Rockpool Bar and Grill Lunch with QFF confirmed attendees

[Pat2065]

Thanks so much for generously including me today. It was great to meet some others from the AFF community and to speak with QF staff who live and breathe the program.

Neil is a wonderful ambassador for food on the ground and in the air, as well as for Qantas.

While there was not much 'news' today, hats off to QF for engaging members in this way. From the members will come ideas, issues and opportunities. As this small group showed, frequent flyers are an opinionated lot, and there is no way to please everyone on virtually any issue.

My card says I've been a QF frequent flyer since Nov 1988. I think it's longer than that but it doesn't matter. I've seen the QFF program change in ways that would have been unimaginable 25 years ago. No reason to think it won't keep evolving at a similar pace, and evolution usually brings mixed outcomes. Engaging with members will help the good outweigh the bad.

 

[madrooster]

• I didn't get a chance to raise this on the floor, but after talking about unrelated matters I was reminded to ask Justin about whether they might be looking at matching some of the program flexibility that Virgin has with family pooling and parental pauses. Justin and Kate both said that they were looking at ways to better cater to customers changing needs, and that they'd be happy to take it on board. I don't necessarily expect any immediate results, but I'm glad they at least took the ideas under advisement and were keen to see if it or something similar might work for them.

The biggest issue I have with the VA program for example is that all it takes is a family holiday (2 adults 2 kids) to say Europe each year on a VA codeshare the entire way (there's your 4 eligible sectors) and one of the adults is able to maintain gold status under the VA program. The end result is you have a lot of people with status who really may only fly once or twice a year. Even though they may only fly once or twice a year, the number of people in this situation does add up. It makes it too easy to earn status, which indirectly dilutes the benefits of status.

 

[Mal]

[/LIST]

The biggest issue I have with the VA program for example is that all it takes is a family holiday (2 adults 2 kids) to say Europe each year on a VA codeshare the entire way (there's your 4 eligible sectors) and one of the adults is able to maintain gold status under the VA program. The end result is you have a lot of people with status who really may only fly once or twice a year. Even though they may only fly once or twice a year, the number of people in this situation does add up. It makes it too easy to earn status, which indirectly dilutes the benefits of status.

How do this dilute status? If the Gold member only flies once a year, well they aren't utilising many of the benefits at all.
It's similar to the "oh no everyone has been comped to X status" fear. Well, unless they fly, they aren't actually affecting anyone else using the lounges or the aircraft etc.

 

[madrooster]

How do this dilute status? If the Gold member only flies once a year, well they aren't utilising many of the benefits at all.
It's similar to the "oh no everyone has been comped to X status" fear. Well, unless they fly, they aren't actually affecting anyone else using the lounges or the aircraft etc.

It may not make too much of a difference outside of school holiday periods, but it would during the school holiday periods. Consider things like priority boarding, priority baggage, lounge access etc.

 

[Pat2065]

It may not make too much of a difference outside of school holiday periods, but it would during the school holiday periods. Consider things like priority boarding, priority baggage, lounge access etc.

We experienced the problem of "too easy status" once flying CX from Sapporo to Hong Kong around Chinese New Year. The lounge was packed with families and the Priority Boarding line was longer than the regular line as everyone, plus their families, were entitled. We moved to the pleb line which made boarding faster. This would have only happened for a few days and was not typical, but really removed any feeling of being special that day and negated a key benefit of flying J and having OWE status: not having to queue.

 

[Skyring]

Time for a new acronym for the non-active Bronzes? Any suggestions?

I like NB for Bronze - it fits in well with the tongue in cheek abbreviations.

My son is a non-active Bronze. He hasn't flown since year before last and not likely to any time soon. When he flies again, he'll undoubtedly get a list of fares from Expedia or Netflights and fly with whoever has the cheapest price.

CB = Clueless Bronze or Comatose Bronze

I guess I'm a CB too. It's been over a year since I flew, before yesterday anyway, and the two freebie flights earned no points or credits. The QFF computer has probably got me written off as a dead loss.

However, watch this space!

 

[Deleted member]

I like NB for Bronze - it fits in well with the tongue in cheek abbreviations.

My son is a non-active Bronze. He hasn't flown since year before last and not likely to any time soon. When he flies again, he'll undoubtedly get a list of fares from Expedia or Netflights and fly with whoever has the cheapest price.

