Loyalty A Tale of Two Parties

[Ansett]

All of the changes over time to FF programmes that lead to a dilution of benifits is not a fair thing.

Whilst I understand and appreciate the need to make changes on occasions one has to wonder where it will all stop!

I pose the following to both Lesley Grant, Cate Wellington and other key personnel with in the QFF division, remembering that WE ARE THE REASON YOU FLY!

Dear Lesley and Cate


let me ask you both

You have been using and been loyal over many years, some good and others not so good, to one major supplier. Given that you are considered a valued customer, hold a high status as a customer and have been extremely loyal to to said organisation. They then make significant changes, such as those recently implimented by Qantas, that resulted in outcomes that mean a dilution of previously cherished and enjoyed benifits.

Your business is being aggresively pursued by competitors offering lower cost ,higher and consistent service levels and frequencies, and now with the same level of rewards..

Would you stay Loyal to the original buisness or look at the alternative suppliers?

Would you continue to pay a premium for their products, in this case lets look at business class travel. The original provider to say LHR on QF is in the Region of $8062.00 for departure on the 22nd November returning on the 29th November. Versus $6900.00 on Malaysian for the same dates? (Comparable Conditions)

It seems to me and many others that with the recent changes and the upcoming review and more than likely removal of JASA, which was the main value in the programme for high tier frequent flyers. There is no value in any longer paying a premium to fly Qantas.

I and many others are now much better off booking the best price on day with a comparable airline rather than remain loyal with our hearts and wallets to QF.

For your own interest I have made 3 Buisness class bookings for next year with a Non One World Airline MEL to LHR return along with other regional flights that have come close to $25K that QF has lost.

Again I ask you as a customer at the other end of all of these changes and devaluations would you remain loyal and pay a premium?

Qantas Should remember that Loyalty is indeed something between 2 parties and is earnt with much hard work and lost with such ease !

End of Rant

Regards

 

[JessicaTam]

All of the changes over time to FF programmes that lead to a dilution of benifits is not a fair thing.

Whilst I understand and appreciate the need to make changes on occasions one has to wonder where it will all stop!

I pose the following to both Lesley Grant, Cate Wellington and other key personnel with in the QFF division, remembering that WE ARE THE REASON YOU FLY!

Dear Lesley and Cate


let me ask you both

You have been using and been loyal over many years, some good and others not so good, to one major supplier. Given that you are considered a valued customer, hold a high status as a customer and have been extremely loyal to to said organisation. They then make significant changes, such as those recently implimented by Qantas, that resulted in outcomes that mean a dilution of previously cherished and enjoyed benifits.

Your business is being aggresively pursued by competitors offering lower cost ,higher and consistent service levels and frequencies, and now with the same level of rewards..

Would you stay Loyal to the original buisness or look at the alternative suppliers?

Would you continue to pay a premium for their products, in this case lets look at business class travel. The original provider to say LHR on QF is in the Region of $8062.00 for departure on the 22nd November returning on the 29th November. Versus $6900.00 on Malaysian for the same dates? (Comparable Conditions)

It seems to me and many others that with the recent changes and the upcoming review and more than likely removal of JASA, which was the main value in the programme for high tier frequent flyers. There is no value in any longer paying a premium to fly Qantas.

I and many others are now much better off booking the best price on day with a comparable airline rather than remain loyal with our hearts and wallets to QF.

For your own interest I have made 3 Buisness class bookings for next year with a Non One World Airline MEL to LHR return along with other regional flights that have come close to $25K that QF has lost.

Again I ask you as a customer at the other end of all of these changes and devaluations would you remain loyal and pay a premium?

Qantas Should remember that Loyalty is indeed something between 2 parties and is earnt with much hard work and lost with such ease !

End of Rant

Regards

Dear Mr Ansett,

I'm sorry to learn of you're disappointment with the changes to Any Seat Award bookings. Feedback from our members is always welcome and assists in the ongoing review of the program and our services. Please be assured that your feedback regarding this will be forwarded to Qantas management for their information.

Regards,

 

[harvyk]

I have to agree with Jessica Tam on this one.

Also whilst to you and I $25,000 seems like a lot of money, at some point the QF bean counters have looked at what is coming in vs what is going out and determined that removing said loyalty items will result in better bottom lines even factoring in losing someone like yourself as a customer. I've seen companies which say goodbye to multi-million dollar customers because the beans didn't add up. So $25,000 is really just monopoly money to a company like QF.

