6 Years Platinum & Lifetime Gold – Voting With My Wallet After Executive Team Apathy

[Daver6]

Agree. But he booked Y and hoped for J upgrade. Is VA any better in delivering J upgrades for Y tickets? I honestly have no idea as I only travel Y domestically unless it is a tag flight to an international sector.

I read it as his return flight was in J, downgraded from a A330 to 737. The OP also made it clear what they described was the final straw, not a single trip that's caused them to jump ship.

 

[SYD]

I read it as his return flight was in J, downgraded from a A330 to 737. The OP also made it clear what they described was the final straw, not a single trip that's caused them to jump ship.

Alas, jumping ship guarantees a recliner J seat for evermore.

As others have said, the grass isn’t necessarily greener.

 

[kpro]

Less J seats on a VA 737 to upgrade too, and certainly no "premium private capsule" or A330's to be found at all.

QF may not have product consistency on transcontinental flights, but unfortunately they do have arguably a better, or in the worst case, essentially the same product as VA.

 

[AuSammy]

Less J seats on a VA 737 to upgrade too, and certainly no "premium private capsule" or A330's to be found at all.

QF may not have product consistency on transcontinental flights, but unfortunately they do have arguably a better, or in the worst case, essentially the same product as VA.

Thinking outside the box; If money and time is flexible, one could always book and pay J seats on SQ via SIN. Very little chance (0%?) of a downgrade to a recliner.

I believe some sandgropers do this to get to the AFL grand final

 

[MEL_Traveller]

Less J seats on a VA 737 to upgrade too, and certainly no "premium private capsule" or A330's to be found at all.

QF may not have product consistency on transcontinental flights, but unfortunately they do have arguably a better, or in the worst case, essentially the same product as VA.

Less J seats, and filled with bid for upgrades starting at $65. Which are processed hours in advance of departure.

Means in the event of IRROPS, displaced J pax, regardless of status, get shunted to economy or a flight many hours later.

Thinking outside the box; If money and time is flexible, one could always book and pay J seats on SQ via SIN. Very little chance (0%?) of a downgrade to a recliner.

I believe some sandgropers do this to get to the AFL grand final

It would be very expensive as you’d need separate tickets and no advantage of a through fare (cabotage rules).

A cheaper option would be to fly via Sydney for the 789 services.

 

[exceladdict]

Less J seats on a VA 737 to upgrade too, and certainly no "premium private capsule" or A330's to be found at all.

QF may not have product consistency on transcontinental flights, but unfortunately they do have arguably a better, or in the worst case, essentially the same product as VA.

And ex-mel at least, i'd take the QF J lounge over any others available to the general public, alongside free wifi

 

[TeaKozy]

I can’t recall a single instance of priority boarding not being enforced in the past 18 months since the scanners were reprogrammed to deny - a complete reversal of the consistently inconsistent nature it was before.

LTG is the reward for your loyalty. Lounge access, priority boarding, additional luggage, seat selection and preferential access to both reward availability and upgrades (over silver and bronze) across not just QF but all oneworld carriers, regardless of your future spend. These are tangible, published benefits that I’d argue are quite valuable for someone who spends considerable time in an airport. That you were Platinum for 6 years (of which some I imagine were comped on account of COVID) is of no consequence to QF - they’ve drawn a line commercially as to how much they expect customers to spend to receive certain benefits.

I can empathise with the aircraft being swapped, but as mentioned before this is hardly unusual on the transcon. I do agree that they should (when booking) only show the domestic recliner rather than the suite, however for a domestic product even that exceeds what you’d get intra-Europe, and is comparable to transcon in the US.

You do you, but when VA can’t consistently guarantee their P1 equivalent’s access to advertised benefits (VIP call centre or lounge access when flying with partners) I’m not sure I’d be holding my breath for an elevated experience.

 

[LondonAussie]

Agree - priority group boarding is something that Qantas now gets right due to the enforcement. BA is shocking by comparison, they’ll let anyone through at any time. However if you complain to BA about service failures they will throw Avios at you. Qantas just give empty apologies.

As for the other intra-Europe comparisons, there’s no real red eyes to compare with like Perth-Sydney. A better comparison would be US transcon flights.

 

[Daver6]

Alas, jumping ship guarantees a recliner J seat for evermore.

As others have said, the grass isn’t necessarily greener.

Again, it's about selling one thing and receiving something different is, IMHO, the bigger issue. With VA, you know what you're getting.

