Qantas Platinum One experiences?

[aus_flyer]

To all the newly-minted Platinum One frequent flyers out there... I'm curious to hear... what's been your experience so far?

Anything different?

Free upgrades?

... or all hype?

 

[juddles]

I have my own favorite travel wallet, and will never change it as I like having a complete system, something i can do on autopilot. But i did like their idea...

 

[RichardMEL]

BTW I was totally unimpressed by the second newsletter - apart from the 20% off a single ticket special ( actually 10% if you are not careful) the rest was drab and booring. And another atrocious "interview" with an ostensible P1 traveller. I mean, how can you be so repetitive and coughpy in just the second "episode"? It seems their marketing skills are honed with Jetstar travellers.............

Agree... it's dross. Sadly. It's an effort I'll give them that but yeah apart from the 20% off offer and the other "offers" it's not much worth.

I guess you can give them feedback in the survey?!!

btw my travel decreased 60% in the last year according to the corrected version.. I see a wallet in my 7-11 future !!!

 

[GoldCanyon340]

The Taittinger here too, so it’s definitely not a First Year P1 gift @GoldCanyon340

Haha, I just saw your instagram post and thought the same!

 

[kermatu]

BTW I was totally unimpressed by the second newsletter - apart from the 20% off a single ticket special ( actually 10% if you are not careful) the rest was drab and booring. And another atrocious "interview" with an ostensible P1 traveller. I mean, how can you be so repetitive and coughpy in just the second "episode"? It seems their marketing skills are honed with Jetstar travellers.............

Totally agree. It is boring and the offers are so random and underwhelming, noting the 20% off for one booking could be reasonably lucrative.

When combined with my experience after the first newsletter (neither the SST nor Qantas Store knowing of the existence of the 20% store discount promoted in the briefing), the differing gifts for P1s, the invitations that expire in 30 minutes etc etc - it all adds up to a continuation of a very random and poorly thought through / delivered program for how it is sold.

That said, I am personally happy with the wallet, and appreciate it is a gift. The different offers each quarter also give me some hope that there will be more I can take up in future.

Though I would still far prefer a few more concrete benefits that we've stated many times in this thread, or a P1 year counting toward a LTP status.

 

[Matt_01]

BTW I was totally unimpressed by the second newsletter - apart from the 20% off a single ticket special ( actually 10% if you are not careful) the rest was drab and booring. And another atrocious "interview" with an ostensible P1 traveller. I mean, how can you be so repetitive and coughpy in just the second "episode"? It seems their marketing skills are honed with Jetstar travellers.............

Juddles - be nice, whilst I agree with your comments QF marketing have found (or claim) a "new P1", not unattractive and looks of the younger generation. Lets face it who wants to read about a 30-35+ or in my case 45+ disgruntled flyer who has no further interest in P1. Also I did not really need to be informed that my travel had increased by 90%, I knew that.

Back to wallets or Fizz, still waiting to see what I will get, I have at least 3 travel wallets, and although nice (Comtes) I have other Fizz that is IMO better than what QF are sending.

 

[kevrosmith]

Not quite P1, but I was recently talking with a work colleague, VA Platinum, who changed jobs and stopped travelling their regular commuter flights. They actually received a call from Virgin asking if there was anything wrong, and in the meantime, also received a case of wine! Seems like VA are ahead of QF in the game, even compared to P1 service. There's been plenty of anecdotal comments around this forum, including from P1s, indicating that QF don't even seem to notice a blip in the system if people's travel or booking habits suddenly change,

 

[kermatu]

Not quite P1, but I was recently talking with a work colleague, VA Platinum, who changed jobs and stopped travelling their regular commuter flights. They actually received a call from Virgin asking if there was anything wrong, and in the meantime, also received a case of wine! Seems like VA are ahead of QF in the game, even compared to P1 service. There's been plenty of anecdotal comments around this forum, including from P1s, indicating that QF don't even seem to notice a blip in the system if people's travel or booking habits suddenly change,

P1s received an email saying "This year you have flown xx_ kilometres; Y% more / less than last year" Actually, I've flown a lot more, just not on QF. But it's as if no other airline exists - if you aren't flying QF / OW you simply aren't flying!

Obviously this a minor niggle, but I think your point about QF not bothering trying to understand its flyers, invite feedback etc is absolutely right.

 

[Matt_01]

Not quite P1, but I was recently talking with a work colleague, VA Platinum, who changed jobs and stopped travelling their regular commuter flights. They actually received a call from Virgin asking if there was anything wrong, and in the meantime, also received a case of wine! Seems like VA are ahead of QF in the game, even compared to P1 service. There's been plenty of anecdotal comments around this forum, including from P1s, indicating that QF don't even seem to notice a blip in the system if people's travel or booking habits suddenly change,

Kevrosmith, I will take your comments and your friends feedback onboard VA WP and QF P1 are IMO poles apart, I am currently QF WP1 and VA WP. For starters x4 SC qualification rate, no family pooling and shopping SC earn rate with QF. VA has limited International reach and no global or lifetime when compared to OW.

I fly with OW carriers to access checkin and lounge benefits rather than the hit and miss of VA.

I do not think either airline cares if my travel falls back.

