Grades of Platinum

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Mal said:
As Gold, or Plat I am yet to not receive Row 1 on a domestic NZ Qantas flight out of around 6-8 over the last couple of years.

I put it down to a big difference in the profiles of Qantas FF'ers in NZ vs Qantas FF'ers in Australia.

I am plat and have received row 1 both times I have flown domestically in NZ. My seating preference is forward aisle.
 
Like Mal I usually end up with rows 4-6 on a 737 and rows 24-27 on a 767.

As I found out today, only problem with 27A/K on a 767 is that there is no window!

D P G
 
Dom QF I have mixed experiences with a middle-alphabet last name. I understood QF kept the first couple of rows "free" when the system allocates seats ( I assume there are heaps of algorithyms in the process) because of the check in demand for those rows. I have received a first row Y automatically though not recently. On a flight SYD-OOL last November I was give third row aisle in econ (737) and had no one in the middle seat, yet the two rows in front were full - so a nice QF guardian angel in the booking system that time.
 
infoworks said:
Dom QF I have mixed experiences with a middle-alphabet last name.
I apologise in advance if I am wrong but I don't understand why everyone thinks that QF seating preference within Platinum, Gold etc is allocated by surname. Has this been confirmed anywhere on the QF website or is it just a guess?

Unless anyone speaks to the designer/developer of the seating allocation software we should not be making assumptions. The seating preference within each QF status maybe sorted by FF number, joining date or how many lifetime SC's you have accumulated.
 
I've always been highly suspicious of QF's seating allocation system. As an SG, I'm always sitting at row 46 or higher on the SYDMEL 767's. My surname starts with W. Something is not right.
 
JohnK said:
Unless anyone speaks to the designer/developer of the seating allocation software we should not be making assumptions. The seating preference within each QF status maybe sorted by FF number, joining date or how many lifetime SC's you have accumulated.

Sure it is speculation. The other suggestions don't make sense for me - I have a high QFF number, joining date isnt that long ago and not so many lifetime SCs.

Even when flying domestic in Australia I almost always get one of the first few rows. Status then surname is the simplest explanation.
 
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Yada Yada said:
I've always been highly suspicious of QF's seating allocation system. As an SG, I'm always sitting at row 46 or higher on the SYDMEL 767's. My surname starts with W. Something is not right.

Perhaps you need to change your name to Aarons :mrgreen:
 
Kiwi Flyer said:
Perhaps you need to change your name to Aarons :mrgreen:
Yes - I was thinking of one of those silly names you see at the front of the yellow pages, e.g. Aaaaaaaaaardvark. :D
 
The only time I believe surname comes into play is when operational upgrades are issued at the airport. These are done manually and the agent is presented with a list candidates. I don't know for sure, but it is possible this list is alphabetic. So if the agent just works from top down then surname does come into play. Of course the agent performing this task has other things to consider as well, such as the need to seat groups together, so they may be looking to free up specific seats rather than just move someone forward.

But I do not believe surname comes into play with regular computer-allocated seating assignments on domestic flights. I don't know what is used to determine seating priorities within a status level, but it could be things such as lifetime SC balance, date of ticket purchase, reverse numeric order of postcode, or age of your family dentist.
 
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Kiwi Flyer said:
Sure it is speculation. The other suggestions don't make sense for me - I have a high QFF number, joining date isnt that long ago and not so many lifetime SCs.
To a designer/developer they make perfect sense as these are the most common ways a customer master database would be sorted.

Kiwi Flyer said:
Even when flying domestic in Australia I almost always get one of the first few rows. Status then surname is the simplest explanation.
Maybe the simplest explanation but not necessarily the best one.
 
NM said:
The only time I believe surname comes into play is when operational upgrades are issued at the airport. These are done manually and the agent is presented with a list candidates. I don't know for sure, but it is possible this list is alphabetic. ...
Hmmm, I think in HKG they use Status then check in order.

At 6am I checked in at Central station before taking the airport express. WHen I arrived to the QP at HKIA (first desk) when taking my details my seat number was noted on a list beside the flight number. Presumably this was in case some juggling would be required and they had a quick reference at hand. I also saw several seat numbers listed under the Sydney flight number.

