If the punter wants, say, to fly to London or somewhere exotic on their points (which QF promises ad nauseum) they go to book and the ONLY option available is the points+pay amount, no CR to be seen at all (and we know that is not just frequently, but mostly the case for popular routes), then the punter only has that expensive option. The punter does see a devaluation in what they can get for their points stash; half a trip to wherever, rather than enough for a family of four.
The punter shouldn't have to know this trick or that hack to succeed - they should only need to operate the FF scheme as its promoted by the company - earn points, get flights in your points. If the only flight they can get on a route for a long period of time is for the p+p amount at say 10x the cost otherwise, then yes, there has been a substantial devaluation for them. They go to the booking site, see the p+p cost (no CR price) and come away incredibly disappointed.
I see the point and I noted this above in one of my rambles - this is a creation of QF's own design (another QF own goal - they score more of these than any oppo combined
). Because this is the UI design and what they are presented with gives the IDEA that there's a devaluation.
However, this is strictly not true. Many may see this as nuance but I believe it's a very important one. Many more will think I'm just a fanboy defending QF (plus whoever it is that thinks I work in marketing
) but I'm just stating it as I see it. points+pay is a different way to use points to pay for revenue seats as opposed to CR. Now yes, that difference is a nuance and the average punter doesn't know this - and nor should they - or care. None the less it is a key difference - specially when one can see the CR available alongside p+p pricing then it's obvious.
Yes, QF promotes the program totally in the way they all do - earn our points - get rewards. Simples. However the reality as we all know is that this is just the aspirational spin. Of course we ALL know that reward availability is NEVER guaranteed - even for the top of the top tiers.
(as an interesting semi-comparison, the new Rex program does actually have a guarantee of sorts that they will make all unsold seats available at a certain points rate within 48 hours of travel. QF does not make this kind of promise or claim. As a further thought, might QF take anything from the Rex Flyer scheme for their own use? Maybe?
So, there's the usual disconnect between expectation and reality. Is it reasonable to expect to be able to get say four reward seats to LAX to go to Disney during school holidays? Maybe? Maybe not. I'm really not qualified to judge that. The spin would have you believe you should expect it. Experience for many, specially lower tier members, says otherwise (unless they book well in advance).
Getting back to the point about the apparent devaluation when being presented with points+pay pricing for seats vs CR pricing.. again it's not a like for like comparison - and that's what really annoys me about the media writing such things. Now, the pub test almost certainly agrees with you that it is a devaluation, because that's what the member is presented with when they select "use points" - again QF have created this misconception largely through their own choices.
Of course, if "use points" ONLY brought up by default CR availability, and nobody saw anything for months on end for whatever they wanted, then likely the reaction would be that the program is useless for them - and in that case they'd probably be right (which I am sure is partly behind the design decision QF took) - better to show something that one can use points for even at ridiculous prices than endless displays of "sorry, we got nothing for ya."
The inconvenient truth for many is that the supply of reward seats can NEVER be enough to satisfy all the requests. I suspect even if a far greater inventory of higher priced "standard classic reward" seats were out there on popular routes at popular times, there would still be punters that would miss out.
Thinking on it, I reckon QF could actually make a simple tweak to the results display that we currently have to make it much clearer. You can bring up your p+p pricing but ALSO have in the column for "Classic Reward" instead of just saying "No Seats" to actually have the points price but also say no seats at this level - to make it clear that this is the CR price, but OK there's none there, but at least you could see.
(Amusingly, I did multiple searches for MEL-LAX over months and I keep seeing CR availability at 41,500 points(+$254) which kind of makes the point of no availability kind of moot, but I suppose that's my status also playing it's part!).
QF could certainly reduce the confusion and misconceptions with a change in how they display the availability imo.
What's more surprising for me is that the public antagonism and media pile-on for Qantas is still rumbling along. Even the QR decision still gets an occasional story. All of which leads me to hope that the mooted changes to QFF will be actually better for its users, and not a la the 'simpler and fairer' enhancement we got last time.
I've no doubt there will be an apparent "win" for the majority of members by whatever is announced.. but knowing that sooner or later, the other shoe will drop - as it almost certainly will but they can wait on that and hope to take a PR win from supposed changes to make people happier.
However the ongoing antagonism and media pile on is absolutely NOT surprising to me in any way. It's very Australian in many respects (tall poppies) plus people have long memories. Plus when the media turns mostly non stories into yet more reasons to have a go at (in this case) QF then they will - such as the article in question.
Just back to Mr Glance and his appointment - seeing he doesn't start in the role til the end of Feb - even if they announce changes in March or April, he wouldn't have had much to do with that I would think - and we already know they've been working on whatever these changes are for awhile now. Tweaks maybe but whatever the bulk of it is is already decided and I don't think we could praise, or blame, the new guy either way.
