Many people dream about flying round-the-world in business class but dismiss it as a lofty goal that’ll forever be out of reach. In fact, this ‘bucket list’ experience is more attainable than you may realise, thanks to a unique and highly rewarding way of using Qantas Points.
The ‘oneworld award’ is a special type of booking that allows you to fly with oneworld airlines up to 35,000 miles with up to five stopovers – which is enough for a round-the-world journey, though you don’t have to fly RTW if you don’t want to (more on that later).
This booking costs a relatively modest 140,000 points in economy, 280,000 points in business class or 420,000 points in first class (plus taxes and fees, of course) until 17 September 2019, after which the costs will be 132k/318k/455k points respectively.
Business class is the sweet spot, as it’s a higher-value use of points than economy. As for first class, that’s very hard to book because the number of routes with this cabin is very small.
Since you can spend up to 278,000 Qantas Points on a return business class fare to Europe or the USA, flying 35,000 miles with 5 stopovers for a similar price is superb value.
The main ‘catch’ with the oneworld award is that it can be time consuming to research flights and make the booking, so here are some tips to make the job easier.
You may need to read this article several times to absorb all the info … there’s a lot to cover!
The rules
Here are the specific rules you must follow for a valid booking:
- maximum total distance of 35,000 miles
- maximum of 5 stopovers (a stopover is when you have 24+ hours between flights)
- a maximum of 16 individual segments – a segment is a flight OR when you travel over land yourself. These land segments are counted towards the 35,000 mile maximum
- no more than one stopover and two transits through a single airport
- you must fly with at least two oneworld airlines that are not Qantas (in fact, you don’t have to fly Qantas at all – just two or more other oneworld airlines – see below for the list)
- you have 12 months to complete the travel
- once you return to your country of origin you can’t leave it again
- you must finish booking all flights in the itinerary before the first flight takes off.
Possible itineraries
You can fly anywhere and in any direction you want, so long as you comply with the above rules.
There are no restrictions on how many continents you can visit or regarding backtracking, which are limitations in most paid round-the-world fares.
If you make some land segments on your own, you can actually visit more than five destinations. That’s because when you land in one city and take off on your next flight from another city, it doesn’t count as two stopovers – just one. The land segment is counted towards the 16 maximum and the distance towards the 35,000 mile maximum.
To illustrate: here’s an example where you fly from Sydney to Tokyo (first stop), make your own way to Hong Kong, fly to Helsinki (second stop), make your own way to Paris, fly to Marrakesh (third stop), make your own way to Casablanca, fly to New York City (fourth stop), make your own way to Montreal, fly to Lima (fifth stop) make your own way to Santiago, and fly home.
Also, there’s no requirement to fly round-the-world, though that’s how most people use this award. You could do a loop around a specific region or criss-cross between continents – it’s totally up to you.
For example, here’s one of my recent itineraries, which started in Singapore and took me to the USA, followed by Australia, Japan and back to Australia.
How to book
Now, here’s the catch: it can be very time consuming to book this award because finding business class seats on popular routes is often tricky and the booking process usually requires several phone calls / chats with Qantas.
Here are some tips:
- start planning early – ideally a year in advance – and research which specific flights you want to book, and when you can expect the seats to become available for the dates you want (more on that below)
- be flexible with your dates
- explore the oneworld alliance route map here
- use Qantas’ website to research the availability of award seats on each individual leg. Write down the details for future reference
- be flexible with cities in Australia for departures and arrivals – ie. if you can’t find a long-haul flight ex-Adelaide, try Perth or Sydney. Don’t assume that the search results on Qantas’ site will have considered this option along with a domestic connection from your home city
- you can book the initial flight(s) online yourself on the Qantas site. Use the multi-city tool for multiple flights. Be prepared for the possibility that you can’t book all the flights in one go, either because the Qantas’ site isn’t capable of handling complicated itineraries or the seats you want aren’t all available yet
- note that you cannot make a series of individual bookings online with different reference numbers and then ask for them to be “stitched” together
- if you can’t book all the flights you want online in one go, to add flights you’ll have to call Qantas or use its online chat or SMS functions, because you can’t add to/change existing itinerary online – a Qantas rep will have to do that
- you’ll be charged 5000 points per person each time you make a change, like adding flights – this is an extra cost to factor into your planning. There’s no additional change fee if you’re flying in business or first class
- to calculate the total miles flown to make sure you don’t exceed the 35,000 mile limit, use the Great Circle Mapper tool. Just type in the airport codes separated by hyphens (for example, MEL-LAX-JFK-LHR-HKG-MEL). You can search for the codes on the site.
- you don’t have to finish in the city you started, but the booking system will calculate the distance back to the original departure airport in determining whether you’re within the 35,000 mile limit
- airlines release award seats at different times. Here’s how many days in advance you can usually book:
- Qantas – 353 days, restricted to gold members and higher on some long-haul routes (others get access a month or two later)
- Cathay Pacific – 353 days
- British Airways – 354 days
- Qatar Airways – 361 days
- American Airlines – 331 days
- Japan Airlines – 330-360 days
- Malaysia Airlines – 354 days
- Royal Jordanian – 362 days
- Finnair – 361 days
- LATAM – 330 days
- Sri Lankan – 361 days
- Iberia – 361 days
- S7 Airlines – 330 days
- you can only fly with oneworld member airlines, which does not include some Qantas partners like Emirates – so be careful when looking at search results on Qantas’ site
- if you mix different classes, the highest class will be used to calculate the cost – i.e. just one first class flight in an otherwise all-business class itinerary will make the cost jump to the first class level. You can include lower classes if you wish with no price change.
