LTG Life Time Gold - who actually uses this?

[trippin_the_rift]

I've been using my LTG for many years. Great to keep in the back pocket and I view it as a thank you for spending so much time in Qantas planes and at airports. Flying so frequently isn't fun even if you're always in F. Things go wrong with air travel ALL THE TIME! There are delays, rude passengers, rude crew, weather delays, always-out-of-pocket expenses, additional radiation exposure, breakdowns at airports, overcrowded lounges, bars run out of champagne, shadow-stealers, cancellations and most importantly - negative impact on your health.

LTG does not make up for having to go through all of that, but it does show recognition of having gone through the process.

Ultimately - LTG costs QF nothing unless you spend new cash to with them anyway.
Totally worth aiming for, but make no mistake - if you add up the $$$$ spent over the years, it's well into the 6-figures. So it's not for everyone.

 

[wannabeinvestmentbanker]

Im a WP but a fair way from LTG due to age and based on the lack of 'lifetime' recognition and believing that OWS is not the sweetspot if travelling through major hubs fairly frequently, I think LTG is actually a disincentive and constantly makes me reconsider QF as a program. It offers nothing above OWS so do not see why anyone would go above and beyond their actual flying needs to attain.

 

[mviy]

It offers nothing above OWS so do not see why anyone would go above and beyond their actual flying needs to attain.

That’s fine if you expect to be able to maintain SG or above for a long while but for some there’s a limited window of heavy flying years to get the SC to reach LTG. Yes, I’d much prefer WP or LTP to LTG, but I’d much rather LTG than LTS, PS or NB.

 

[wandering_fred]

Life time benefits.
Well I didn't fly for life time benefits but rather the cost/benefit ratio of the flying and the ability to accumulate points so Mrs WF didn't have to fly transPacific in the Y cabin. And mainly Y and PE flying meant AA was the "better" program. Alas AA changed the calculation method just as I was about hit the "mythical (they counted everything except the cost of the kitchen sink" 1mm lifetime points. So I have AA lifetime Gold (OW Ruby) and get one bag free on AA flights.
CX had always treated me well and QF didn't fly international from Perth, so a couple of years with MPC/Asia Miles until CX changed their calculation method.
Then the exCAI OneWorld Explorer fares happened.... And I'm now about 1000SC short of life time Silver with QF.
I expect QFF LTS about the time I no longer qualify for travel insurance due to age.

Anyone want to bet against a program calculation method change by QF within two years?


Just wandering
Fred

 

[bigjobs]

Hi all,

there has always been much discussion surrounding this benefit / goal within QF's program. Many have attained it, still many more are actively seeking it. But who here actually uses it?

What I am trying to understand is who has either dropped back to LTG and now enjoys using its benefits, or gained the qualification and swapped programs but make use of it.

I love having the "security" of never losing some sort of lounge access whilst QF and One World exist, but I also have the opinion that most people who have suffered so much travel that they gained it, would probably rarely, if ever, fly less than J in their future anyway.

I suspect it is a brilliant marketing tool that QF has used to sway our travel spend decisions to successfully get every last drop out of us.

Am I wrong?

I fly economy almost all the time around Australia, and a fair bit internationally these days. I am LTG and have been for the best part of a decade now ... but spend most of my time at WP. there was one year where I went back to Gold status and it was good.

 

[mviy]

Anyone want to bet against a program calculation method change by QF within two years?

If QF did that I'd have to evaluate the changes and decide whether to do a big status run to beat the deadline to reach LTS. But then my real goal LTG would be way too far away to do something like that.

 

[MH_fan]

LTG will be nice to achieve but my crediting of flights with OW will go to BA once I tick over the 14000SC with QF as any further earns will be pointless (literally). It also unshackles me from OW (and QF) and there are plenty of significantly cheaper alternatives to QF for paid travel in long-haul J.

 

[michaele]

Slight detour - do you get a QP lounge pass every year as LTS or just once?

 

[mviy]

Slight detour - do you get a QP lounge pass every year as LTS or just once?

