Considering leaving QFF and joining KF

[amk2912]

Hi everyone! I've been a QFF for over 20 years and never redeemed a point on flights as I always found it easier to buy a commercial fare as the taxes, fees and charges with QANTAS were crazy. Over that twenty years I have accumulated close to 800,000 points and now want to use them to get the family (5) to London for Christmas. Once again, the taxes, fees and charges are a sting... close to $5,600 for five of us. I will probably end up using Points Plus Pay to clear the points and make the jump afterwards to KF.... gritting my teeth and forking the Pay component of about $8,000. The full commercial fare would be $13,500 in economy.

I have chosen KF as I have an opportunity to earn mega points through Amex Rewards and my business. I would like to get an idea of the comparative taxes, fees and charges when redeeming KF miles on a Perth-London return trip (170,000 KF).

Thanks in advance.

 

[Mal Ware]

I am not sure of the costs and charges.

I am also considering changing over the Kris flyer they seem to have a lot more cheaper flights than Qantas do and your right the fees and charges are a joke.

 

[markis10]

Welcome to AFF, can I suggest you have a closer look at your options, for instance an any seat award for a family of five:



Might also be worth waiting until the new flights get approved with the Emirates tie up as to final costs and availability, a large cost component is the UK departure tax on that route which makes the taxes seem excessive as well. Keep in mind that using an any seat means each traveller also earns 20000 odd points, enough for a family domestic flight.

 

[albatross710]

You can always start a KF account and start accumulating points there. Retain some activity on your QF account (via Woolworths) and use the points when they suit you.

I'm a KF fan but I still feel the sting of the taxes and levies. It is only worth it for KF getting 'premium' class redemptions. The miles which I get for free through business purchases mean I get to fly J for a little less than the price of a discount economy tix.

For instance on way Paris - Bris on a J redemption is $440 of taxes and charges on SQ.

I don't think of the KF miles as being a way to get free flights, more a way to get a 'free upgrade' to a better class of travel.

PS: Managed to make 14 personal J redemptions in the 2012....2013 doesn't look as exciting.

Alby

 

[Mal Ware]

You can always start a KF account and start accumulating points there. Retain some activity on your QF account (via Woolworths) and use the points when they suit you.

I'm a KF fan but I still feel the sting of the taxes and levies. It is only worth it for KF getting 'premium' class redemptions. The miles which I get for free through business purchases mean I get to fly J for a little less than the price of a discount economy tix.

For instance on way Paris - Bris on a J redemption is $440 of taxes and charges on SQ.

I don't think of the KF miles as being a way to get free flights, more a way to get a 'free upgrade' to a better class of travel.

PS: Managed to make 14 personal J redemptions in the 2012....2013 doesn't look as exciting.

Alby

How does KF compare with Qantas for seat selection, do they have it upon booking as you move up the tiers?

 

[dajop]

I'm a KF fan but I still feel the sting of the taxes and levies. It is only worth it for KF getting 'premium' class redemptions. The miles which I get for free through business purchases mean I get to fly J for a little less than the price of a discount economy tix.

Whilst Krisflyer do have high fuel surcharges (forget taxes they're the same for everyone), so does Qantas!! KF are broadly comparable to Qantas in terms of flights from Australia to SE Asia and Europe, but have a sting in their tail for going from Australia to North Asia and the Americas. (KF taxes are crazy for SIN-USA/Brazil), but probably comparable to QF if using UA or NZ to go transpac. Take MEL-LHR, in economy, taxes+fuel surcharges on SQ are $390 AUD. On QF they are currently $450 AUD. If using credit card earn at same rate, QF will take 64K pts in Y or 128K in J, SQ 40.5K in Y, 81K in J. Do the math - even if only valuing points at 1 c per point, a 47,000 pt saving, you could afford an extra $470 in taxes on this route before things come back to level pegging between the two carriers.

amk2912, You mention "leaving" QFF and joining KF. When using Amex, you really aren't committing to KF, you are opening up yourself to a range of other programs as well, including Velocity, Virgin Atlantic, and for oneworld Malaysian and Cathay Pacific, so the advantage with it is not locking yourself into one specific program.

 

[albatross710]

How does KF compare with Qantas for seat selection, do they have it upon booking as you move up the tiers?

In my experience I've always gotten where I want to go on/about the dates I've needed to go.

I know that KF Elites have more access and more success getting seats opened up.

Kind of annoys me that I can make 14 J Class flights on SQ but have zero status as all the flights were miles redemptions. Would be nice if somehow they could be seen as 'purchases' by the Westpac points. I'm still happy though...

 

[Alanslegal]

I have chosen KF as I have an opportunity to earn mega points through Amex Rewards and my business. I would like to get an idea of the comparative taxes, fees and charges when redeeming KF miles on a Perth-London return trip (170,000 KF).

KF charges the similar ridiculous levels of taxes on their award flights. Unless you jump to an American based frequent flyer program, expect excessive taxes.

As you can't really control taxes / surcharges, the best is to utilise (the burn rate of) your frequent flyer points so best value redemptions are usually in the J or F cabins.

