Qantas Platinum One experiences?

[aus_flyer]

To all the newly-minted Platinum One frequent flyers out there... I'm curious to hear... what's been your experience so far?

Anything different?

Free upgrades?

... or all hype?

 

[funkyr]

I'm sure everyone here has received the nice email from Qantas

Yay for the P1 extension! Thank you Qantas

 

[JW]

The've also extended status for another year. Dunno if it was targeted. However, smart move Qantas. Guess the emails sent to them had a little weight too.

 

[RichardMEL]

I am gobsmacked they have extended P1, and by extension P1 gifted Plats (and PBR Gold).

So incredibly generous. There was about a 30% chance I was going to make it and zero with CV.

It shows how bad things are for QF but this was a great move.. and I will probably fly them more, when we can again, because of this hugely generous gift from QF. I had expected extensions for Plat/Gold/Silver but not P1.

Well done.

 

[Happy Trails]

But will we still get our Christmas Champagne?
(Stow the pitchforks, I'm just kidding).

 

[Princess Fiona]

I think I this is a very sensible gesture and yes I’m fully aware that a few weeks ago I said the opposite.

 

[kermatu]

Surprised at the timing of this. It's not as though anyone would be directing business elsewhere at the moment.
Two weeks ago I was halfway through my status year with about 800 SCs to go to requalify P1. As it stands zero bookings ahead (on any airline) so might have been touch and go about requalifying. Now that's no longer an issue (thank you QF), though ironically gives me a mild incentive to fly VA if necessary in the next few months, given they are not offering such a generous deal.

 

[GoldCanyon340]

All I have to say is........

 

[hoopla]

I don't mean to sound ungrateful, as this is a very generous offer from Qantas. But for those of us who have already qualified for P1 and have SC resets coming up soon, it doesn't really help. In my case, my reset is end of March and I'm currently sitting on ~4500 SC.

The problem is that I'm grounded for the foreseeable future (I'm anticipating at least 3-6 months) which means I won't be able to use any of my status benefits and will effectively have 6-9 months to re-qualify in the upcoming year.

Whereas if my SC reset had been in February, I'd now have my status extended all the way out to Feb 2022 (when hopefully this whole COVID-19 situation will be in the rearview mirror). Pretty big difference.

I realise that this is a serious FWP with everything going on right now. But it would be nice if Qantas would consider some additional measures for those of us who have already qualified and have status resets coming up shortly. Three possible ideas:

1) Extend status by 12 months for everyone, including those who have already qualified in their current membership year.

2) Allow people to put their status on hold for up to 12 months (essentially change our membership year end date)

3) Allow people to roll-over excess SCs into next membership year (e.g., 900SC in my case)

Thoughts? Anyone else in the same boat?

 

[Matt_01]

@hoopla I would concur with any one of your suggestions. Initially I did not care too much about status extension as I had already qualified for P1 and my roll over will start again in August so these changes have little benefit to myself. My flying has also been clipped and do not need to worry about such things until August but depending on how long this drags on for may affect me in the longer term. I would have thought a 12 month blanket extension would have been an easy and fair solution.

 

[Fergo747]

@hoopla I would concur with any one of your suggestions. Initially I did not care too much about status extension as I had already qualified for P1 and my roll over will start again in August so these changes have little benefit to myself. My flying has also been clipped and do not need to worry about such things until August but depending on how long this drags on for may affect me in the longer term. I would have thought a 12 month blanket extension would have been an easy and fair solution.

Yes would agree with this. Because QF decided to do this now and not in two weeks time, I miss out on the extension and get no benefit from this. YE is 31 March and qualified through to 2021. At this rate being grounded for even then next three months will see me miss out on P1, though if my membership year finished in Feb I would have received it.

They have somewhat answered this though in their FAQs:

My membership anniversary date is in March 2020, so while the extension will take my membership year to March 2021, I still may not be able to fly for much of this year. Will Qantas consider additional support to help me retain next year?
The situation is constantly evolving, as is our response. We will review whether additional support is required closer to the time.

 

[jswong]

I'm really grateful my year ended in Feb so get the maximum benefit. The status extension certainly helps cement my loyalty

 

[JW]

The bigger issue is being able to re-qualify given we won't be flying for a while yet and therefore only have 6/7 months to garner the SC's. Have several euro trips cancelled/on hold hence this will not make much of a dent to most of us. Plus we won't be able to use the facilities/perks given we won't be flying

Should be fun getting back to oz too

 

[Matt_01]

To all of the other P1's this thread in the words (with liberty taken) of Peter, Paul and Mary 'Where have all the P1's gone? Long flights passing. Where have all the P1's gone? Long flights ago'

It has been 2 weeks to the day since I took my last flight and in that time there has only been 13 posts in this thread. This makes number 14 and as I digress in my warped mind things have been returned to a state of balance with an average of 1 post per day.

In 2 weeks my QFF account has changed, 2 weeks back I had 20+ flights, now I have 20+ vouchers. The status extension was a nice gesture but of no value to myself, my redemption flights that needed SST intervention to approve are mostly gone, and the rest are likely to follow.

