Free lunch? More like a cheap eat?

[wil]

First of all dfcatch, I am extremely grateful for your time and patience as it is super beneficial for gaining a deeper understanding and therefore an ability to learn without close guidance.

Secondly, I am actually completely aware of the complete lack of value in the stores however misinterpreted what you meant. I've crunched the numbers on a few items myself and I think I'll leave the toaster enthusing to someone else

The thrill of the chase shall continue to drive me

 

[get me outta here]

How do you reach P by this method?

snip .... Yes you might be a platinum, but if you reached that level by credit card promotions and award flying ......

 

[serfty]

Any seat awards at a cost of 0.7¢ per point ... great value for the airline ...

 

[Mattg]

wil, perhaps you might be interested in having a read of the status run threads such as this one?

I think most people will agree that the status runs and mileage runs (not to be confused with one another!) are better value in the United States than in Australia. However, there is still the occasional good deal in Australia. For example, I recently booked a return flight from SYD-LST via MEL. This cost me $178 return and will earn me 40 status credits. If I was really interested in the status credits, I could have also booked a comfort seat. This earns points & SCs but you only pay the fare component again (not taxes). I think I worked out that in this example, it would have cost around $300 to earn 80 status credits. I believe that one of the moderators on this forum earned Platinum One status a while back by booking comfort seats on QantasLink flights.

So, there is still value out there - it's just a bit more difficult to find.

 

[harvyk]

How do you reach P by this method?

Back in the grand old days it was possible to do so via mASA's (JASA's / FASA's). If you had a high credit card spend (eg running a business and paying your GST bill via the CC) it was possible to earn a lot of points, then book mASA's (which ironically cost the same as normal awards to purchase but would then earn points and SC's).

My best effort was CBR-SYD-HKG JASA (one way) which from memory was around 40,000 points and $200 (after the points earn on the trip) which netted me around 160SC's. There are others which managed to do far better than that.

Of course QF have now discontinues the mASA's, however no doubt there will be some other loophole we will one day find which gives cheap pointy end flying and high SC earn, thus giving us a technically high status, but not exactly being a valuable pax for the airline (btw, that's any airline, taking the QF blinkers off for a second)

 

[medhead]

Care to explain? I was not aware of this.

Me too. What do the levels represent? Differing levels of service, award availability?

If this were true, then their staff would need to have access to a specific "grading" or ranking for every pax so as to know this. Other than conjecture, is there any evidence that this is the reality??

Nothing to do with customer facing staff treatment, although I wouldn't be surprised if the CSM had some indicator of PCV. PCV hits the nail on the head as mentioned by DFCatch and covered below, I'm referring to the value that the system assigns to each customer. I get just platinum at an average of $120ish per flight. I'm not valuable, I don't get op-ups and other "system" determined benefits. I'm pretty sure that the platinum who is getting there on flexi fares @$400 a flight will get some of those little extras. We've oversold Y, we need to move someone to J - the platinum with the higher PCV is going to get moved.

I also suspect PCV comes into how they response to feedback. I suspect PCV will also be used in determining upgrade bids. All just based on my experiences, as a cheap platinum, versus report here from people who I believe sped more than me.

Anyway, DFCatch covered it much better than me.

I suspect it's more to do with how important you are to the airline. Yes you might be a platinum, but if you reached that level by credit card promotions and award flying you are not going to be anywhere near as valuable to the airline as a person whose BIS flying involves a weekly full fare F class long haul international flight. Whilst yes they won't deliberately provide bad service, if the choice is to help the platinum via the game, or the F flyer, despite both being at the same level, the F Flyer will be considered more valuable to the airline, and thus more likely to get the special treatment.

As for "Free lunch", it's a hobby, much like some people collect cars, others build wooden cabinets, FFing / collecting airports is as valid as any other hobby.

Of course QF have now discontinues the mASA's, however no doubt there will be some other loophole we will one day find which gives cheap pointy end flying and high SC earn, thus giving us a technically high status, but not exactly being a valuable pax for the airline (btw, that's any airline, taking the QF blinkers off for a second)

Already found, no where near as good as masa - just compare classic award cost with points plus pay cost on the Y sale fares. the later earns...

 

[harvyk]

Already found, no where near as good as masa - just compare classic award cost with points plus pay cost on the Y sale fares. the later earns...

Interesting, I have to admin I haven't bothered looked at points + pay very much as I'm not about to spend 5000 points to save $20 (or whatever ridiculously low number the had assigned as the value of a point).
I don't tend to use points for Y flying (as Y flying tends to be pretty cheap as is), do you know if there are similar sales on which would cover J?

 

[medhead]

Interesting, I have to admin I haven't bothered looked at points + pay very much as I'm not about to spend 5000 points to save $20 (or whatever ridiculously low number the had assigned as the value of a point).
I don't tend to use points for Y flying (as Y flying tends to be pretty cheap as is), do you know if there are similar sales on which would cover J?

