Different award availability between OneWorld ff programmes: QF gets less!

[dlam]

I'm trying use my Qantas points get two, one-way business seats with Qatar from LHR-BNE. The QF site only shows one available each day whereas BA and AA both show two.
I called Qantas Premium to try and see if they can see different but they see the same as me.

My question is: is it normal for AA and BA to have more QR availability?
Is there a way around this given that QR seem to indeed have 2xJ seats available each day on this route?

Thanks!

 

[aus_flyer]

It's becoming very common that airlines provide different award availability to different partners - and also often provide more availability to their own.

Unfortunately there's no way for QF to access in these circumstances.

If you were to book 1 with QF points and the other with AA or BA, it's generally better to book the QF seat first.

 

[dlam]

It's becoming very common that airlines provide different award availability to different partners - and also often provide more availability to their own.

Unfortunately there's no way for QF to access in these circumstances.

If you were to book 1 with QF points and the other with AA or BA, it's generally better to book the QF seat first.

I feared that might be the case.

It seems sort of illogical - this is for QR flights to Brisbane next week, where QF has 1xJ available each day the flight runs, and AA/BA have 2. Obviously there's plenty of availability and, at this short notice, surely they'd want to write of some of those vacant seats as award bookings.

Too bad.

 

[GoldCanyon340]

Maybe QF was allocated two seats and someone booked one of them?

 

[Mattg]

I thought it was a Oneworld standard that airlines had to provide the same availability that they give to any Oneworld partner to all of the other partners. Not sure how this works in practice, however, nor if it is enforced.

I guess another possibility is that AA/BA could be displaying phantom availability?

I wonder is @trippin_the_rift has any thoughts on this.

 

[NM]

Perhaps this is an issue with "Point of Sale" where different availability is often shown based on the country in which the ticket will be issued. These variations in availability can apply to any ticket type and class, not just to awards. For example, you may be able to buy an I class discounted/sale business class fare if purchasing from the USA but not when purchasing from Australia.

I have experienced this earlier this year when seeking U-class business class awards AKL-BNE. On the day we want to travel, QF was not offering anything even via transit points. But I could use CX Asia Miles points to book 2 seats AKL-MEL-BNE in U. This was either a case of QF not not selling this as "married sectors, or a POS variation. Naturally I booked the CX Asia Miles award and then purchased a paid I class AKL-MEL and a QF FF award for MEL-BNE for the third traveller in our group (me).

 

[Matt_01]

I thought it was a Oneworld standard that airlines had to provide the same availability that they give to any Oneworld partner to all of the other partners. Not sure how this works in practice, however, nor if it is enforced.

I guess another possibility is that AA/BA could be displaying phantom availability?

I wonder is @trippin_the_rift has any thoughts on this.

I am not sure exactly how it works but from experience I have seen greater reward availability with JL and QR when searching via BA over QF. In most cases it was only a difference of 1 seat e.g. JL - 2 seats available via QF and 3 via BA and QR was similar. I also think BA has closer ties with JL and QR, not sure of the rest of OW.

 

[dlam]

Maybe QF was allocated two seats and someone booked one of them?

i doubt it. The pattern goes on every day until the end of the month. 2 seats in AA/BA, 1 on QF.
The lady in the call centre told me that QR releases different award availability to different partners and lamented that we couldn’t just waitlist.

 

[MEL_Traveller]

I wonder, like mattg, whether this is phantom availability?

 

[dlam]

Perhaps this is an issue with "Point of Sale" where different availability is often shown based on the country in which the ticket will be issued. These variations in availability can apply to any ticket type and class, not just to awards. For example, you may be able to buy an I class discounted/sale business class fare if purchasing from the USA but not when purchasing from Australia.

I have experienced this earlier this year when seeking U-class business class awards AKL-BNE. On the day we want to travel, QF was not offering anything even via transit points. But I could use CX Asia Miles points to book 2 seats AKL-MEL-BNE in U. This was either a case of QF not not selling this as "married sectors, or a POS variation. Naturally I booked the CX Asia Miles award and then purchased a paid I class AKL-MEL and a QF FF award for MEL-BNE for the third traveller in our group (me).

Interesting. I've just tried the search using a VPN to simulate purchasing form USA, Netherlands and France (I'm in the UK) but no luck ...

I wonder, like mattg, whether this is phantom availability?

I thought the same thing but, I did get the 1 J ticket that showed on QF put on hold for 24 hours. At that point the inventory on AA and BA went down from 2 to 1 ticket available. So the system seems to "talk" in real time.

 

[NM]

Interesting. I've just tried the search using a VPN to simulate purchasing form USA, Netherlands and France (I'm in the UK) but no luck ...

I do not think that using a VPN is not going to change the point of sale for FF redemption. I expect all QFF redemption tickets are issued by QF the same country from a point of sale perspective, no matter where your browser session appears to be located. This will either be the country where the first flight in the itinerary departs (if QF has a ticketing presence there) or Australia. So changing your perceived location via a VPN will not make any difference to the "point of sale" as far as the fare sale is concerned.

