Any tips when looking for US Domestic flights in economy using QFF points?

Any tips when looking for US Domestic flights in Y using QFF points?

Tip #1: Buy a revenue fare.

I'd disagree. Redeeming QFF points for domestic US/AA flights are one of the best things you can do (beside upgrading on QF metal with points).

The reason I believe so is because:

1) There is plenty of availablity given the volume of flights across the United States and North America

2) The taxes and surcharges charged by AA/US is minimal - so you really do get something for free, unlike redemption of QF or BA metal where co-payments are exorbitant.

If you have QFF points to burn and have met your SC targets or do not care about SC targets then by all means redeem.

Now on the matter of tips. Where do you start??? Its such an open ended question as to be somewhat un-answerable. Try narrowing down the question to a specific issue or query. You'll get better results that way.

Thanks TRB, happy to hear from a veteran user! I haven't gotten used to AusBT's question system and seem to always make an error when posting.

Thankfully with all the ambiguity TallTraveller did make a good point of USAir flights, I'm doing a whole mash of flights across the USA between major hubs like SFO, LAX, DFW, ORD, MCO and JFK for a mix of work and pleasure.

I'm with TRB - during a couple of visits to the States last year I had to make some last minute domestic plans (NYC to Boston) and found it very easy using QFF points - one way was 8,000 points and $5 in taxes!! Many USAir flights didnt appear in the Qantas search but a quick call to the QF call centre and all was booked easily (with no points deduction for using the call centre as the flights could not be easily booked online). Do check both AA and USair timetables first to work out what suits you best, then if they dont appear then call QF to redeem.

Thanks for the comprehensive, but concise, answer TallTraveller! I was wondering why only AA was showing up for most of what I was looking at. Did you find a lot more availability with USAir flights when you booked over the phone compared to AA?

Yes because at that stage not much off the USAir timetable had been added to the QF list. Sounds like it still hasnt.

Just got off the phone with the QFF, was told that US Airways hasn't been added into the system and will be "in the near future". Should hopefully provide some more inventory for flights :) Thanks again everyone!