I’m sure this has happened to many. You suddenly see a “Business” or “First Class” FF availability turn up where there wasn’t one previously. You go straight in and try and book it, but then it returns some obscure error message and doesn’t let you even get to the payment page. (Don’t bother ringing Qantas or the SMS service - complete waste of time). Should you just immediately give up?
No. It could be a possibility of whats called phantom award availability where the award doesn’t actually exist but it doesn’t hurt to try again a few times or corroborate the information with another award search engine like American Airlines’ website or a tool like expertFlyer.
Appreciate the answer, but it’s not much help in reality. I will always give it multiple tries before giving up. I am looking for Emirates flights SYD-MILAN, so how would American Airlines search engine help? And even if you subscribe to something like expertflyer (which I have in the past with no success), how are you ever going to book it if the Qantas site keeps throwing up error messages and doesn’t let you complete the payment? Qantas don’t answer phones for up to 3 hours, and if by chance the award existed in the first place, it would be gone by then. I think you have to give up. Like I said, appreciate the reply but in reality has anyone ACTUALLY had success when this scenario occurs?