Every year so long as you remain at the LTS level. If you level up to SG you'll stop getting them until/unless you fall back to LTS. Once you get to LTG you can no longer fall back to LTS but then free lounge access every time you fly OW and guesting privileges is a lot better than a lounge invitation for use before a one-way QF/JQ marketed flight for one person only.

Invitations are digital now: Complimentary invitations | Qantas

 

[Flying mermaid]

Every year so long as you remain at the LTS level. If you level up to SG you'll stop getting them until/unless you fall back to LTS. Once you get to LTG you can no longer fall back to LTS but then free lounge access every time you fly OW and guesting privileges is a lot better than a lounge invitation for use before a one-way QF/JQ marketed flight for one person only.

Invitations are digital now: Complimentary invitations | Qantas

thank-you - that’s useful. 3 kids are LTS and I thought they just didn’t get invitations anymore. However I have just checked via that link and they are sitting there. Two are also LT Qantas club, so minimal interest, but they could give them away. Be more useful for Ms FM as her membership expires next year and I wasn’t planning to renew it as she flies so little and generally with us when she does.

 

[Jack_OC]

I love having the "security" of never losing some sort of lounge access whilst QF and One World exist, but I also have the opinion that most people who have suffered so much travel that they gained it, would probably rarely, if ever, fly less than J in their future anyway.

I suspect it is a brilliant marketing tool that QF has used to sway our travel spend decisions to successfully get every last drop out of us.

Am I wrong?

I kind of see your point, but I literally don't know anyone who only flies J or above. I have become very accustomed to J, and hope to never fly long haul in anything less than J again. Still though, regardless of how well off I was, I would never pay for J out of my own pocket when flying MEL to SYD/BNE/ADL etc, and I'd be even less inclined to pay for J on short haul flights in Europe. I also don't think you can assume that someone who travels a lot ends up wealthy - some people on relatively modest salaries travel a lot for work.

Also, as it happens, I was talking to someone at a work function the other day who was P1 for several years. Then his job changed a couple of years back and suddenly he didn't need to travel anything like as much. He was 3,000 SCs short of LTG - which was maybe 6-9 months worth of travel in his old position but now probably 15 years worth. He's quite gutted that he didn't make LTG while travelling a lot, as he will soon be back to silver and have no lounge access, yet he will still have to travel a little bit (with no status) for years to come.

 

[drron]

Well we really aren't wealthy.But that is because we travel a lot and longhaul in Premium cabins
Flying was always the necessary step to be able to experience new places.We had already done some preplanning and I bought LTQP when it was ridiculously cheap.Signed mrsdrron up to LT Golden Wings-that didn't work out too well.I was also LT Sheraton Club gold but that disappeared when taken over by Starwood.But then came AFF.
Mrsdrron continued posting to QFF but we had a few problems with QF so I started posting to Aadvantage.Then QFWP began a posting to AA thread which prompted me to use AA more.Then warned by JonNYC about upcoming changes to their life time programs I used every trick to go from LTG-LTP in just under 18 months with AA.Though with our flying mrsdrron would reach WP but I only got to EXP once.I survived by being related to mrsdrron.

Mrsdrron lost WP at the end of November last year but on our next trip got to LTG.It has been handy to us as domestically we virtually always fly Y.Seeing we often fly separately my LTQP and her LTG have enabled us to still be able to use the QP.When I give up work finally we will not be able to do as much OS trips so our life time status will once again be valuable.

The next liberation came when my sister remarried and moved to Devon.A few quick calculations saw that I would qualify for OWE with BAEC much easier than with QFF.Thanks to Tony Hancock.
Added to that was discovering the BA BKK fares thanks to Amaroo and madrooster.Finally liberated from having to ever fly QF out of Australia and back.

We are now in the envious position of being able to fly a lot of F longhaul on points-often with Lifemiles again thanks to AFF.But we have the back up so that when in our dotage and flying domestically we will still be able to push our Zimmer frames into the QP.

As to cost-yes probably spent a fortune for the LTG for mrsdrron and AA LTP for myself.But we wanted to do that travel anyway so cost is irrelevant .
But for any one reading note that our acheivements came because of advice here and less so from other travel forums.Keep reading.

