Dear PH Community,
I have a basic question which I’m hoping you may be able to shed some lights on.
I’m planning a Sydney-Nice return trip in August with wife + 19 mo baby. I have about 300k QFF which I’d like to use.
Looking at Classic rewards availability I’m able to find 2 Business/First class seats from Dubai to Nice (Return) for 250k QFF, which is great.
I was then thinking of buying 2 economy return fares Sydney-Dubai (on Qantas or Emirates) to connect onto the Dubai-Nice flights. The only problem is that Sydney-Dubai airfares are way more expensive than Sydney-Nice (via Dubai)??
The question I have is, Is there any way I could pay for a Sydney-Nice airfares but use my Classic rewards for the Dubai-Nice leg? Can I cancel the Dubai-Nice economy leg?
Hope this makes sense
Thanks
Seb
Hi worldwideseb,
What you’re hoping to do is a little complicated, but I’ll do my best.
First of all you’re not doing anything wrong, and yes even though flying all the way to Nice involves more flying they do normally cost more than just a Sydney - Dubai return. It’s all to do with the airline’s yield management systems, as clearly they believe that passengers wanting to fly to just Dubai will pay more for the fare. If you think about it, going to Nice there are a ton of competitors who will sell you a SYD-NCE fare (BA, Swiss, Lufthansa, KLM etc.), so their fares have to be competitive, however due to the comparitively little competition from AUS to Dubai, they can afford to put their fares a little higher cause the demand is there clearly.
In regards to wanting to do your points for classic rewards on just the Dubai - Nice portion of the trip, that’s not possible unless you outright purchase a Sydney - Dubai ticket return which as you’ve pointed out is costly.
The airline won’t allow you to cancel just one of your two flights, i.e. if you wanted to cancel just the Dubai - Nice flight but keep the Sydney - Dubai ones, they won’t allow that; you would need to cancel the entire journey.
Also please keep in mind that if you wanted to purchase a second points ticket from Dubai to Nice in say business class, when you no-show for the Dubai - Nice paid ticket Emirates/QF would cancel the remaining flights on the ticket from Nice - Sydney as well.
Hope that helps!
Great. Thanks Jimmy. That makes sense.
Will need to see how to best use those QFF then…