 

[lovetravellingoz]

How does KF compare with Qantas for seat selection, do they have it upon booking as you move up the tiers?

You can book your seat when you book your flight if you book SQ metal. A big plus for me is that you do not need status. Just the points.

*A have to be down via the *A airline direct.

I moved from QFF to KF several years ago and was one of my best decisions ever.

However I always look at each earn and burn. Some points still get earnt to QFF due to promos (ie would be less value awarding to KF), or that they can only go to QFF.

 

[lovetravellingoz]

Welcome to AFF, can I suggest you have a closer look at your options, for instance an any seat award for a family of five:

View attachment 12642

Might also be worth waiting until the new flights get approved with the Emirates tie up as to final costs and availability, a large cost component is the UK departure tax on that route which makes the taxes seem excessive as well. Keep in mind that using an any seat means each traveller also earns 20000 odd points, enough for a family domestic flight.

True...but for 900K and probably the same in taxes as it is London you would be in J on SQ via KFF. Might have to do it in two flights though.

 

[fewings85]

i did the move last year as well. from what i have gathered so far and alot has been said already:

Singapore has alot more seats readily available from redemption the qantas
fuel surcharges are abit higher then qantas so you usuallyfork out abit more when bookng
however the points required are alot less so as said the you will be able to afford the extra surcharges.
As albatross said im looking to rather use them as un upgrade rather then as to redeem economy flights. i wont rule out completely using the as an economy booking, it wil depend where im going.

i still keep my qantas account open, as i build points with everyday rewards through woolworths and through optus through my mobile phone plan. i still have about 66,000 points left over from when i changed i need to burn in that account.

 

[RooFlyer]

One aspect you may wish to investigate is joining another *A carrier's points program rather than SQ/KF. You can still earn the points if you really want to fly on SQ, but you may have cheaper 'Award' redemptions on another 'home carrier's ' points program.

Flying to Canada a lot in the past 18 months, I joined AC's Aeroplan program, and I've built myself up to Super Elite status in the past year (mainly flying AC but also LH, SQ and SAS) and have just started looking at making redemptions on that alliance. Unfortunately for me I found that AC has very high 'scamcharges' (ie fuel/admin charges) in Award redemptions and SQ isn't far behind. I found that I probably would have been better off joining UA's Milage Plus program. (Agean's program gets a lot of mentions in the 'I'm leaving Aeroplan threads.) If you do a RtW redemption, both AC and SQ add thousands in 'additional charges', but these can be avoided by choosing LH and TG for instance and with *A most carriers make most of their Award seats available to other carrier's members.

SQ is a high quality airline, but if you want to get maximum flexibility by redeeming on a 'home' carrier, and avoiding scamcharges, then maybe Thai's program may be worth looking at?

 

[KLN]

my points all warehoused between Amex and Westpac. use SQ and MAS a fw times a year and haven't flown international Y since i jumped ship too. between J redemption bookings and upgrades have had 100% success. even bookin 3 pax, and i have no status either

 

[dajop]

One aspect you may wish to investigate is joining another *A carrier's points program rather than SQ/KF. You can still earn the points if you really want to fly on SQ, but you may have cheaper 'Award' redemptions on another 'home carrier's ' points program.

I agree, many other star alliance options out there if primary earn is through flying (although most seem to have both upsides and downsides).

However, if mainly earning through an Australian credit card, SQ is hard to beat as far as star alliance programs go. TG's program has higher redemption rates than SQ in most award categories, and AFAIK none of the low taxing US based carriers have an effective option for earning from Australian credit cards. But I'll say it again (and again and again) for credit cards such as Amex Membership Rewards, Westpac Altitude etc, there is no need to lock points into specific airline programs, keep them in the credit card program and transfer as /when necessary.

QF's really the one major program that are outside this with their direct sweep cards (which I am very cynical about), but even then with CX, MH and even filtering points through starwood to AA, there a lots of one world options that don't require locking in credit card points to QFF.

 

[Mal Ware]

Thanks for the answers to my questions.

So what would you recommend if I earn most of my points flying, rather than through credit cards? Just join KrisFlyer and rack them up that way?

One more thing on seat selection, does Kris Flyer charge extra for an exit row?

 

[albatross710]

One more thing on seat selection, does Kris Flyer charge extra for an exit row?

I've seen this option for paid Y tickets.
For redemptions I think you can allocate yourself from the available seating options. Thinking about this I think they have restricted options available.

 

[dajop]

One more thing on seat selection, does Kris Flyer charge extra for an exit row?

Yes they do, but not quite as aggressively as QF. $50 per sector. So Australia-SIN $50, Australia-Europe is $100, vs QF where it is $90 and $180 respectively. Used to be a loophole to get around this (ie website bug) but that loophole closed about 6 months ago

So with exit row included the extra charges for travelling on Y award ticket from MEL-LHR .... QF = $630, SQ = $490 ... you can see why people go for J.

 

[amk2912]

Thanks for the tips everyone. I'll probably end up retaining QFF as well as joining KF as I can channel ANZ VISA rewards points into QFF (as I have done for many years) and convert Amex Rewards to KF when needed. BTW, this is a great site! Thanks again!