Join Qantas FF or continue with BA executive club?

[TheScotsman]

Hi All,
I'm new here so please forgive my ignorance of the Australian FF scene.
My question is should I continue to collect BA executive club miles on domestic Australian flights, or should I join Qantas?

1. I have an existing BA Executive Club (blue level) with 99,500 points and 120 tier points (480 more required by November to get Silver).

2. I have just started flying every week MEL-PER and PER-MEL and will do so for the next 6 months at least.
I pay for it myself so fly Red e-deals or the cheapest possible (including Virgin if cheaper/more convenient timing that week but Qantas times suit best).

3. I have an economy trip coming up in July - PER-HKG, HKG-HEL, HEL-NKM , NRT-PER (All oneworld flights Finnair, Qantas etc.)

4. I also have Silver level Skywards with Emirates (not useful in this case?)

Questions:
a. Should I join up to Qantas FF or continue with BA?
b. Do the Qantas domestic flights MEL-PER gain Qantas tier points (I know that they do not gain BA tier points)?
c. How quickly would I rise through the Qantas ranks if I fly economy return every week?
d. Should I use my BA or Qantas card on my trip to Finland/Asia in July?
e. Any other tips?

All information or suggestions will be greatly appreciated.

 

[Dave Noble]

(a) you will have to make that decision, no one can make it for you. I would suspect that given that you are travelling in cheap economy, then the QF scheme would beat the BA scheme

(b) Yes. MEL-PER will accrue 20 Status Credits on a red-e-deal/super saver or 40 SCs if you travel in Flexi Saver/Full Fare

(c) You need 350SCs to attain Silver. At 40 per week that will take 9 weeks. You need 700SCs for Gold, so that will take another 9 weeks and then you need 1400 for Platinum so that will take another 17 weeks; total time to get to Silver = 9 weeks , Gold = 18 weeks, Platinum = 35 weeks. Once Gold you will have complimentary Qantas Club access so no need to worry about the lounge access costs as alluded to in another thread

Note: the renewal rates are lower than attainment so to renew would be 300/600/1200 which would take 7.5, 15 or 30 trips respectively for Silver/Gold/Platinum

Also be aware that unlike the BA scheme, the QF scheme does not reset your membership year when you attain status so you only need 1400 SCs to attain platinum rather than needing 350+700+1400

(d) Again depends on where you would like the mileage and what fares you are travelling on

Dave

 

[TheScotsman]

Thanks Dave, good advice and useful info.
Looks like I'll be joining up with Qantas and I might well end up getting somewhere with them, also the mileage accrued from Qantas for each flight is higher than BA, so I'd get a 'free' Aus-UK trip more quickly (although the miles required are 128,000 with Q compared to 100,000 with BA).
Thanks again.

 

[dot]

I think - given you pretty much know what your travel plans are the next six months, you should do a straight comparison: QFF vs BAFF.

First - lets clarify something... I not sure about the HEL-NKM flight - you could fly to NGO on OW, but not NKM (both Nagoya). Even then, there are no direct OW flights and you would need to travel via NRT, CDG, HKG, CAN, PVG or ICN. I would do HEL-NRT train to Nagoya and back then NRT-PER so for the sake of the calculation, I will assume you will actually fly PER-HKG-HEL-NRT-PER

QF:
135 SCs for PER-HKG-HEL-NRT-PER return in disc economy
270 SCs for PER-HKG-HEL-NRT-PER return in full economy
40 SCs for MEL-PER return in disc economy
80 SCs for MEL-PER return in economy

lets say you get disc economy ~90% of the time, over six months (26 weeks), that is

24 x 40SC + 2 x 80SC = 1120 SC,

then add your trip to HEL and back and that will add 135SC assuming you booked early enough to get disc economy seats, that comes to a grand total of... 1255 SC and if all that is in a single membership year, that will get you to the lofty level of SG (OW Sapphire) and not too may flights for the rest of the year to get to WP!

Lets look at the BA comparison with the same assumptions:
0 TPs for PER-HKG-HEL-NRT-PER return in disc economy
240 TPs for PER-HKG-HEL-NRT-PER return in full economy
0 TPs for MEL-PER return in disc economy
40 TPs for MEL-PER return in economy

If we still assume 90% of your mel-per return flights booked in disc economy and your trip to HEL and back is also booked in disc economy, we get:

24 x 0TP + 2 x 40TP = 80TP

Add the international trip in disc economy and we get 80 Tier Points for all that flying!

Of course, if your flying is predominantly full economy, then the numbers look very different - at 100% full economy, QF you would earn 2350 SC (well in excess of Partner Gold status) and on BA, you would earn 1280 TP (BA Silver - OW Sapphire).