In the current situation there seems to be nothing to complain or brag about. However I have managed to find a positive, SST did extend my P1 guest vouchers see post 4920 and these have now been extended to May 21. As with positives there is something that I have found annoys me and it is this message that keeps showing up each time I log in to my account, I did not fall within the status extension window and had already retained P1 so of no value to myself, but thanks for reminding me.

Just my first world problems and in some way I am actually looking forward to things returning to the natural order.

 

[Brettmcg]

In the current situation there seems to be nothing to complain or brag about. However I have managed to find a positive, SST did extend my P1 guest vouchers see post 4920 and these have now been extended to May 21. As with positives there is something that I have found annoys me and it is this message that keeps showing up each time I log in to my account, I did not fall within the status extension window and had already retained P1 so of no value to myself, but thanks for reminding me.
View attachment 211484
Just my first world problems and in some way I am actually looking forward to things returning to the natural order.

I have the same message at the top of my FF portal upon login, despite also being in a similar situation to you (i.e. I do not stand to benefit from the current status extension announcement).

I also received an email from QF, crowing

Dear Brettmcg

Good news, your Platinum One status has been extended for 12 months.

I sent a reply back to Loyalty and the SST kindly asking them to refrain from framing this as some grandly generous gesture, given that they have actually done no such thing. I currently sit at 4587 SC with my membership year ending 31MAY20. The likelihood is now that I will only be able to derive maybe 4-5 months of P1 benefits in my new membership year (until MAY21) if flying actually resumes toward the end of the year.

I would very much hope they are looking at ways to support and reward members in this scenario where possible.

 

[flyingfan]

This P1 is reading and posting on AFF more than usual but there's nothing to report to the P1 thread. My year ended Feb and I was intent on trying to requal P1 as quickly as possible. (Yes I'm a SFSC) I spent hours researching and booking runs and was almost late in handing in 'homework' as the DSC deadline loomed.

I thought I did a great job booking those runs, mostly to NZ in March. I was about to embark on my first when first NZ and then Australia began seriously curtailing travel. I ended up also turning about a dozen bookings into vouchers. I didn't want to get a refund as I wanted the option of doing the runs later. Now QF has extended status so they're not needed, and the vouchers will expire before I can use them for my new year. Hopefully I can use those vouchers for a meaningful trip later this year.

I changed one run to wholly domestic in an attempt to get some DSCs rather than none and posted my experiences of that elsewhere, about light loads and largely unimplemented priority boarding. There was no special treatment. I did get about 500 SCs for that day, which ended up being the last flights I did.

I'm thankful to QF for extending my status and consequently the people to whom I gifted WP and SG as well. Trying to be philosophical about it - yes I could have saved $$$ by not booking a single DSC run and still would have had P1 extended. Not that I've really been reaping the benefits. Before Covid-19 flared up I asked for 3 int J seats to be released - no go.

On the flipside I did make slight use of the SST. I've been getting a trickle of cancellation notifications and emails for my remaining bookings. One was coming up soon and I emailed them to ensure it was cancelled which they did.

 

[Matt_01]

This P1 is reading and posting on AFF more than usual.....

I find myself in the same situation. My routine of flying in, meetings, checking in to a hotel, ordering food/ catching up for dinner, back in the hotel catching up on work, amusing myself with some of the posts here and other sites, getting some sleep, checking out, more meetings and then flying home to be greeted with so another tough week jetsetting and swanning about in hotels.

At the moment I just do the work stuff from home and wonder what I will do with the rest of my time. I am not that used to having extra time however that extra time with my daughter is making it quite obvious what I have really missed over the past 10 years. Moving forward I am not fussed if I retain P1 or even WP and when this virus situation ends I will likely put forward a case as to why I do not need to travel so much.

 

[juddles]

My daughter is happy, even though she (obviously as per anyone) has no travel booked at the moment. She now has my gifted WP status for another 12 months That sees her through till end of 2021 - hopefully she will gain some benefit in lounges etc before that (19 month) period expires

As for me, I made the choice to restrict flying for other reasons, befor ethis COVID surprise. I guess everyone is now in my boat, even though they did not choose it

 

[flyingfan]

Was going to post this in the QF status extension thread but that's been locked.

Just got status activity noting extension. Checked the electronic card on the app and it does say expiry Feb 2022 now

Dare I say, smoother than VA (I am grateful for both extensions)

 

[Matt_01]

Checked the electronic card on the app and it does say expiry Feb 2022 now

I am hoping that as this drags on QF also starts to extend the complementary extension window. I am sorted to Jul 21 if I am luck at some point QF will extend that to Jul 22. As an aside I did check MrsM account who has the complementary WP status, her card also shows an expiry of Feb 22.

 

[marki]

I am depressed my Status ran out end of February. And therefore just my downgrade to platinum got extended. What a fizzer I missed out by 18 days. I almost wrote back telling Qantas to stick it. Secondly being in Quarentine I was ordered by the public Health unit no travel. So I asked Qantas to park my ticket but they of course subtracted -5000 Points for the flight upgrade refund fee. Cannot win! Any suggestions?