Summing up
Booking the oneworld award is complex but definitely worth the effort given what you get to experience: flying in style, visiting a range of destinations and having bragging rights for years!
If you find that booking is too time consuming or difficult for you, try a fee-based award booking service like Award Flight Assist.
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Hi Kris, my husband and I have a Perth to Europe trip booked departing mid October 2020 on Qantas using Classic Flight Rewards which we can change or cancel without fees. Our booking was First Class there and Business Class back using Partner Airlines: Emirates and Air France costing around 290,000 points and $1200 per adult.
However, I’m looking at Classic Rewards flights from Feb 2021 onwards and there are no First Class tickets available which I find really odd, maybe it’s too early? And only Cathay Pacific and Qatar are offering any seats in Business Class (using Classic Rewards) both of which cost around 280,000 points and $1250 per person.
Maybe Emirates has pulled the plug on all their Classic rewards Flights in First Class??
Hi Jennifer, I think the lack of award seats next year is due to all the flight cuts and schedule changes because of COVID. I’d expect more award seats to become available once airlines have a clearer sense of travel restrictions and travel demand. My advice would be to keep checking periodically.
Hi I am about to embark on booking a RTW business class trip for April 2021…:.assuming the world has reopened of course. I have 2 questions: 1. is booking through the One world alliance link and Qantas multi trip the same points? (Staying under the 35000 miles). 2. As I’m trying to book pretty much the days the flights become available it means either making the booking at once (which will mean 3 weeks after first flights are released) or booking them all separately and risking the points being higher as they are all individual flights? I’m confused! Isn’t it already difficult enough to secure frequent flyer seats without waiting a month after they’re released??
Hi Brooke, 1: you can’t book through oneworld, it must be via Qantas and you can use the multi-city tool (https://www.qantas.com/au/en/book-a-trip/flights/multi-city.html) – tick the box “Use points – Classic Flight Rewards only”; 2: If you add flights to the itinerary as they become released, the only difference in price will be the change fee payable each time the itinerary is amended. The risk with waiting to book all at once is some of the seats may be gone by then.
Hi Kris
Love your articles and few questions here –
1. If I book the first few RTW business class booking on Qantas website, and later on ring up Qantas to add additional flights to the same booking, do I need to pay that 5000 points change fee?
2. How do you check JAL reward seat availability with Qantas points?
3. When does Qantas deduct the points? I read in comments where you said points will be capped at 318k after 2 OneWorld flights are added. Will they charge points at the time of each booking adjustment. My plan is to book the Qantas flights online first, then ring up to book the rest. Would be interested to know how/ when the points are deducted.
Thanks heaps!
Hi Cheryl. 1: yes; 2: JAL availability shows up on Qantas’ website; 3: points are deducted immediately as you book/add flights.
Be careful! If your Qantas customer service person knows nothing hang up and call back to get another one! Its worth it! I had a fight with an agent who tried to tell me my that my last flight I called up to add to make it RTW was to be charged at full points price and you cant add sectors and it become RTW at the end. Lots of back and forth and escalating up to a manager and then another manager. 2hrs later to confirm I was indeed right! If I didnt know the rules inside out – thanks to websites like this – it would have cost me an extra 300k in points and $1500.
Good advice, and a good outcome in the end 🙂
Hi Kris,
My two experiences with sms have been a disaster. No-one there has a clue, even after I requested a supervisor at least 5 times during the last episode.
We are almost home with our journey currently just into RTW class and we have made it to Taipei. We will visit Amsterdam Madrid, Rio, Sao Paulo, Boston, Taipei and Hong Kong with taxes for two at about $2,200.
Have spent a thousand hours researching for the pat twelve months.
One question which Qantas couldn’t answer, why are all the flight in the States and South America offered as two legs where there are dircet flights with the same carrier and no availability?
One other thing, why doesn’t Qantas publish the rules for this redemption?
Thanks
Chris
Boddington WA
Hey Chris, I’ve heard that many new Qantas customer service reps don’t know much about the oneworld reward. It’s becoming a big problem.
Not sure about the US flights issue, but as for the oneworld rules, some are published at 14.5 in the T&Cs: https://www.qantas.com/au/en/frequent-flyer/discover-and-join/terms-and-conditions.html#classic-flight-rewards
Hi Kris – again thanks for your help. So far I have managed to add in return flights Madrid – Doha – Hong Kong and also managed to book flights within Europe – and the trip is now a OWC, which is fantastic. However currently there are no J award seats back from Hong Kong on Sep 30th when we want to return – although there are Economy seats. I’m thinking of booking the economy seats so that least I have a flight home and hope the J seats become available at a later date and then change (or change to a Qantas flight if it becomes available later). I wanted to ask if I can pay cash to upgrade my OWC economy award seat to a J seat on Cathay Pacific if no J award seats become available – do you know?
I don’t think you can, but I’m not sure, sorry! Look out for a Qantas J award to become available in the coming weeks – should be a decent chance of getting one.
Thanks Kris – I’ll keep checking!
Kris, I booked my outbound flights for next September, Sydney-Hong Kong- Doha-Rome with Cathay and Qatar and was charged 157K points for J seat. When I queried it with Qantas, they told me that it was because it was a one way and that I could add the return flights when available and it will become a one world classic. That seems to be different to what I have read in the comments about the cap and being able to add flights when they become available. Is the comment correct that this will be charged as a one world classic once I add in the return flights – assuming I stay within the 35K miles and satisfy the other requirements around stopovers and transits etc?
Hi Coops, yes if you meet all the rules, the price will be capped at the oneworld award rate as you add additional flights.
Thanks Kris – much appreciated