Are the days of Points collecting over?

[Jacques Vert]

Not sure I agree, given the frequent flyer program is the one part of the business that makes money, yes the airlines want to maximise their profit. But they don’t want to kill it!

There doing a pretty good job of doing just that.

 

[levelnine]

It does depend on who the 'they' is.

Qantas flooded the market with points during COVID to boost their revenue, so the recent devaluations make sense — too many points chasing too few seats. They aren't trying to kill the game — they're trying to keep it going.

The RBA does not care about points collection. Indeed, they have no qualms about killing it.

So Qantas is going to have to work hard to keep it alive (at the same rate of profitability for them) post-RBA changes.

 

[MelbFlyer]

Qantas flooded the market with points during COVID to boost their revenue, so the recent devaluations make sense — too many points chasing too few seats.

This - way too many points in circulation and too little seats.

Having implemented their new reward seat finder tool further highlights how little premium seats are available on their own flights.

 

[SOPOOR]

Not sure I agree, given the frequent flyer program is the one part of the business that makes money, yes the airlines want to maximise their profit. But they don’t want to kill it!

FF programs have always been a pretty cough deal for your average Joe Blow (that’s how they make their money), but there always have been ways for the smarter aficionados to leverage benefit.

It’s a fine line but if FF programs become useless to everyone and everyone stops using them they lose all that, IMO they have to have some appeal to some users or they are killing a golden goose.

my assumption is that the point collectors who actually redeem it on premium flights is a tiny % whilst the high majority are people who have a credit card because thats what everyone does, and they are happy to get a toaster every few years or even a domestic flight (my parents both have one and dont even know how many points they have, nor really care)

and therefore these programs make millions for the airlines

 

[SYD]

This - way too many points in circulation and too little seats.

This is true. Although WP and up can call up for QF metal.

Having implemented their new reward seat finder tool further highlights how little premium seats are available on their own flights.

It's only showing what's visible to NB/PS (not linked to status) so users actually can't see what little QF awards do get released before what's taken.

Possibly equally alarming is the disappearance of many partners seats (eg CX, JL etc). That used to be pretty good.

 

[jbman]

I have a few friends who read the hype and started churning cards in the last 2-3 years. Piled up with points, they hoped to make some bookings for trips they wanted ie 2xJ to EU. Subscribed to various seat searching websites with no luck at all.

I feel this is the case for many over the past couple of years and do wonder what they and others will do in the future.

 

[burmans]

For sure, once upon a time many years ago only a few people knew of these opportunities. Then bloggers got hold of it and everyone was in the game. Just commercial sense that the airlines basically have two ways to respond, a) make points harder to get or b) make them worth less.

Just a natural cycle to me.