Loyalty programs are often very misunderstood. They have the word loyalty in it as to help customers identify with the fact that they will reward you with stuff if you are some what loyal to them, and that's pretty much how marketing wants you to think about them. In reality QF would in scrap QFF, the status levels and all the perks which those with status enjoy if they thought they where not getting a good return from the programs. It's not really about loyalty, but more about marketing, something along the lines of "If you give us your business, we'll treat you better than the competition will" a sort of golden handcuffs for the frequent flyers as they know that if they offer something like lounge access to their "valuable customers" it means those customers are less likely to look outside the QF sphere next time they fly. It's purely marketing, nothing to do with loyalty.

They would also elevate a NB to a P1 (or CL) in a second if they thought it would be worth their while. For proof of this, just look at VA's status match, every one of you who did the status match was comped based not on your loyalty to VA, but your perceived value to VA's business.

As a side note, I don't know how true this is, but I've heard airlines started the whole "Loyalty" concept as a way of making people happy about hub and spoke systems in the US. So rather than people complaining that they could no longer fly direct, they looked at their FF points balance and got excited about free flights, all whilst airlines where able to consolidate routes under peoples noses.

 

[JohnPhelan]

You really need to not make broad statements that QF will say are untrue.

"the likely removal of JASAs" is a good example. QF will say they are not being removed. You need to be specific and say "the likely removal of JASAs at the same points levels as Classic Awards".

Have you actually sent this to anyone at QF, or are you just posting it here?

 

[Ansett]

Good point John

Mainly just venting frustration at the moment.

 

[EmilyHoward]

For me, the whole Emirates link up was a great move and I still believe that. I have been loyal to Q for the last 7 years but I don't seem to feel the loyalty bug recently! I haven't booked any new flights with Q since April. With 8 or 9 million Frequent Flyers I can't see any way we are not really just numbers to them. That's life. My recent experience SYD to LHR and then LHR to SYD and SYD to PER was about it for me. Mentally, I'm over it I think.

EH

 

[TonyHancock]

For me, the whole Emirates link up was a great move and I still believe that. I have been loyal to Q for the last 7 years but I don't seem to feel the loyalty bug recently! I haven't booked any new flights with Q since April. With 8 or 9 million Frequent Flyers I can't see any way we are not really just numbers to them. That's life. My recent experience SYD to LHR and then LHR to SYD and SYD to PER was about it for me. Mentally, I'm over it I think.

EH

Its lack of consistency on the service front that gets me. Over the last year I have been pretty happy with QF, but in the last two to three months I feel things have been slipping again. If the MASA is to disappear then I'll soon be relying on LTG for the odd QF flights I'll be taking. So I guess in essence QF and I are loyal to each other when it suits us both.

 

[EmilyHoward]

Its lack of consistency on the service front that gets me. Over the last year I have been pretty happy with QF, but in the last two to three months I feel things have been slipping again. If the MASA is to disappear then I'll soon be relying on LTG for the odd QF flights I'll be taking. So I guess in essence QF and I are loyal to each other when it suits us both.

Same same for me now I'm thinking!

EH

 

[Supersonic Swinger]

For me any changes to the FF program are secondary to the fact that for all the flights I have booked in the last 12 months, QF were always more expensive (often significantly more) than other options. I like to see my points balance go up, but not at the expense of seeing my credit card balance go up.

 

[Ansett]

For me any changes to the FF program are secondary to the fact that for all the flights I have booked in the last 12 months, QF were always more expensive (often significantly more) than other options. I like to see my points balance go up, but not at the expense of seeing my credit card balance go up.

That is my whole point QF expect us to be loyal to them and pay more for the same or lesser service and then to just bend over and take it when they enhance the FF programme to to the detriment of its more Loyal and High Tier customers.

 

[harvyk]

That is my whole point QF expect us to be loyal to them and pay more for the same or lesser service and then to just bend over and take it when they enhance the FF programme to to the detriment of its more Loyal and High Tier customers.

That's the thing, QF don't expect people to be loyal at all. They have incentives in their FF programs to encourage people to use them on repeat, but there is no expectation of loyalty.
They have also worked out a price point at which people will still pay for their service, again it's pretty standard business practice.

 

[jetlagger]

They have also worked out a price point at which people will still pay for their service, again it's pretty standard business practice.

Price point aside, the equilibrium line of reciprocated loyalty can evolve into a very frayed 'string line" when there are evident & often more desirable alternate options in the current marketplace.

 

[OATEK]

For me any changes to the FF program are secondary to the fact that for all the flights I have booked in the last 12 months, QF were always more expensive (often significantly more) than other options. I like to see my points balance go up, but not at the expense of seeing my credit card balance go up.