 

[SYD]

With VA, you know what you're getting.

A recliner seat.

 

[algae]

Gurl... SQ is not any better. Plane swaps just... happen.

SQ definitely better in that regard. On SQ they have lie flat seats on 100% of their fleet. So at least no bait and switch like Qantas when an aircraft swap happens.

 

[RooFlyer]

A recliner seat.

For which you pay less, in line with VA vs QF biz fares.

 

[buzz62]

Agree - priority group boarding is something that Qantas now gets right due to the enforcement. BA is shocking by comparison, they’ll let anyone through at any time. However if you complain to BA about service failures they will throw Avios at you. Qantas just give empty apologies.

As for the other intra-Europe comparisons, there’s no real red eyes to compare with like Perth-Sydney. A better comparison would be US transcon flights.

To clarify for everyone commenting this thread isn't about chasing points, fighting for upgrades, or hoping for freebies; frankly, I think points are a waste of time. I pay full cash for my international travel and the vast majority of my domestic Business Class flights. The real issue here is the systematic collapse of customer service, corporate accountability, and actual premium consistency. When you are a high-value, cash-paying customer, multi-decade loyalty means absolutely nothing on the day. High status doesn't protect you from extreme aircraft down-gauges, it doesn't stop them from stripping out seat back screens, and the automated PR templates you get from executive customer care when things go wrong are a joke. That is why I'm moving my commercial spend elsewhere

 

[lovestotravel]

I'd love to fly on a 767 again

 

[BrianQQ]

SQ definitely better in that regard. On SQ they have lie flat seats on 100% of their fleet. So at least no bait and switch like Qantas when an aircraft swap happens.

I also just realised they're talking about domestic flights asw...

VA has lie flat seats?

The real issue here is the systematic collapse of customer service, corporate accountability, and actual premium consistency. When you are a high-value, cash-paying customer, multi-decade loyalty means absolutely nothing on the day. High status doesn't protect you from extreme aircraft down-gauges, it doesn't stop them from stripping out seat back screens, and the automated PR templates you get from executive customer care when things go wrong are a joke. That is why I'm moving my commercial spend elsewhere

Good for you!

From my Gen Z perspective, you just sound entitled and can't seem to fathom that bad experiences just happen. Clearly haven't worked a day in the customer support or hospitality industry. Lord.

 

[Dmac59]

I feel your pain @buzz62 and agree with you for the most part, but as others have stated the grass is not always greener.
The majority of FF’ers have had similar experiences on the QF powerhouse.

 

[MEL_Traveller]

To clarify for everyone commenting this thread isn't about chasing points, fighting for upgrades, or hoping for freebies; frankly, I think points are a waste of time. I pay full cash for my international travel and the vast majority of my domestic Business Class flights. The real issue here is the systematic collapse of customer service, corporate accountability, and actual premium consistency. When you are a high-value, cash-paying customer, multi-decade loyalty means absolutely nothing on the day. High status doesn't protect you from extreme aircraft down-gauges, it doesn't stop them from stripping out seat back screens, and the automated PR templates you get from executive customer care when things go wrong are a joke. That is why I'm moving my commercial spend elsewhere

As pointed out above, your reward for loyalty is lifetime gold. VA offers nothing by comparison.

As someone who qualified 6 times over for platinum on Virgin in a single year, all on VA metal in the business cabin, I can confirm VA is far worse than QF in terms of customer service.

as for tv screens being stripped out, QF offers streaming to your personal device. VA has no screens at all.

 

[serfty]

My experience this year is that seating has never been better. Economy Plus has been the biggest change that actually affects my comfort while I continue to buy the cheapest discounted Y ticket (and Forward seating always sticks). ....

To be fair, the OP is Life Time Gold and for Qantas Gold, forward seat selection availability/cost has really downgraded significantly this year.

 

[LondonAussie]

The airline industry is mostly now a race to the bottom for service and comfort. Airlines mostly compete on price instead, and the majority of customers are apathetic about poor service so there’s no incentive for airlines to do better because even their most frustrated customers keep coming back and spending more!

 

[HMcM]

I see it more as not getting what you booked being a bigger problem without any recourse or compensation. You book VA J, they have a single product and will deliver it. There's no switcheroo.

Personally I would prefer the option for something better sometimes over the guarantee of low quality all the time. In a market where the high quality product (lay flat wide-body) cannot be 100% guaranteed the only way to guarantee consistency is to get rid of the high quality product and replace it with the low quality one (narrow-body recliner).