CB = Clueless Bronze or Comatose Bronze

I guess I'm a CB too. It's been over a year since I flew, before yesterday anyway, and the two freebie flights earned no points or credits. The QFF computer has probably got me written off as a dead loss.

However, watch this space!

Yes. I like CB

 

[straitman]

It may not make too much of a difference outside of school holiday periods, but it would during the school holiday periods. Consider things like priority boarding, priority baggage, lounge access etc.

It seems to me you are forgetting the reason that airlines have FF programs.

 

[simongr]

Well I had a great time - the usual questions were asked and again things came up that have been previously answered but that is life - I guess some people still feel the need to "accuse" QF. A couple of take aways for em were:

- The lunch was hosted by Qantas Loyalty (QL) rather than QFF - subtle change but goes to a broader understanding of what they are about.

- Invitations to the QL CEO presentations were done on a simple highest points earn in the past 12 months

- Don't expect any new big announcements from QF this year - the EK deal has been huge for them and driven by the respective CEOs. For QL Qantas Money has been a huge thing.

- In the EK tie the drive for giving EK and QF customers the best of both worlds has been driven into all of the teams working on the deal (apart from the team responsible for luggage allowances - I didnt get a chance to mention that )

- Not sure if it was mentioned earlier but the new Qantas money card will be usable anywhere that the mastercard symbol is shown.

- P1s will not only get new cards but new bag tags too - it wasnt clear if those were going to be sent out to the next round of qualifiers or existing P1s

 

[Flying Fox]

Lesley is having a FF function in ADL in the near future so there will be more opportunity then for people to make their views known about being the collateral damage in the QF EK tie-up.

I'd be interested in an ADL event.

Glad that someone remembered little ADL.

 

[simongr]

One other thing was around the int'l lounge improvement program. Neil Perry talked about the new lounges in order SIN, HKG and LAX (dependent on the overall airport changes though so maybe late 2014). He talked about them being aimed towards the standard of the SYD (and some other city) F lounges with them being benchmarks for lounge standards around the world.

Lesley did also use the word "enhancement" - someone from the team should probably brief her on that...

 

[Anna]

I have the menu and wine list as PDFs but can't work out how to post them for anyone who wants to see. Any tips?

On another note, one of the most interesting comments that QF made to me yesterday was how difficult the high dollar makes it for QF to compete on price with many of the other airlines at the moment.

Also interesting that pricing of the EK / QF codes has been done to put a value on the SCs accrued on QF codeshare - personally I'm not sure they've got the pricing right for that yet, but I understand that there may be pricing changes after final approval.

 

[oz_mark]

Just wanted to add my thanks to Qantas for the day yesterday. It was good to meet some of the Qantas Loyalty team, and other AFFers (new and old). There were some quite good discussions across a number of areas of the program (I may have mentioned what I thought of the MH earning table)

I will also reiterate what others have said - Neil Perry comes across as someone quite passionate about food and his relationship with Qantas.

I hope that these opportunities come up again, and other members get the opportunity to meet with key members of the Qantas Loyalty team!

 

[docjames]

However, watch this space!

DONEn't (sic) travel too far....

 

[simongr]

Menu 1

 

[simongr]

Menu 2

 

[RooFlyer]

Thanks to those giving the feedback.

Well I had a great time - the usual questions were asked and again things came up that have been previously answered but that is life - I guess some people still feel the need to "accuse" QF. A couple of take aways for em were:

<snip>

Might have been asked by those who haven't been before and, you know, hadn't heard from the people concerned? Lucky indeed are those repeat attendees who have 'heard it before' .

Someday I hope to be in Oz at a time when these events are on - then I might be gauche too and ask the same old questions again.

 

[Must...Fly!]

Mmmm....Rockpool mac & cheese...

Menu looked fabulous. Nothing bad about that free lunch!

 

[djfuzz]

Mmmm....Rockpool mac & cheese...

Menu looked fabulous. Nothing bad about that free lunch!

Despite my joking to others about the 'free lunch', Red Roo basically agreed that they arranged these type of lunches because they do have quite significant value to QF in terms of the direct feedback and insight they can get from different types of customers in that kind of informal setting. So it would be nice to think that we did all provide something worthwhile in return for the very lovely hospitality (and everything else) that was arranged by QF.

 

[Deleted member]

Mmmm....Rockpool mac & cheese...

Menu looked fabulous. Nothing bad about that free lunch!

Not sure about the mac cheese , don't toy with classics is my mantra