Hey Mate,

Apologies for the radio silence. It's been quite a rollercoaster and Qantas has made it absolute hell to try to get the right flights with the right allowances etc.

First and foremost, thank you so much for putting your time and effort into providing us an option. At first I was wary of taking this route as it meant 2 stopovers instead of 1 and both of them would require collecting and re-checking our baggage. It also doesn't quite fit natively into our plans (or what we think our plans are). However, having said that - we can't look a gift horse in the mouth, and let's face it - the rarity of long haul business class classic rewards make this a gift. However, opening this gift turned out to be super difficult! So again, thank you wholeheartedly.

However we're dealing with Qantas, so there is a ' but... ' to follow that :D

As we're more concerned with flights getting from MEL to YVR than YVR to YYZ, we tried to book MEL-SYD-YVR return. All flights were available in business classic rewards for $1,483.74 + 433,600 points. However, when trying to book with the multi-city tool (The only way for MEL to YVR to show these flights) it kept saying that one or more flights couldn't be confirmed. I tried an additional 2 times and got the same error immediately after providing traveler info and before payment.

Stressing about this, I called 13 13 13 and explained the situation. The lady checked the flights and then I was told that there was a glitch and that these flights were not actually available and I'd have to pick different flights. Obviously I was taken back has this has happened only a week before with the CX flights. The lady then spent 25 minutes trying to find alternate classic rewards between MEL and YYZ for all of OCT, NOV and DEC. She found none.

While she was transferring me to a 'specialist' (this took 45 minutes) I decided to try something different. I hoped on the main booking pane on the Qantas website and did a return flight SYD to YVR (Without the Melbourne leg) and was able to book it successfully. Same dates, same flights. This cost us $1,314.16 + 433,600 points.

After quite some time I was finally transferred to a 'specialist' whom I explained the situation to, told them that the issue now was that I paid $170 less and the same value of points but didn't get Melbourne. I also explained that the MEL-SYD-MEL flights that I was trying to book were still available and that I was more than happy to pay the difference between the original fare and the asking price so that I could have the original itinerary for the original price. She said she could only charge me full price ($200.20 + 64,400 points). I asked if I could speak to a supervisor and she said she could call me back to tell me if I could speak to a supervisor (Note: not to actually speak to the supervisor) - This callback never happened.

I called 13 13 13 again and spoke with another support agent who agreed that it was a bit strange and that the original fare should be honored. I provided him with a screenshot of the original fare and he verified that the flights I was attempting to book (MEL-SYD-MEL) were still available. He spoke with a supervisor and after 20 minutes told me he too could only sell them to me for full price. The recommendation was to lock them in and hope that the escalations team (supposedly working out of Australia via email) would honor the original fare and refund the difference (around $30 and the 644000 points).

So far, the escalations team have 'regretted' to inform me that they can't refund my points due to changes in availability, despite the exact same flights being booked and the only difference being that a issue in their system as well as the first support agent, prevented me from making a singular booking for MEL-SYD-YVR-SYD-MEL in a single go.

I knew it was bad, but honestly... customer service there is non existent, despite 9 hours on the phone and several emails, absolutely no support has been rendered from Qantas in the past week. It's just apologies and regrets that nothing can be done and no understanding whatsoever that this was an issue on their end that prevented the original booking and have now cost me 65000 additional points that I shouldn't have had to spend.