Getting gold

[123tehehe]

I'm a sliver qff member with 150 points to get gold by June 30. I have a flight booked for July that will give me 160 points. Is there any way to beg qantas to grant the gold?

 

[KitKat]

Unfortunately, I think it will be a no, but no harm asking especially if you can demonstrate that you have more significant travel with them in the coming months

 

[ejb]

Hi 123tehehe and welcome to AFF!

This has been discussed at length in various threads and overwhemingly the experience of members is that QF may comp status to those who have already earnt it and are short of requalifying but are not known to comp people to the next status level.

ejb

 

[samh004]

I'm a sliver qff member with 150 points to get gold by June 30. I have a flight booked for July that will give me 160 points. Is there any way to beg qantas to grant the gold?

The problem is, QF will want your forward travel to show you’re going to get there on your own, not that you could get there if the qualifying period was longer. If it was longer, they’d be letting a lot of others in.

Plus, if they saw that you were going to attain it in forward travel anyway, they may just wait till then for you to do so, as the flights haven already been booked.

If Gold is that important to you, a status run paid for with money or even points thanks to Any Seat Awards now might be possible, but you’re quite a bit short.

 

[JohnK]

Is there any way to beg qantas to grant the gold?

I have never heard of it happening to anyone so I would think you have close to no hope of QF comping you Gold status unless you already have Gold status and did not quite reach the re-qualification mark.

 

[markis10]

If you are that short of SG I would suggest a run to make sure it happens, I agree with JohnK that its not likely to happen otherwise as we have never heard of a comp when your short of the mark to qualify.

Try one of the NAN J specials from the east cost with QF, $649 and then grab a $199 special back or for $1270 do the return trip and make it count for requal next year, something like this will give you 120SCs for the new year, of course it all depends where you start from:

 

[123tehehe]

I guess the thing that irks me is that if I joined new before a recent large bus class flight I would get the gold after my booked and paid for flight in July. The fact that I joined at a date 12 years ago means no gold. So by my logic they reward new members better than longer term ones.

 

[anat0l]

I guess the thing that irks me is that if I joined new before a recent large bus class flight I would get the gold after my booked and paid for flight in July. The fact that I joined at a date 12 years ago means no gold. So by my logic they reward new members better than longer term ones.

I joined QFF in 1994. In saying that, I was a Bronze until 2006....

They do not reward new members vs long term ones as much as the ones that give them the most business / long term elites.

I remember being at the foot of first time Platinum and I'd flown the flights I needed, however they were yet to credit, and I had a F Lounge run in just over a week. Pleading with one QFF phone assistant and she said that I'll just have to wait until the SCs credit - they won't comp me in advance. Another assistant couldn't help much either, but at least help me force the crediting of SCs of my flights through the system (i.e. try and get priority action on them). It didn't matter as within less than a week (and mere couple of days before the F Lounge run), the SCs were credited and I was an official Platinum.

But bottom line is that unless you can show a substantial amount of business going to QF and going forward, then QF aren't likely to comp you status in advance. Even then, sometimes this kind of request is not done via a phone call. More like a letter or good email to QFF.

 

[trippin_the_rift]

So by my logic they reward new members better than longer term ones.

The program is called Frequent Flyer.......... not 'frequent idler'

 

[JohnK]

I guess the thing that irks me is that if I joined new before a recent large bus class flight I would get the gold after my booked and paid for flight in July. The fact that I joined at a date 12 years ago means no gold. So by my logic they reward new members better than longer term ones.

That is unfortunate but they are the rules of the QFF program. In fact most FF programs. They can't bend the rules if you haven't shown them loyalty. Once you show them some loyalty then they may comp you status down the track if you fall short of the qualification mark.

Also do you realise how many people blatantly lie when asked about plans for future travel? Some people will do just about anything to retain status for another year even though they are not going to do that much travel.

The program is called Frequent Flyer.......... not 'frequent idler'

Qantas should change the name from QFF to QFS! These days it is largely a Frequent Spender program....

 

[ejb]

...Qantas should change the name from QFF to QFS! These days it is largely a Frequent Spender program....

I do agree that people are getting most points these days through credit card spending, I am one of them.

However when it comes to Status you still need BIS to get the SC's., and being WP all on QF flights I have my BIS quite often.

ejb

 

[samh004]

On the whole membership renewal date issue, I could understand Qantas not wanting to extend your year by any number of months, but if someone requested their membership year to be shortened (and the renewal date to be earlier in the year), do you think they’d oblige?

 

[ejb]

On the whole membership renewal date issue, I could understand Qantas not wanting to extend your year by any number of months, but if someone requested their membership year to be shortened (and the renewal date to be earlier in the year), do you think they’d oblige?

I would say they wouldn't because the only reason for you to request this is to include flights that would otherwise not be included in your year.

ejb

 

[anat0l]

Qantas should change the name from QFF to QFS! These days it is largely a Frequent Spender program....

I do agree that people are getting most points these days through credit card spending, I am one of them.

However when it comes to Status you still need BIS to get the SC's., and being WP all on QF flights I have my BIS quite often.

It's not so much of the credit card spend thing (although that did severely dilute the market for reward seats, which leads us to the availability debacle we have in recent years, notwithstanding the almost wide array of seats available to WPs and CLs). It's more of a case of understanding the words "Frequent Flyer", and how literal you take that to associate with loyalty.

For example, take customer A who is a WP and flies only Red e-Deals - some golden triangle, quite a few Perth CityFlyers, a few ADL flights, some Trans-Tasman thrown in - and does this fairly tirelessly a few times a week for in excess of 35 weeks per year. That's a lot of flying.

Weigh this up against a customer B, who is a SG, but flies far less often on the same routes, but they usually book either (full) Business fares, or Flexi Savers. For the sake of argument, customer B spends more than customer A.

