Your expereicne with booking QF Any Seat Awards for First and Business Class flights after the recent changes to the online booking engine.

Your expereicne with booking QF Any Seat Awards for First and Business Class flights after the recent changes to the online booking engine.

I am curious to hear from frequent flyers who have recently been able to book QF Any Seat Awards in First or Business class, using the call centre. After the recent website enhancements I am puzzled as to how to figure out what is a decent ASA redemption rate and when they are available. Does one check if classic awards are available and against what redemption rate and then call QFF and ask if their is an ASA for that same or around that redemption rate? Or does one ask for availability for a certain period? Is their different availability for higher tier FF's?

Please share your experiences, tips and tricks!

Good questions, KG!

(1) Log into the website (2) Look for Classic Awards and check redemption rate for required journey (3) Ring QF call centre (4) Tell them you want to book a Classic Award through the Any Seat system since this is no longer possible on the web site (5) They will either know what you're talking about or not - if not, suggest easiest smply to ring again until you get someone who understands (6) They should locate the "U" class seats (for business) in their system which matches to the Classic Award you located (7) they then can assign those seats to an any seat boking (8) Usually best to ask for the minimum number of points required (this should be the same as the classic award - a useful doible check they have done the right thing) and pay the balance in cash (this protects your points balance).

Yes, the available seats you see online on the Classic Awards will reflect your status tier.

My experience is that the booking agents who know what they are doing nail this whole process very quickly. Those that don't have no idea!

Done several of these and the system does work OK provided you get a sales agent who is up to speed.

However, I greatly miss being able to do this for myself online!

Thanks for your clear explanation PLATY Are you able to use points plus pay as well via the agent? Which booking class is F (will it be "O" booking class?) 

I'll give it a crack myself, used to booking award seats with other carriers and agree, as soon as you feel that the agent on the other end is not up to scratch it is best to politely hang up andtry again. As you said though, annoying you cannot do this yourself online anymore.

Its interesting that QF has allowed X, Z, U & P to be both classic redemption (no SC accrual) and ASA (SC accrual). I wonder how the system differentiates revenue and redemption booking for mileage accrual purposes?

In most airline (within OW at least) upgrades and redemption inventory is strictly differentiated.

If X,Z,U & P are open for ASA as well as Classic, then really there should not be a reason for QF to be difficult. They're happy to accept BOTH money and points for those ASA bookings (as opposed to just points on Classic redemption), yet make things difficult for FF to make bookings in Business and First? That's illogical.

There has to be another dimension to this with respect to the other inventories in Business and First.