theory, the Qantas RTW is a great option but in practice, it can be very difficult to find all oneworld airlines with enough award space all in the same travel class that lines up.
With that said, here are a few options that you could consider. You’ll notice I started my search from various asian cities to various european cities. That could be an approach you take as well given that there really isn’t that much a straight search from Melbourne to Europe is going to reveal.
Going to Europe for Late Aug to Early September I see dates with 2 business class seats in the following:
7 Sep: Bangkok to Helsinki (finair)
9 Sep: Hong Kong to Amsterdam (KLM)
All throughout September: Colombo to Paris (sri lankan)
A few things to note:
KLM not a OneWorld partner but a Qantas partner so can redeem flights on them hooray!
Colombo is not a searchable city on the Qantas website, so you will need to phone up to book this but you can verify the absolute goldmine of availability on the american airlines website.
Connecting to any of these cities from Australia is not too difficult but will obviously depend on your appetite for each city and the prices. The calendar hasn’t loaded in till the end for most of the cash fares yet so we need to wait a while to get a feel for prices for cash tickets.
Coming back from Europe a few options again for 2 in biz:
All throughout September - Paris to Colombo (Sri Lankan)
One or two dates on the late 20s - London to Haneda (JAL)
28th Sept - BA London to Hong Kong
Hope this gets the ball rolling! Also, if you don’t get a world’s best dad or husband award by the end of this, I don’t know what will!! I would’ve let the kids tough it out in Economy haha - they should be grateful they get to go to Paris in the first place!