Let's weigh this even further against a customer C who is a WP with lots of international travel and achieves this by travelling on one or two DONEx/AONEx tickets per year. Noting that QF don't fly everywhere, some travel is obviously done on airline partners, but of course they would credit all travel back to their QF account (please leave the QF vs. AA argument for another time and thread!). Again for the sake of argument, customer C spends the most of the three cases here.

Assuming all customers maintain their status (and customer B does not go for WP), what would/should the ranking of loyalty be for each of the described customers? The odd thing is that the "most loyal" could be different on a whole-customer basis compared to a flight-by-flight basis (e.g. if you were a WP on an overbooked Y flight with a lot of other WPs, who gets the op-ups?)

 

[ejb]

anat0l ,

Many good points and I have before in other threads been critical that status on QF is so cheap when gained through AA YUP/KUP fares.

I think the minimum segments for QF status should rise to take into account how frequently you fly on QF.

Perhaps flights on QF metal could earn 1.5* the SC rate (or even double).

I do think that currently the system needs an overhaul to allow for those weekly flyers in discount Y to be recognised more (without the need for LAN runs to AKL)as without them the planes are empty and QF sink.

ejb

 

[JohnK]

However when it comes to Status you still need BIS to get the SC's., and being WP all on QF flights I have my BIS quite often.

Agreed but to me it is clear that QFF is morphing into QFS and slowly diluting benefits of status.

On the whole membership renewal date issue, I could understand Qantas not wanting to extend your year by any number of months, but if someone requested their membership year to be shortened (and the renewal date to be earlier in the year), do you think they’d oblige?

Somehow I do not think that QF would even consider the request let alone oblige.

Assuming all customers maintain their status (and customer B does not go for WP), what would/should the ranking of loyalty be for each of the described customers? The odd thing is that the "most loyal" could be different on a whole-customer basis compared to a flight-by-flight basis (e.g. if you were a WP on an overbooked Y flight with a lot of other WPs, who gets the op-ups?)

That is not an easy one to answer. QF has made a decision to track customer value within a specific status group so to them revenue plays a part in the equation.

Who is more important? A frequent flyer who purchases 120 flights (E, N, O, Q class) a year @ $75/flight or a not so frequent flyer who purchases 40 flights (S class) @ $200/flight? In my opinion the person doing the 120 flights is much more important. Others may not agree.

One needs to determine if people purchase a specific fare class because the cheaper fare classes have sold out or they actually want to purchase that fare class. I think it is a case of first in first served and QF would not want to lose too many customers who purchase 120 cheap flights a year as you may actually find that the people who purchased 40 "S" class a year now purchase the cheaper classes as there is more availability.

 

[jamesatfish]

That is not an easy one to answer. QF has made a decision to track customer value within a specific status group so to them revenue plays a part in the equation.

Who is more important? A frequent flyer who purchases 120 flights (E, N, O, Q class) a year @ $75/flight or a not so frequent flyer who purchases 40 flights (S class) @ $200/flight? In my opinion the person doing the 120 flights is much more important. Others may not agree.

I guess I fall into the other category of WP - relatively infrequent travel (perhaps once every 6-8 weeks) but 2-3 international trips each year, mostly in paid premium classes and all self-funded (own business).

Whilst that hypothetical frequent flyer's 120x Red eDeals would cost them around $9,000 and earn enough SCs to requalify WP, my CBR-SYD-LAX return trip in J costs me $8,500 but I only earn 440 SCs out of the trip. I have absolutely no understanding of how the airline industry works, but I'll place a highly uneducated wager that my single trip in J earns more profit for Qantas than the 120x Red eDeals do.

If all my trips work out as planned this membership year I'll crack WP PG for the first time, on the back of about $26,000 worth of flights. Sure, some of those SCs will come from creative AA routing as part of an AONE4 (ticketed through Qantas), but I'll also be flying 7 international sectors in First or Business with QF, paying cash for the privilege.

I'd like to think that on the back of that 'loyalty' I would be at least as important to Qantas as the flyer who commutes CBR-SYD-CBR each week on the cheapest fare of the day, even if I'll earn more than half my annual SCs flying other OneWorld partners.

 

[JohnK]

Whilst that hypothetical frequent flyer's 120x Red eDeals would cost them around $9,000 and earn enough SCs to requalify WP, my CBR-SYD-LAX return trip in J costs me $8,500 but I only earn 440 SCs out of the trip. I have absolutely no understanding of how the airline industry works, but I'll place a highly uneducated wager that my single trip in J earns more profit for Qantas than the 120x Red eDeals do.

I confess I know very little how an airline works or which customer is more important (if this really means anything) but I do know for a fact that each and every customer is just as important if the airline wants to survive.

Keep in mind that a lot of statistics mention number of aircraft, frequency of flights, number of passengers as well as revenue. If an airline did not have enough customers to purchase red e-deals then that airline will also not have enough customers purchasing higher class airfares to be able to survive.

 

[straitman]

Keep in mind that a lot of statistics mention number of aircraft, frequency of flights, number of passengers as well as revenue. If an airline did not have enough customers to purchase red e-deals then that airline will also not have enough customers purchasing higher class airfares to be able to survive.

Absolutely true.

It is all part of one big picture.

 

[oz_mark]

Keep in mind that a lot of statistics mention number of aircraft, frequency of flights, number of passengers as well as revenue. If an airline did not have enough customers to purchase red e-deals then that airline will also not have enough customers purchasing higher class airfares to be able to survive.

And on this fact, the whole black art of Yield Management is built.

If you have only expensive fares - you end up with a lot of empty seats
If you have only cheap fares - you miss out on revenue from those willing to pay more (e.g. for flexibility)

Yield Management is all about getting the mix right.