Qantas Frequent Flyer Changes - Online NOW!!

[TheFergus]

Astounding: Last week, MEL-LON return, first class : 380 000 pts ish. Today: 1.6m

Qantas will have an almighty PR battle on their hands with this unconscionable offering - on top of their industrial woes, one would think they are in for a tough FY.

Hellllo Singapore Airlines: I think their anyseat program is about 20% more than usual which seems a fair premium to me.

Plus: Amex is now 1 sing air point per dollar.

 

[JohnK]

Interesting discussion. OK, so QF have stuffed up big time on anyseat award redemption rates. Big deal. Most expected this to happen anyway and it was only a handful that were hoping to get some meaningful benefit out of anyseats award redemptions.

I do not see any issues as long as there is still adequate availability for 'classic' awards.

 

[simongr]

Astounding: Last week, MEL-LON return, first class : 380 000 pts ish. Today: 1.6m

When you checked last week was there availability MEL-LON? If not then you aren't comparing apples with apples.

 

[serfty]

....

20.6 Classic Award seat allocation
20.6.1 Qantas may at its discretion make available to Platinum and Gold Members additional allocations of Classic Award seats.

All this is doing is clarifying an existing situation. (e.g. The old T/X economy redemption buckets)

It has already been noted this year that different award availability has been seen to exist across various cabin classes for QFF members of different status levels.

 

[TheFergus]

Indeed simongr.

I was comparing Classic with AnySeat with SAL - and the winner of such a comparison is clear. Just a pity I can't understand a bloody word the chick on the phone says....

 

[futaris]

Funny that they don't actually offer any "Travel Vouchers" via QFF points in the store. All the vouchers are for physical stores, so there's no way to redeem points for a flight.

Would be a funny situation though, I guess if you could use QFF points and flew on Virgin or something.

The closest you can get is a Qantas Holidays Voucher - 10000 points for $100.

 

[Platy]

Interesting discussion. OK, so QF have stuffed up big time on anyseat award redemption rates. Big deal. Most expected this to happen anyway and it was only a handful that were hoping to get some meaningful benefit out of anyseats award redemptions.

I do not see any issues as long as there is still adequate availability for 'classic' awards.

There may not be much immediate personal impact, but I tend to agree with those who are suggesting herein that the rude roo may have a major PR problem on its hands by setting such extravagant burn rates and really have opened up the opportunity to quietly lower allocations of "classic" award seats, whilst claiming adequate supply of point burning opportunities.

I guess we should be grateful that they didn't tamper with classic earn and burn rates, status credit earn rates, status level demarcations, etc...perhaps the current changes are "positive degradations" rather than "negative enhancements"

Much else seems to be simply window dressing and rebranding ( = costly navel gazing, expensive designers, etc).

 

[Platy]

Here's a nice chronic inconsistency - looked at HNL-SYD on JQ metal on August 14th (very quiet flight).

One way purchase $400 (incl taxes)
Jetstar any seat 50,000 odd points
QF any seat 120,000 odd points

These jokers are a bunch of idiots...the worst of it is that it is such a blatant insult to their "loyal " customer base - you really would have to be profoundly stupid to cash in 128,000 points (on the QF any seat booking engine) when you could get away with 57,000 (on the JQ any seat booking engine), or even just pay the $400...thus the qantas folk have put this together in a fashion which assumes people are too badly informed or unintelligent to make a sensible choice...that is if they even expect people to use the bloody thing(s)!!!

Why oh why have two completely different booking engines for any seat awards (JQ and QF)??? Why double up on IT/system infrastructure (outsourced or not)???

QF are a bunch of jokers...

 

[Evan]

Points are only worth something to you if you can use them.

For example i booked SIN-JNB one-way last night for 37k miles or something like that on SQ, I have no idea if its good or bad value (Cost for floght $SGD 1378, or the points + $179 taxes) but i had the chance and it saved me $1k so i just did it.

What else will i do with the points, let them expire ?