(As it happened, mMy flight was nearly, but not quite, full in WHY, so no op-ups were offered.)
 
My surname starts with A and I have found that facit seem to make little difference; nor does your fare basis. I travel 90% of the time on the cheapest red e-deals and, generally get between rows 5 and 9 on 737's and 23-28 on 330's/767's.

As far as row 4 on 73H's go, that one appears to be not normally subject to auto-preallocation unless the flight is very full.
 
They definately seat based on status and then surname within each status group. I have once asked how do they seat and they got out of a cupboard a long list of names based on status all alphabetically listed.

The staff do the seating manually approx 24 hours before departure.
 
steven s said:
... The staff do the seating manually approx 24 hours before departure.
Yeah, right :confused:

That would be 40,000+ seats allocated manually every day. :rolleyes:

It is a fact with Qantas domestic flights that over 99% of seating preallocation is carried out by computer software.

:arrow: For more information, please check this thread/post: Re: Seating Allocation
 
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serfty said:
Yeah, right :confused:

That would be 40,000+ seats allocated manually every day. :rolleyes:
I knew it! The person who allocates seats for the W's has it in for me! :D :rolleyes:
 
steven s said:
They definately seat based on status and then surname within each status group.
The person that told you this was having a wild guess. It makes no sense to me to pre-allocate seats within each category based on surname.

steven s said:
The staff do the seating manually approx 24 hours before departure.
Somehow I do not think so.
 
One slow Sat night whilst waiting for a flt in the club I had a pretty long chat to a staffer who'd been round for years.
And pretty much everyone is right and wrong here
FF's get preseated as close to their pref as is poss.The higher the tier the earlier in the process.The problem occurs in 2 ways. !/A very large majority put Forward Aisle as a pref.The sys works its way thru and if yr the 10th highest tier punter yr Fwd Aisle might be 5-10 rows back (remember there are at least 2 aisles on a narrowbody aircraft and 4 on a widebody.(it must be a bugger out of CBR when Parl rises and everyone is Plat!!!)Also as most here are roadwarriors when doing eastcoast runs you book oiut on a 7am and back at 6pm. business finishes earlier you head to the airport and catch an earlier flight.The seat U blocked of with return checkin that day theen get thrown open to anyone booked on the flight.
I've always been of the opinion theres no rush to get further up the front cause the cab queues are never short when I get home anyway and as long as I get my courtesy beer in the pm I really dont give a rats which row I'm in..although the first 2 or 3 on the aircraft are always that nicer if you can get it.
On that the helpful staffer said points upgrades on departure at the self service checkins would be happening soon and not restricted to the lounge
 
JohnK said:
To a designer/developer they make perfect sense as these are the most common ways a customer master database would be sorted.


Maybe the simplest explanation but not necessarily the best one.

You misunderstood me. I meant those other explanations don't hold true in my case.
 
I would be interested to know if Platinums with a surname starting with A get more op-ups than a surname starting with Z!
 
odoherty said:
I would be interested to know if Platinums with a surname starting with A get more op-ups than a surname starting with Z!
As I am neither, it is hard to quantify. I know of one Platinum member who starts with A and at least one who starts with W (is that close enough to Z), but as operational upgrades are such rare things it is very hard to tell if the name has a significant influence.

I think for international flights, my most recent operational upgrade on QF was due more to the seat I had pre-allocated rather than the surname initial. The check-in agent said they needed my seat to be able to seat a group together. I had preallocated 23D on an A330-300. So I assume when they came to check-in allocations, they needed to put two people together and there were only since seats left. So they looked for a Platinum member with an empty seat next to them. If they did this started from the front of the cabin and working back, my 23D with an empty 23E would have been the first place they would look.

It was this same check-in agent that also commented that it was good that I was dressed "appropriately" for the upgrade - I always dress smartly even when travelling as I just feel more comfortable that way. I don't know if she would have denied the op-up if I had been in scruffy jeans and torn T-shirt?

The trick is to guess which seat is most likly to be required at check-in time.
 
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