So - if Status is what you want, QF is the way to go. However, you must also take into account the earn rate for miles and burn rate for award flights. If we do the same thing, but taking into account miles earned, then for the mainly discount economy flights, QF will earn 105888 base miles without status bonuses or points bonuses. On BA you would earn 32767 base miles without status bonuses. If you fly full economy, the QF miles will not change, but for BA, that will go up to 105821 - comparative with QF earnings. This is a simplistic view of things as I am not taking into account status bonuses on reaching different levels in each programme.

On the burn side of things:

QF
SYD-LHR-SYD
128,000 Miles + Taxes of AUD$689.68

BA
LHR-SYD-LHR
100000* BA Miles or 70000* BA Miles + GBP250

So in the burn stakes, BA has it over QF. That difference may be alleviated a bit since you will get status quicker with QF, and the status bonuses will kick in earlier - allowing you to earn more miles, nor does it take into account the loyalty bonus that QF applies every 450 SCs of 5000 miles (which would get you an extra 10,000 miles in the discount economy flights or an extra 20,000 if all flights are full economy).

Hope this hasn't confused too much - it's been an interesting exercise to compare the two schemes.

 

[Dave Noble]

Thanks Dave, good advice and useful info.
Looks like I'll be joining up with Qantas and I might well end up getting somewhere with them, also the mileage accrued from Qantas for each flight is higher than BA, so I'd get a 'free' Aus-UK trip more quickly (although the miles required are 128,000 with Q compared to 100,000 with BA).
Thanks again.

If you are looking to redeem in business class , you may wish to consider joining the AA scheme. on most discount fares on QF the earning is 50% mileage but the redemption rates are far lower plus there are no fuel fines to pay

It does take longer to attain status though

e.g. with MEL-PER-MEL, the distance is 1681 miles each way or 3362 return

Crediting to QF

will earn 3362 per trip for 1st 9 weeks = 30258
will earn 3362 + 25% for next 9 weeks as silver = 37824
will earn 3362 + 50% for next 17 weeks as Gold = 85731
future trips earn 100% bonus as platinum = 6724 per week

after 35 weeks you will have earned 153813 points

if in the same period you credit to AA. It takes 15 weeks to attain gold ( c.f. QF Silver ) and another 15 weeks to attain Platinum ( c.f. QF Gold )

Earning on discount economy ( other than N class ) is 50% so would earn 1682 base per round trip

1st 15 trips would earn 25230 points
next 15 would earn 25% bonus = 31560 points
next 5 weeks once platinum would earn 100% bonus as platinum = 16820

Over 35 weeks the earning on AA would be 73610

Obviously so far QF has a much higher earning, but if you want to redeem in a premium cabin need to consider the redemption costs

On QF, it is 256,000 points r/t to europe whilst on AA it is 120,000

This leaves a shortfall of 102187 to Qantas and a shortfall of 46390 to AA

Number of additional trips needed to get the mileage for business class is 16 weeks to QF scheme and 14 weeks to the AA scheme , so AA would win on time to get a premium award.

Also, the AA redemption does not charge fuel surcharges so there is approximately $450 saving on the cost of the redemption award

If wanting to travel in 1st class on the award, then the difference is 384,000 vs 160,000

Number of aditional trips needed after the 35 weeks to get the r/t in 1st class would be 34 trips on Qantas or 25 trips crediting to AA. Again there is the saving of $450 in fuel surharges

If wanting to redeem in economy, QF is ahead of AA I would suggest

Dave

 

[acampbel]

One more short tip after the reams of data above ...... my wife joined the BA scheme many years ago when she was residing in Edinburgh but some 7-8 years ago her membership was automatically converted to QF for no charge, as BA was clearing its books of all members with an Australian address.

So I would enquire about a free transfer of membership, including miles and (hopefully) status credits, to the QFF scheme.


Cheers,

Andrew

 

[TheScotsman]

One more short tip after the reams of data above ...... my wife joined the BA scheme many years ago when she was residing in Edinburgh but some 7-8 years ago her membership was automatically converted to QF for no charge, as BA was clearing its books of all members with an Australian address.

So I would enquire about a free transfer of membership, including miles and (hopefully) status credits, to the QFF scheme.


Cheers,

Andrew

That would be great - I'll follow up and get back to let everyone know how I get on.
Thanks very much to everyone for all their input., I'm flabberghasted by the speed and detail of the responses, thanks once again!

 

[TheScotsman]

That would be great - I'll follow up and get back to let everyone know how I get on.
...

Just in case any other Brits are in the same boat (lots moving over here all the time), i did change to QC instead of continuing BA Exec and very quickly moved up to Gold membership, the economy flights give status credits unlike in the UK.