All my overseas travel since 2006 has been fairly evenly shared between QANTAS and Cathay,with one Singapore Airlines thrown in so that we could experiencing the A380 before they arrived at QF. I have to say that $Cost is never the be all and end all for us. We have a preference for this small group of airlines based on all sorts of reasons, and have been generally comparing just these only when looking at booking.

I joined AFF recently after I realised that lack of care and attention to detail meant that I had missed a tier upgrade last year by a handful of status credits, and needed to learn more about the ins and outs. Having now seen the possibilities for reaching higher status levels I will make more of an effort. But I do not expect my annual $25K fare spend to register on the QFF radar. I will look for status where I can, gain points where I can, but will base my travel, as I have for the last 8 years or so, on the best deal between my preferred airlines, chiefly QF and CX, at the time I am making a booking.

It was touch and go for the upcoming J trip SYD-LHR between CX and QF, and I went for QF for novelty value having not flown through the middle-east since about 1990. But I am reasonably certain that next year will be more likely to be on CX for SYD-HKG-CDG than on QF/EK SYD-DXB-CDG as we are looking at a stopover and I think HKG has it all over DXB. So my loyalty probably has as many limits as QF's.

 

[harvyk]

Price point aside, the equilibrium line of reciprocated loyalty can evolve into a very frayed 'string line" when there are evident & often more desirable alternate options in the current marketplace.

You'd probably find that QF don't really care about that from a purely bean counter point of view. Whilst marketing would no doubt love to have BIS as that is pretty much their measure of success, the finance dept cares about the value of each remaining customer and what they need to do to keep that customer there without spending a cent more than they need to. Of course those guys work on a macro level, eg we remove this feature we'll lose 1% of our customers, but it's costing us the equiv of 3% of our customers revenue to retain. Of course it does also go the other way eg if we add this feature, it'll cost us $x but we predict it will bring in $x + y. Again everything does boil down to the balancing act.

Do they always get it right? Nope, sometimes they get it so wrong that an enhancement gets "downgraded" back to how this where before within a very short period of time.

Now QF could easily make every single person in Australia 100% loyal to them. All they need to do is start offering F flights from SYD-LAX for $100. If they did that then there is not a chance my eye would wander over to VA. Of course if they did that they won't be in business for long.

 

[sjd]

Good point John

Mainly just venting frustration at the moment.

Better out than in.

 

[TonyHancock]

Now QF could easily make every single person in Australia 100% loyal to them. All they need to do is start offering F flights from SYD-LAX for $100. If they did that then there is not a chance my eye would wander over to VA. Of course if they did that they won't be in business for long.

I'm struggling to see where that has anything to do with loyalty.

 

[Supersonic Swinger]

That is my whole point QF expect us to be loyal to them and pay more for the same or lesser service and then to just bend over and take it when they enhance the FF programme to to the detriment of its more Loyal and High Tier customers.

I think QF expect us to be loyal but I'm not going to let them have that. I'm finding much better value by going with the best fare on carriers I'm happy to fly, keeping a few programs across the alliances on the go and spending through credit cards which don't direct sweep to an airline to give me optionality (either directly or through SPG) to convert to where needed.

Cases in point for me recently LHR-ICN-SYD in J on Asiana (80,000 Asiana miles), SIN-HKG-JFK in J on Cathay (55,000 AA miles) and SYD-LHR-SYD in J on Malaysia Airlines (150,000 Delta miles). QFF wasn't competitive in any of those cases.

 

[Mr_Orange]

For me, the whole Emirates link up was a great move and I still believe that.

And being based in BNE, I think it is a load of carp.

No Y+ all the way to Europe because EK don't offer it, but the ticket price does not reflect a half Y+/half Y journey.

Y on the EK 777s is terrible. 10 across in a 777 makes for an unacceptably narrow seat.

It's not always all about the premium J and F cabins!

 

[OATEK]

Y on the EK 777s is terrible. 10 across in a 777 makes for an unacceptably narrow seat.

It's not always all about the premium J and F cabins!

Exactly why CX and others have real appeal for flights into Europe rather than via LHR.

 

[harvyk]

I'm struggling to see where that has anything to do with loyalty.

Wishful thinking on my part?




I used it to demonstrate that loyalty does not always equate to good for the company. In my example if QF did that, they would have every single person using them for every flight and thus a very loyal following. But they would of course not be making any money from the venture.

What I am trying to say rather ineloquently is that I see exactly where QF the company is coming from re:loyalty, and the sometimes lack of love from them to us.