OK so I’ve managed to nab a direct flight from Sydney to Kuala Lumpur in business. Now need to get to Europe.
I can see Sydney - London on points on the British Airways executive site but it’s not showing on Qantas? In fact I can barely see any flights in September next year from this destination. Is it because they haven’t been released to the Qantas site yet? Thanx in advance and thanx for the previous replies
Most frequent flyer programs (e.g. BA) save some additional award space on their own flights (e.g. BA) for their own members (e.g. BA). In short, partner airlines (e.g. Qantas) will generally see less award space than an airline’s own frequent flyer program member (e.g. BA) sees.
If you want to see what award space a oneworld partner airline would see, one popular way to search is using American Airlines as it has a calendar view.
Adding to @w.hiew , you might be seeing some Qatar Airways flights too, which generally aren’t available to Qantas Frequent Flyers until a few months before departure.
That’s an understatement!. BA only makes a fraction available. I was trying to book LHR - DUB nearly a year in advance. Heaps of seats on the BA site (incl Business) - none available on QANTAS for a OneWorld booking - ZERO! (only from London City via a BA subsidiary)
IMHO its therefore a waste of time to use BA Executive Club website to help book this reward.
Hence, my second point of using a third oneworld member airline, which has a much better searching interface than Qantas to approximate what Qantas would likely see.
Got it!
Yes. I am seeing flights on BA website for other airlines that are not available on the QANTAS website, but how can I tell if that is a OneWorld flight or some other partner arrangement?
There is nothing more frustrating than meticulously planning an itinerary to have QANTAS tell you those seats don’t exist when U ring them up to amend your booking.
PS: It seems that QANTAS website is showing possibilities that BA is not. BA website tells you available reward seat numbers whereas QANTAS doesn’t, but apart from that I don’t find it more usable.
Perfectly agree that you are entitled to your opinion that BA website is not worth using.
One such useful way I can think of is:
Example:
BA is showing some non-BA & OneWorld airline award space, example Cathay Pacific.
American Airlines is showing the same Cathay Pacific award space.
Qantas is not showing this Cathay Pacific award space.
Assuming that these are not phantom award spaces, technically, you could assume that Qantas is not showing those oneworld space, which they should and you can “attempt to” convince a Qantas agent to try finding it on their end - good luck!
Obviously, there are other OneWorld airlines website to use like Cathay Pacific or Japan Airlines. The method is just to get 2 OneWorld airlines (A & B) to cross check award space for airline C on airline D website. Hope I’m making sense. It’s confusing enough to type up.
Yes definitely agree with @w.hiew on this one. Generally you want to use a particular airline website to search for award space on OTHER airlines. I.e. use BA website to search for award availability on everything BUT BA, use AA website to find everything BUT AA and so on and so forth because just like Qantas, these airlines often release more award seats to their own members than to partner airlines.
The problem with BA didn’t use to be so big because they were pretty much keeping partner and own availability the same, but now that has been restricted a lot.
Treat this like a research project. You would never base a whole research report on just a single source, so neither should you with award space!