[sim]

We're planning a 6 week trip to South America early next year - I'm trying to find the best fare options.

I have over 500K QFF points, but no award availability ever shows, and given that the SYD - SCL flights are operated by LAN, I don't believe that award upgrades are a possibility either ?

If we have to pay for flights, it seems the SYD-SCL flights on the Qantas site are quite expensive compared to RTW or Circle Pacific flights ? (or am I missing something there ? Taxes perhaps ?)

Any suggestions ?

We will be doing mostly land legs in South America, with one or two internal flights (mostly within Chile and Argentina).

What is the preferred method for checking flight class/award availability for Qantas and other OneWorld airlines ?

[serfty]

Hi sim, welcome to AFF. .

Tough time of year to get awards;for January early February any seats are snapped up as soon as they become available in Mid Jan & Feb.

More than that, it's a tough route to get an award as you have posted.

Qantas were to start flying to CCL from November next year - but that is no help to you here.

[QF009]

Getting SYD-AKL-SCL on LA is often difficult enough on a RTW booking, let alone award redemption. This is often the case even at 330 days out. But the good thing about a oneworld explorer booking is the ability to use the extra entry/exit to North America rule so long as you're transitting to or from South America, so you could go to South America via North America on QF/AA if the direct flight on LA isn't available. You'd have to pay for an extra continent though.

Your best bet for looking up award availability for the LA flight is probably the Qantas award availability tool.

If you don't mind going outside OW and a convoluted routing, MH offers a return fare booked in H class (fare basis HL3MAUU) to EZE for A$1676 ++. It's a pretty long journey via KUL and South Africa though. The next cheapest fares come in at A$1857++ and A$2055++ and are booked into Q (QL6MAUU) and B (BL1YAUU) classes respectively.