 

[RichardMEL]

nice idea with the VPN but as NM says it's the point of origin of the flights/search in question, not the location from where it's being searched

 

[trippin_the_rift]

<snip>

I wonder is @trippin_the_rift has any thoughts on this.

Consider the following......

What would happen when...

a member airline launches a direct attack on another member airline
and a member airline has control of the alliance voting powers via multiple entities
and a member controls the alliance power via people in key roles
and when there are no checks and balances to advocate for loyalty members at the top

what would happen if, left unchecked for 20 years - airlines were free to do whatever they wanted, and there was a secret underground war happening in the background?

Now consider how many oneworld airlines are relying on bailouts and how aggressively some are holding onto cash.
What if, an entire alliance was about to be enhanced because of power dynamics between airlines?

 

[trippin_the_rift]

OP: If travel is for future travel like 4,5,6months++, don't book seats now. Wait for the capacity to increase and for the flurry of amazing deals which will hit the market.

Don't lock yourself into a carrier now at the max cost!

 

[dlam]

I wonder, like mattg, whether this is phantom availability?

OP: If travel is for future travel like 4,5,6months++, don't book seats now. Wait for the capacity to increase and for the flurry of amazing deals which will hit the market.

Don't lock yourself into a carrier now at the max cost!

no - it’s for travel on Monday - getting back to Oz. Normally I wouldn’t even countenance the possibility of getting 2 J fares, but they display every day on that route on BA and AA for the rest of the month. Just in QF they’re only making 1 available. Oh well, it’ll be good to get home finally, and arriving into BNE thus avoiding two quarantines.

 

[MEL_Traveller]

no - it’s for travel on Monday - getting back to Oz. Normally I wouldn’t even countenance the possibility of getting 2 J fares, but they display every day on that route on BA and AA for the rest of the month. Just in QF they’re only making 1 available. Oh well, it’ll be good to get home finally, and arriving into BNE thus avoiding two quarantines.

But can you actually book both seats on BA or AA? That's the point of phantom availability. There may only be one seat, despite two showing.

 

[adenda]

I thought it was a Oneworld standard that airlines had to provide the same availability that they give to any Oneworld partner to all of the other partners. Not sure how this works in practice, however, nor if it is enforced.

I guess another possibility is that AA/BA could be displaying phantom availability?

I wonder is @trippin_the_rift has any thoughts on this.

After having to cancel our J OW Classic Reward in April I'm now tenatively starting to investigate trying again for next year. Probably will largely duplicate our previous itinerary however availability for 2 J seats on QR915 (Adelaide to Doha) via QF website is zero for all of May 2021! I asked an agent to check via chat and they came up with the same result. The mystery is that the BA website is showing 4 J seats on almost all QR915 flights in May (a couple of days have 3 seats). Last year I used the BA site frequently to check availability and the QF site almost always showed same result so I'm mystified what's happening here.
I have read some other posters have had some luck by calling QF when this situation presents. Interested to know if that's the case or if anyone else is having similar issues with low or no QF reward availability. (I thought it was supposed to improve)

 

[dlam]

After having to cancel our J OW Classic Reward in April I'm now tenatively starting to investigate trying again for next year. Probably will largely duplicate our previous itinerary however availability for 2 J seats on QR915 (Adelaide to Doha) via QF website is zero for all of May 2021! I asked an agent to check via chat and they came up with the same result. The mystery is that the BA website is showing 4 J seats on almost all QR915 flights in May (a couple of days have 3 seats). Last year I used the BA site frequently to check availability and the QF site almost always showed same result so I'm mystified what's happening here.
I have read some other posters have had some luck by calling QF when this situation presents. Interested to know if that's the case or if anyone else is having similar issues with low or no QF reward availability. (I thought it was supposed to improve)

certainly didn’t work for me this week by calling up. It is a strange situation and the call centre operator explained that Qatar releases different award seats to different airlines.

luckily for us, Emirates J and F seats to BNE suddenly came up so we’ve pushed departure back two days and are pretty happy (though it ain’t the Q suite ...)

 

[madrooster]

As someone with access with Amadeus who handles award bookings regularly, I can confirm that QR does give less availability to QF for their award inventory.

I've seen and confirmed multiple scenarios where QR will give 4 seats to most other major oneworld carriers, but only 2 or 3 to QF. I have also seen cases where QR will give 3 to other oneworld carriers, but zero to QF.

The most common scenario as stated already, is -1 compared to BA/AA.

The availability that BA/AA sees, is confirmable. It's not phantom availability - I have confirmed this by actually selling the inventory repeatedly in every single scenario I have encountered by checking in the respective airline offices (not simply calling in and 'trusting' the call centre agent).

 

[adenda]

@madrooster thanks for your insight. Seems QR has tightened their availability for QF customers since last year as I had much less trouble then - could almost take my pick of departure days when looking at a similar time of year.
Anyway, do you think there's any prosepct in your experience of QR improving availability closer to the travel date (May 21)?