Advice Wanted on Awards flight to Edinburgh

[vaccav]

I will shortly be booking an awards flight from Sydney to Edinburgh with some stops and wanted to get any top tips and advice. Basic details are:

- I have a wee bit of flexibility over flying dates
- I am a platinum member
- I want to fly (mainly) business class on flat beds - pref BA or QF
- My trip is to be:
Syd - Sing
Stop in Sing for 2-3 nights
Sing - Edin (prob via LHR)
Stop in Edin for 4 weeks
Edin - LHR
Stop in London for 2 nights
London - Sydn
- I plan to travel very soon: around week commencing mon Oct 10th
- QF website shows some first and economy availability
- But I'd like to go Business and have heard that if i "request" (?) a business seat then they may make one available.



My Questions are:
1. I want to make the most for my miles: I'm assuming that the above will cost 256,000 miles but am not sure: can anyone advise ?
2. Any tips on making the most of my miles ?
3. Can I stopover in Sing and London without problem or does that mean that they will dissect the trip into individual bookings and charge me miles accordingly ? (Rather than Syd-Europe return at 256,000)
4. How much does a round the world business class cost (in miles) ?
5. On the way there, should I go to Edinburgh via Frankfurt instead of LHR (it's only a transit stop) .. .. .. is there any benefit in this (eg greater seat availability, more empty 'plane, fewer miles reqd, etc ?) ?
6. Will I get a business seat if I "request" it ?

In anticipation .. .. .. many thanks for the help,

vaccav

[thadocta]

All QF flight rewards are priced as single stages, when you are including a stopover. So you will be charged SYD-SIN, plus SIN-LHR, LHR-EDI, EDI-LHR, LHR-SYD, assuming stopovers in both directions in LHR.

I myself would be getting myself a BritRail Pass, possibly the flexi-pass, which will cover you on Heathrow Express and GNER up the East Coast mainline, as well as the HEx transfer between Paddington and Kings Cross.

Dave

[NM]

Originally Posted by vaccav

1. I want to make the most for my miles: I'm assuming that the above will cost 256,000 miles but am not sure: can anyone advise ?

Per thadocta's reply, the segments are all considered and priced as one-way, so the cost will be something like this:
SYD-SIN in business class = 60,000 points
SIN-LHR-EDI in business class = 84,000 points
EDI-LHR in business class = 16,000 points
LHR-SYD in business class = 128,000 points

total = 288,000 points

These are all available on the QF web site.

Originally Posted by vaccav

2. Any tips on making the most of my miles ?

thadocta's suggestion of using the train from EDI to London saves you 16,000 points. Personally I would not be paying extra points for business class on that route and just book economy for 8,000 points. If you don't stop in London between SIN and EDI, then the LHR-EDI sector is effectively free.

Not too many other options, except perhaps to use BA's WT+ for the SYD-SIN flight since it is a reasonably short day flight. That would then be 37,500 points (25% more than economy) rather than 60,000 points for that sector.

Originally Posted by vaccav

3. Can I stopover in Sing and London without problem or does that mean that they will dissect the trip into individual bookings and charge me miles accordingly ? (Rather than Syd-Europe return at 256,000)

Any stopover means a new trip as far as the award flights go. And each trip calculates its own points requirement. This is explained on the QF web site. See my points requirements above for your suggested routing.

Originally Posted by vaccav

4. How much does a round the world business class cost (in miles) ?

From the QF web site, it costs 282,500 points for up to 35,000 miles travelled. That includes a maximum of 5 stopovers (no more can be included)

Originally Posted by vaccav

5. On the way there, should I go to Edinburgh via Frankfurt instead of LHR (it's only a transit stop) .. .. .. is there any benefit in this (eg greater seat availability, more empty 'plane, fewer miles reqd, etc ?) ?

I would be looking for flights via LHR since the QF5/6 flight to/from FRA will not have Skybeds reliably until next year. The LHR flights all get Skybeds. But availability for business class may be better via FRA.

Originally Posted by vaccav

6. Will I get a business seat if I "request" it ?

Maybe. Depends on how the think they can sell those seats on that day. Look for non-business days to travel, such as a Tuesday or Thursday and avoid asking for flights on a Friday through Monday as they are busiest for business travellers.

But if you request a seat be made available, you will incur the extra assisted booking fee as that cannot be done on-line.

I recommend getting Frequent Flyer Friend. The new version allows you to search for seats based on cabin class (ie business class) and by the number of seats you want (ie 2). It uses the QF engine so will look at all possible routes and carriers between the destinations.

I have been playing with it for a while now and have found that Qantas seem to make business and first class seats available about 1 week before travel. So if you find you cannot book a business class seat but can get economy class, then you may like to consider booking that now, but on a separate booking/ticket. Then check using FFF in the 1-2 weeks before travel and if business class becomes available, you can pay the 5000 point fee to change your booking (class of service change requires the ticket to be re-issued, even for e-ticket, hence the 5000 point fee). Note that any taxes and levies will also be recalculated when the ticket is re-issued so that could go up also.

So you may find that the return trip is harder find the availability you want, but it could become available later. A nit of a gamble, but with FFF you can keep an eye on things and get a feel for how seats become available in the last 1-2 weeks.

[odoherty]

One way around the stopover/single leg problem might be to book a Oneworld award.

With this, you get up to 5 stopovers and it's based on total return miles.

The catch is that you must use QF and at least 2 other Oneworld airlines.

Perhaps, you could fly
Sydney
Hong Kong
Singapore
London
Edinburgh
London
Sydney

Book either SYD-HKG and/or HKG-SIN with Cathay and include a BA flight also, and you've got yourself a oneworld ticket.