It can only work with the lowest absolute price (Y sale fares), due to points + pay having a direct conversion from $ to points. The $ cost of J fares, even on sale are too large to work. At least as afar as I've found. But take a $120 sale fare on a 12000 point classic award route - any sale J fare is going to be at least $500, compared to 24000 points for a classic J award. That suggests something like 4x the points + pay cost of Y, not double

Realistically this is only of limited use. Only useful if you're looking at a Y classic award, there are sale fares on offer and you are points rich and $ poor. But some of the other mASA rules for multiplying value apply. connections - nudge nudge wink wink

 

[JohnK]

Of course QF have now discontinues the mASA's, however no doubt there will be some other loophole we will one day find which gives cheap pointy end flying and high SC earn, thus giving us a technically high status, but not exactly being a valuable pax for the airline (btw, that's any airline, taking the QF blinkers off for a second)

Loopholes are not going to exist in a revenue based model. Panama and Carribean Island runs are going to be useless.

P.S. Am I the only who thinks it's weird that Australian based AFFers are encountering one another in MIA and other US airports in the middle of status runs? And that's AFFers you have already met. How many others?

 

[MEL_Traveller]

Loopholes are not going to exist in a revenue based model.

I dunno if they classify as 'loopholes' but there's already significant discussion out there about flying partner airlines and how they equate to status under the revenue model. People have already worked out it can be much more lucrative in some instances to fly partners (because of the deemed $ earn rate).

No doubt if QF goes down that path there'll be 'double dollar' earning promotions exactly the same as 'double SCs' now.

 

[harvyk]

P.S. Am I the only who thinks it's weird that Australian based AFFers are encountering one another in MIA and other US airports in the middle of status runs? And that's AFFers you have already met. How many others?

I've always figured that since this group love travelling, and thus the odds of any one member travelling on any one day you will from time to time get members whom bump into each other.
Plus there is a degree of "Birthday Paradox" going on, which increases the odds of people meeting.

(The "Birthday Paradox" is something which is used in Mathematics and Encryption, basically it states that if you get 23 people into a room, the odds of at least 2 of them sharing a birthday is 50%, expand that out to however many members AFF has, the odds that at least 2 member will meet at any one time is actually pretty good)

 

[JohnK]

No doubt if QF goes down that path there'll be 'double dollar' earning promotions exactly the same as 'double SCs' now.

Possibly. I was thinking more along the lines of PPS Solitaire. Not many shortcuts there?

 

[MEL_Traveller]

Possibly. I was thinking more along the lines of PPS Solitaire. Not many shortcuts there?

True! PPS is just an outright $25K spend or something on F and J but on pure SQ services - easy to track.

I'm not sure I fully understand how this works as I don't have any skin in the game here... but I managed to find the article - it's by Lucky at onemileatatime, discussing Elite Qualifying Dollars for AA's partner airlines. Apparently tracking $ spend becomes more complex when partner airlines are involved. Somewhere down the story is an example of flying QR and how a $2000 fare can earn 'double as much [EQDs] as you'd otherwise earn' : American Updates Mileage Earning Rates On Partner Airlines As Of August 1, 2016 - One Mile at a Time

I'm not sure if 'double the EQDs' is a loophole or not as I don't really understand how it all works

 

[dfcatch]

True! PPS is just an outright $25K spend or something on F and J but on pure SQ services - easy to track.

I'm not sure I fully understand how this works as I don't have any skin in the game here... but I managed to find the article - it's by Lucky at onemileatatime, discussing Elite Qualifying Dollars for AA's partner airlines. Apparently tracking $ spend becomes more complex when partner airlines are involved. Somewhere down the story is an example of flying QR and how a $2000 fare can earn 'double as much [EQDs] as you'd otherwise earn' : American Updates Mileage Earning Rates On Partner Airlines As Of August 1, 2016 - One Mile at a Time

I'm not sure if 'double the EQDs' is a loophole or not as I don't really understand how it all works

Hardly a "loophole".

Think of it like QFF......

To earn more SCs - say... to get 3600 for P1.... you need to fly a lot, in premium cabins.

Flying only in discount Y, even a lot - is much, much harder to earn the requisite number of SCs.

The AA system works exactly the same - it's just that the terminology......the system..... and the complexity...... are typically..... how do you say...... AA-esque.

 

[serfty]

There no QF "loophole" for P1 in relation to PPS ...

For that P1 you need 2400 SC'S on `~' flights, barring SC promotions I estimate at least $10k spend for that earn.

 

[Princess Fiona]

There no QF "loophole" for P1 in relation to PPS ...

For that P1 you need 2400 SC'S on `~' flights, barring SC promotions I estimate at least $10k spend for that earn.

It's 2700 SC of the 3600 on QF flights.