New Employer, New Program?

[Bajar]

Hi everyone,

After being blocked from travel due to a dodgy employer, and then COVID, I am now travelling regularly again for work.

At least once every two months, I travel from Newcastle to Townsville or Cairns via Brisbane. However, I also do 3-4 domestic flights to Adelaide, Perth and Melbourne each year and one international trip (this year to Braga, last year to Auckland, next year to Thiruvananthapuram).

The policy at work is as follows:

• You must fly on the cheapest available flight within the university's regular business hours (8am - 6pm) if travelling on a weekday.
• If travelling on a weekend, you must choose a flight in the afternoon unless the price difference is greater than 20% to fly in the morning
• When travelling internationally, you must travel on the cheapest available options.

Jetstar & Bonza are excluded for domestic travel. However, all other airlines are permitted.

Now, here's the kicker: based on this policy, I have had to split my flights equally between Virgin and Qantas. Last year I fell 20 status credits short of QFF silver and 38 short of Velocity silver. Doing some brief sums - if I had pooled my flights with the one airline, I may have had a shot of attaining Gold with either airline.

We can't choose our preferred airlines based on status unless we are Gold. So, this has me thinking - it is worth looking at an international airline's loyalty program with whom I can collect status for both airlines? For example - I know that Qatar Airways has relationships with both Virgin and Qantas, but you need to fly on a certain number of QR flights to qualify for status attainment/retention (which could be possible for international travel).

What would you suggest in this circumstance? I rarely fly for leisure, and family and financial commitments prevent status runs - any insights would be greatly appreciated!

 

[33kft]

What if you have airline lounge membership, eg Qantas Club? Does that allow you to choose airline per the Gold clause?

If so, I'd either pay for membership or get it through Points Club Plus.

 

[33kft]

Also, to address your original question re crediting of both QF and VA flights to QR - it depends on the outcome you were looking for. You'd earn Avios for flights from both carriers, but you would not earn status (via QPoints). For QF flights you would earn QR QPoints by virtue of the Oneworld alliance, for VA flights you would only earn QPoints if the flight was marketed by QR, ie it would need to be a QR flight but operated by VA.

I can't see how this would help your cause as you can just earn points with the individual carriers FFPs without earning status. Sure, you'd pool points with QR but you'd earn more with the respective carrier programs, plus you'd have limited redemption opportunities with QR vs the native programs, and much reduced earn opportunities if you wanted to earn from credit cards and other partners.

 

[tdimdad]

One question is how strict is the implementation or interpretation of the policy or are your travel purchases technically limited to automatically produce the lowest fare of the day? We have a pretty similar policy but I routine go slightly above the minimum. My manager (or their manager) who approves the travel purchase are both frequent travellers themselves and know to appreciate things like lounge access (as opposed to airport concourse or coffee shop). The booking system alerts about the cost difference with big bold bright red neon lights but I've never been questioned about it - besides, it makes near-zero difference whether they approve an $1,200 vs $1,250 trip when the question should rather be how many nights do I need to stay there for or can we avoid the trip altogether.

I've also mentioned that buying $15 more expensive flights which allow me to use a lounge is cheaper than them feeding me at an airport coffee shop before the flight (I usually depart late afternoon / early evening), plus I can use the space better to do some quiet work (e.g. emails).

If you have any room to flex the boundaries a little, perhaps that gives you what you need.