I’m aware the Oneworld Classic Flight Rewards have rules such as (from Qantas T&C page)…
14.4.4 The following Stopover conditions apply to oneworld Classic Flight Rewards:
(a) up to five free Stopovers are permitted;
(b) more than five Stopovers are not permitted;
(c) only one Stopover is permitted in any one city in the Itinerary; and
(d) only two Transfers may be taken at any one city in the Itinerary.
But I basicaly haven’t found any rules for the Qantas Classic Flight Rewards and Partner Classic Flight Rewards tables, apart from (from Qantas T&C page)…
14.3.1 The Qantas Points required for a Classic Flight Reward Itinerary will be calculated as a one way Trip or series of one way Trips and will be the sum of the Qantas Points required for each Trip in that Itinerary.
I interpret “series of one way trips” to mean I can break the flights up.
Refering to the updated Reward Tables as of Aug. 5, does that mean I could book these hypterthetical Classic Flight Rewards…
Nov. 1 = Melbourne to Dubai (Emirates business class)
Nov. 20 = Dubai to Melbourne (Emirates business class)
as 1 Qantas Classic Reward Itinerary (total = 14,462 miles)
and as 1 Partner Classic Reward Itinerary to be
Nov. 2 = Dubai to Paris (Air France economy class)
Nov. 10 = Paris to Amman (Royal Jordanian economy class)
Nov. 19 = Amman to Dubai (Royal Jordanian economy class)
total = 6,621 miles
Therefore, I’m combining 2 Classic Reward Itineraries into 1 trip.
If this is true, I can see a lot of flexibility here and to me more appealing than the Oneworld Classic Flight Rewards because of more rules to follow.
Hi @rohancox! Welcome to the community.
Yes you can absolutely configure your itinerary the way you’ve done it. I do this all the time as I manage flight and cabin availability etc… for reward seats.
There are some things to be aware of though… each individual itinerary you book will have it’s own booking reference number or PNR. So for example anyone looking at your firrst PNR will see only the return flights from Mel - Dubai.
In general, you need to make sure you have enough transit time to clear customs and pick up your bags etc… and then checkin for your Dubai - Paris flight. If you are flying on separate itineraries (PNRs) but on the same carrier or a partner airline (they need to have a baggage agreement in place), you may be in luck and they will sometimes allow you to check your bags all the way. This has played out both ways for me though, so it’s not always a given. Obviously if you’re having an overnight layover in a city between PNR’s you’d be heading to a hotel anyway, so it wouldn’t be an issue.
Also, if for example, your 2nd itinerary flight from Amman - Dubai is cancelled and the replacement flight has you arriving in Dubai after your return flight to Melbourne, you have a problem. As they’re on separate PNR’s there is no requirement for anyone to help out if you miss your Melb flight. You’d need to try and cancel that so you don’t loose all the points (there will be a fee though) and then rebook it somehow. If all the flights were on the same itinery though, then Royal Jordanian would be obligated to ammend all your remaining flights to get you home - in the same cabin. So that’s one downside of separate PNRs.
I sometimes will book a number of itineraries separately, especially if I’m looking to upgrade from business to first if seats become available last minute. This makes it easier to cancel one booking and rebook in the higher cabin without needing to phone up and juggle call centres and pay the change and “talk to a human” tax (in points). It all depends on your routes, stopovers, how many travelling companions, number of points you have spare and tolerance for last minute change - it can get a bit hectic chopping and changing, but is always worth it when a plan comes together.
Another way to plan things is to book your outbound flights as one itinerary and return flights on another. This allows you the option of booking further out in time when reward flights are available so you can lock them in. Likewise then when the return flights come online you can book those too. Visibiity of reward seats is dependent on your FF status.
So, long answer short… yes, you can piece together your itineraries in whatever order suits you. There are pros and cons both ways. I’d strongly recommend travel insurance to cover you in the case where a flight delay or cancellation makes you miss another itinerarys flight. But it’s good peace of mind to have it anyway I think. Each to their own though.
Hi @jenart thanks for the welcome (this community is great - I’ve read many questions and answers ). Also thank you for your time to answer my question thoroughly. You raised a couple of points I hadn’t thought of. So thank you for that .
After reading your reply a couple of times, one thing comes to mind.
My question was about using Qantas’ tables in order to get the itineraries done.
When you said you have done this a lot, do you mean, just buying various tickets to get it done, or using Qantas’ tables to get it done.
The reason I say this is because over the weekend I chatted with Qantas support to clarify the tables, and now I totally get how they work.
They said that my Melb - Dubai - Melb would be 119,200 points required per flight sector because the flights are not together. So they would be booked as 2 separate 1 way trips of 7,240miles, rather than 166,300 points for a total of 14,480 miles flown according to the Qantas Class Flight Rewards Table.
Also regarding the 2nd leg of my trip outlined above points would be charged per flight because again there is more than 24 hours between flights. If the flights were 24 hours or less between flights, then the points required would be less and tallied accoring to total miles flown rather than sector by sector.
Anyway, I have it all sorted nowk, thanks again for your great information in your reply
I tend to focus more on the class I would like to fly in (preferably 1st on Emirates if available and I have enough points) that will get me to my desired destination and then set about finding routes that have classic reward seats available. The “points cost” is mostly whatever it is really, but it can be difficult sometimes and trying to reconcile the calculations against the tables can be challenging. Combinations of airlines and layovers can impact the points calculations (as you’ve discovered) - and the taxes especially.
Currently the tables can be a tad confusing due to the “current” calculations vs the “new” incoming values on 5th August. Then to further add to the mix Emirates is moving from the “Partner Classic” table to “Qantas Class” table.
In general though, I will use the Multi-City search engine so I can piece together the specific layovers/transit cities. The main search on Qantas website is more suited to one way or return searches. It’s a useful tool though when hunting for availability too to find elusive legs/flights - often this can lead to the Multi-City search engine crashing or throwing errors.
You can always cross reference the points tables against your final points total for an itinerary you’ve priced up (using either search engine - main one or multi-city), but once you have an idea of the general points costs, you may not need to do so as frequently.
Glad to hear you’ve managed to get it all sorted. It really is an exciting and rewarding experience (no pun intended) to plan your trip out, find the available seats and get it all booked. Well done!! It will become a more and more familiar process each time you book a reward trip, but you’re well on your way now!
). Also thank you for your time to answer my question thoroughly. You raised a couple of points I hadn’t thought of. So thank you for that 
.