 

[Basalt]

Im a WP but a fair way from LTG due to age and based on the lack of 'lifetime' recognition and believing that OWS is not the sweetspot if travelling through major hubs fairly frequently, I think LTG is actually a disincentive and constantly makes me reconsider QF as a program. It offers nothing above OWS so do not see why anyone would go above and beyond their actual flying needs to attain.

I'm inclined to agree with this sentiment for international travel, however I think a sweet spot for LTG is domestic travel. I can see a time in our latter years when most travel will be domestic and we're no longer on the QFF points gravy train, so the odd international trip we'll pay for whatever is the cheapest J regardless of alliance. This sort of scenario is what is driving our QFF loyalty atm to gain LTG - primarily it's domestic utility.

 

[UP4014]

LTG is an excellent fall back and not to be sniffed at unless you have deep pockets should the flying cease for whatever reason, health, job, retirement....it does take a lot of effort to get there however.

 

[Flying mermaid]

Well we really aren't wealthy.But that is because we travel a lot and longhaul in Premium cabinsd

this sounds like us . We have only flown either F or J internationally since 1989, all paid and out of our own pockets. An awful lot of that with 3 kids. I just did a bit of a calc on how much our travels have cost and how much we would have had if we had invested the money instead and it is truly scary.

However I wouldn’t change one single trip - we had so much fun together and Mr FM was so patient in museums and art galleries explaining everything, so the kids were never bored. Ms FM was only 9 when we were in Barcelona and she still remembers all the Gaudi stuff we looked at. All 3 are travel junkies now.

We didn’t even join the FF program until 1998, when a friend became annoyed and filled out all 5 forms for us and made us join. LTG came as a byproduct of all the flying we did and as I have said before it is really useful out of Canberra where so many flights are all economy so the cheapest way to have lounge access.

Sadly we have pretty much abandoned Qantas internationally as there are better options. We still intend spending every spare cent on travel (and in premium classes).

 

[mviy]

I literally don't know anyone who only flies J or above.

I believe I do know a few people that only fly J or above, well if J is available. When you've been able to save well making wise investments you have a lot of financial freedom as you get older.

I don't think I'm likely to ever be in the position to only fly J or above. If I did there'd be little point in going for LTG as I'd get there anyway and probably wouldn't ever need it.

 

[Jack_OC]

I believe I do know a few people that only fly J or above, well if J is available. When you've been able to save well making wise investments you have a lot of financial freedom as you get older.

Just to be clear, I know plenty of very "comfortable" people, including some who have absolute financial freedom - I just don't know anyone who sees the value in paying for J on short domestic flights! The fact that people can afford something does not necessarily mean they will choose to pay for it.

Anyway, of course I know that some people only fly J or higher, but my comment was in response to the OP, who expressed the view that most people who fly enough to achieve LTG "would probably rarely, if ever, fly less than J in their future anyway". IME, it's very common for reasonably well off people to only fly J long haul, but they are often fine with Y on shorter trips.

Plus as I said, plenty of people who fly a lot are far from high earners, and they may or may not save well or invest wisely, so I would imagine people qualifying for LTG form quite a financially diverse group.

 

[MH_fan]

I agree that LTG is most useful for domestic travel. I started travelling a lot about 10 years ago, part work and part leisure. I started flying long-haul J, mostly for leisure, 8 years ago and I only travel in J now (paid and out of my own pocket) for travel to Europe or Nth America, which averages about 3 times a year. I'm happy to travel in Y to Sth East Asia but will buy a J ticket if the price is right. Most of my domestic travel is in Y.

 

[mviy]

Just to be clear, I know plenty of very "comfortable" people, including some who have absolute financial freedom - I just don't know anyone who sees the value in paying for J on short domestic flights!

Just to be clear what I was saying above is that I know a few people who I believe always fly at least J even on short domestic flights.

 

[Jack_OC]

Just to be clear what I was saying above is that I know a few people who I believe always fly at least J even on short domestic flights.

Yep, that was already clear thanks. As I said previously:

of course I know that some people only fly J or higher.

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