We have a 5-week trip planned to Australia in Sept/Oct. 2008.

Our plan is to pay for economy tickets on qantas, and then use our British Airway miles to upgrade to business class . I know that we should do this 330 days before--which means I would call for tickets this October. But, I have a feeling that it may still be hard to get the upgrade. I would imagine that lots of people all want to do the same thing.

Has anyone had any experience with this? Any advice?

Hi ...

Not sure where you are based? But if you are based in the UK, you might be better to look at BA & paying for WT+, then upgrading - BUT there aren't many tickets available.

Suggest that on the 330 day beforehand get on phone to BA & book.

Mark

Thanks, isplumm. Actually I'm in the U.S.--San Francisco area. Part of the reason I'm writing is that we had B.A. tickets to Greece last year--and were unable to upgrade, even though we had lots of miles. I really really want the upgrade on this Australia flight, so I am hoping to plan a strategy in advance!!

(For that flight last year,we called weeks before, but they told us we would have to wait until check-in, and then there might be a small chance to upsgrade--but only if the flight was full. No luck!)

You can't use BA miles to upgrade on Qantas, sad to say.

Not that it matters much - even elite members of Qantas' own frequent flyer scheme have a horrible time trying to upgrade on transpacific flights.

The advice about trying for BA World Traveler Plus and then using BA's "miles for upgrade" (MFU) option is good, but of course if you're originating in the US it adds quite a lot of time and cost by going the other way 'round.

One alternative is to look at Air New Zealand from SF to Auckland - their coach is about as comfortable as coach gets, and they also offer a premium economy product that compares well with BA's WT+. No BA miles of course, but good for earning United miles if you're a member of the UA FF program.

Gardyloo, thanks for the "heads up". We had read all the restrictions--and really thought we could use BA miles for upgrades. But, you are so right--we can use the BA miles to buy a ticket on Qantas, but not to upgrade.

I will look into the Air New Zealand idea. But can anyone tell me how comfortable coach is on Qantas? Legroom? How far do seats recline? How do they compare to BA World Traveller Plus for example?

Economy on Qantas is not so hot - 31" pitch (same legroom as on domestic US flights on most carriers) and seats slightly narrower than BA's coach (not WT+) - 17.2 vs. 17.5".

By comparison, BA WT+ is 18.5 inches wide and 38" pitch.

Air NZ coach is 34" pitch and 17.8" wide; their premium economy is 38" or 40" x 18.5" wide, so comparable to WT+.

Qantas service is good as a general rule.

Well, that isn't very good news. Something equivalent to the World Traveller Seats on BA would be fine--but if the legroom is really comparable to most US domestic economy, that may be a bit hard to handle.

I did check into the Air NZ. That would definitely be workable, timewise. Here's the thing though--we plan make several Qantas flights within Australia during our trip. Apparently, if you are on a Qantas international ticket, the international luggage limits will apply, even on the domestic flights. I wonder if the same would be true if we did the international leg on Air NZ?

as other posters have said, upgrading to business class on Qantas is just about impossible. I'm not sure why we bother with FF points!

caligirl have a look at www.seatguru.com which has details on all airlines seating etc and will answer your questions. Qantas does not have generous pitch or leg room in coach class but Air New Zealand does I believe .

Thanks for all the input. This has been a "reality check" for us. We had really hoped to be able to upgrade to business. Oh well. I guess we'll just have to reconsider our other options. That seatguru website is really helpful. A good starting point!

I know it's probably of little comfort, and possibly of little use, but "Circle Pacific" or round-the-world fares are very good deals in business class - for example the Oneworld airline alliance (American, Qantas, Cathay Pacific etc.) offers a "Circle Pacific" fare that includes up to 22,000 miles of travel in business class for US$5300 if bought in the USA (the prices vary according to the country where the ticket is bought and travel begins/ends.)

With 22,000 miles you could go, say, San Francisco - Hong Kong - Cairns - Ayers Rock - Melbourne - Sydney - Honolulu - Los Angeles - San Francisco, or various other permutations of routes, provided one way was via the north Pacific and the other was via the south.

$5300 is not cheap, but compared to the $9000+ stand-alone business class round trips from the US to Oz in the same time frame, it's a pretty good deal.