We should be thankful we are all people in the "know" who can get the best value. It like that in many things and it will alwaus be like that some people "know" others pay a higher price.

E

 

[futaris]

At least with AnySeat rewards, you don't have to pay the entire amount with points, and can use a credit card for the remainder.

The one time that these will really be useful, is if you need to travel on a certain date, and one-way. e.g. One-Way to Europe, USA or South-East Asia can be very expensive if you're flying QANTAS, as generally you need Full Economy fares.

One caveat is that you need a minimum of 25,000 points/passenger.

 

[JohnK]

There may not be much immediate personal impact, but I tend to agree with those who are suggesting herein that the rude roo may have a major PR problem on its hands by setting such extravagant burn rates and really have opened up the opportunity to quietly lower allocations of "classic" award seats, whilst claiming adequate supply of point burning opportunities.

I agree that the present introduction/iplementation of anyseat award rates is an absolute farce and is going to cause QF a fair amount of public relations damage. It will be interesting to read news articles over the next few days.

I guess we should be grateful that they didn't tamper with classic earn and burn rates, status credit earn rates, status level demarcations, etc...perhaps the current changes are "positive degradations" rather than "negative enhancements"

Another major enhancement like May 2005 could just about put the last nail in the coffin.

 

[browski]

Hi guys,

With the Qantas "Any seat reward" am I right in understanding that it expands its seat availability to all Qantas flights including all QF codeshare flights (on non-Qantas metal)?

There are some QF flights thst exist (like SIN-BOM), but these cities are not available on the "anyseat" drop-down menus. Does this mean that this route cannot be redeemed, or that it needs to be done via Telephone?

 

[JohnK]

With the Qantas "Any seat reward" am I right in understanding that it expands its seat availability to all Qantas flights including all QF codeshare flights (on non-Qantas metal)?

There are some QF flights thst exist (like SIN-BOM), but these cities are not available on the "anyseat" drop-down menus. Does this mean that this route cannot be redeemed, or that it needs to be done via Telephone?

As far as I understand anyseat awards it must be on QF metal not QF codeshares.

 

[futaris]

You should be able to book codeshares, eg, the PER-SYD-LAX-MEX from another thread.

More than likely they won't do it on 100% codeshares though, i.e. flights that aren't on QF metal at all. Most codeshares on Oneworld Metal should be ok though.

 

[simongr]

As far as I understand anyseat awards it must be on QF metal not QF codeshares.

That would seem not be correct given that the highest price awards quoted so far include LAX-MEX on a QF codeshare.

 

[simongr]

The one time that these will really be useful, is if you need to travel on a certain date, and one-way. e.g. One-Way to Europe, USA or South-East Asia can be very expensive if you're flying QANTAS, as generally you need Full Economy fares.

One caveat is that you need a minimum of 25,000 points/passenger.

I think we can be fairly confident that 25K points is going to be at the lower end of the spectrum of anyseat awards

 

[oz_mark]

As far as I understand anyseat awards it must be on QF metal not QF codeshares.

I can only see a restriction that classic awards cannot be on codeshares.

 

[JohnK]

I can only see a restriction that classic awards cannot be on codeshares.

Sorry! My mistake I must have confused it with Oneworld awards.

 

[Kendall Roy]

Discussion on NEWS.com.au

Reader's Comments: Frequent flyer freedom will come at a cost | News.com.au

Fair to say that the general concensus isn't good for QF (like they really care anyway)

 

[Harpoon]

I was just looking at some of the anyseat flights MEL-LHR-MEL.

The classic rewards seats would be 128k for mel-lhr-mel. I can get an anyseat combo for 190k. So 190k for the anyseat is not too bad I think. It's only a 50% increase, but you can pick more days to suit travel. So it has it's positives as well.

Although.....lol....some date combinations of will cost me 500,000 total in economy for some anyseat flights. ROFL

That seems a little 'broken' to me.

Sure....the anyseat points requirement is calculated on availability, but 500k for a return london ticket in Y? Hmmm. i find it hard to believe somebody would part with 500k just to go on specific dates.