 

[Princess Fiona]

Not quite P1, but I was recently talking with a work colleague, VA Platinum, who changed jobs and stopped travelling their regular commuter flights. They actually received a call from Virgin asking if there was anything wrong, and in the meantime, also received a case of wine! Seems like VA are ahead of QF in the game, even compared to P1 service. There's been plenty of anecdotal comments around this forum, including from P1s, indicating that QF don't even seem to notice a blip in the system if people's travel or booking habits suddenly change,

I’ve been VA Plat since it’s inception and cut pretty much all Travel with VA this year. Not heard so much as a squeal out of them so I don’t think your colleague’s experience is indicative that VA is ahead of anything here.
Neither airline cares when a regular drops off the hamster wheel. The colleague is the exception rather than the rule.

 

[La Mouette]

I've made the trek to the newsagent this morning (passing a dozen other newsagents and 7-11s along the way) ... And Comtes it was, along with a letter from Alan. Thanks QF!

According to the P1 newsletter gizmo, I'm in the top 30% of P1s, with a 15% decrease in kms since last year. I thought I'd travelled more, so I don't know how they've measured it. It's virtually all international premium, so a low number of flights, but high kms.

 

[juddles]

.....According to the P1 newsletter gizmo, I'm in the top 30% of P1s, with a 15% decrease in kms since last year.

Where does it show your "in the top 30%" - I can't find anything in mine that shares that??

 

[kermatu]

Where does it show your "in the top 30%" - I can't find anything in mine that shares that??

Me neither. Probably means I'm not in the top 30% !

 

[La Mouette]

It was in the how far you've flown section. It was blank in the first email, but then they sent a correction.

I like how the gizmo goes up to 800,000km as if that's some sort of target. That's like around two return trips to London or 4x24 hours on a plane a month. If you did that much travel, you'd officially have no life.

 

[Burgo]

Adding to the complaints about Sendle, in my case, Sendle used Fastway Couriers to deliver my gift on Tuesday, no one was home but they left a card, so I could request redelivery or redirection.

I chose redirection to my work address 6kms away, and Fastway charged me $5.50 for that redirection. I paid Fastway online on Tuesday, and days later I’m still waiting for delivery.

On Friday I lodged an enquiry via the Fastway site asking when my package would be delivered...since then I've been spammed by Fastway with endless emails stating they haven't forgotten me and will get back to me as soon as they have an answer.

Friday afternoon they updated their tracking site to state they are waiting on instruction from me for redelivery, despite me having paid them on Tuesday for redirection and pointing that out on Friday morning to them.

Why Qantas would jeopardize such goodwill of gift giving, by using unreliable & cheapskate couriers beats me…if the gift ever arrives I’m of a mind to just return it to QF.

 

[nige_perth]

Any P1's from PER received Platinum One gift or email from them? Last year I received an email 3/12/16...... nothing this year

 

[RichardMEL]

Not quite P1, but I was recently talking with a work colleague, VA Platinum, who changed jobs and stopped travelling their regular commuter flights. They actually received a call from Virgin asking if there was anything wrong, and in the meantime, also received a case of wine! Seems like VA are ahead of QF in the game, even compared to P1 service. There's been plenty of anecdotal comments around this forum, including from P1s, indicating that QF don't even seem to notice a blip in the system if people's travel or booking habits suddenly change,

I would guess this particular pax was a very high yielding passenger for VA (so very regular full fare or flex at least) flying. They wouldn't bother otherwise. It's a great gesture, but definitely seems out of the ordinary.

Re the "top 30%" stuff in the P1 newsletter. I am almost certainly "bottom 5%" - amusingly mine just said i decreased by 65% and had a small km count, which I actually think is a bit wrong, but I have not bothered to check my flightmemory or whatever to verify one way or the other. I can see a wallet in my tuture either way.. that is if sendle actually do anythin!! (latest update is that my parcel seems to hev gone to the depot on Thursday and Friday with who knows what happening, but sure as cough no delivery attempt... well no card or indication anyone had ever been anywhere close to my place!)

btw re Fastway charging I avoided that last year by going through sendle to get it resent to my work address so that was something, but that whole debarcle was a whole other PITA to get sorted out.

I was speaking to a friend over the weekend who uses sendle for some of her business sending stuff and she says they work on buying spare capacity on couriers so there's zero guarantee to meet stated delivery dates and times and probably explains why the responses and tracking are so haphazard.... seems to me a cheap service which doesn't reflect that well on QF using them IMHO. However for most folks it does seem to end up working well just seems the past few years I've had issues with them (as have a few others here it seems).

 

[Chalkie]

My bottle of Comtes arrived (via Sendle, but to my work address and it seemed to deliver without incident there) last week. I now cannot remember what I got last year, but pretty sure it was champagne then too. I checked with a colleague who is CL / P1, and she also got the Comtes. She flies a lot more than me (I only managed 150K kms last year according to the newsletter) and she clearly outranks me, so the wallet / champers class distinction has me stumped.

 

[RichardMEL]

oh I am for sure going to P1 hell (the fires are dulled slightly by the tears of all those waiting for LTP) for my reduced travel now.

still a MEL-LAX-LAS r/t this weekend in J should make the % travel gods a bit happier

 

[juddles]

It was in the how far you've flown section.

Thanks La Mouette! In my emails the paragraph was missing, so it must only get included if you are in that "top 30%".

I looked a bit closer at their email (the fine print). It appears the km flown they are basing on the calendar year (12 mths) finishing 31st Oct. And the km are any flight done (whether QF or not) where you have included your QFF number on the booking. So a flight that is OW but not even a codeshare qualifies. And a flight on QF if you use a different FF number does not. I had assumed it was either QF flights or perhaps even QF codeshares, but that does not appear to be the algorithm.

My little scale tells me I flew 188,000 km in the last year. Um, I actually did 410,000km. But much of that was on either Star Alliance or on OW using my LATAM FF number.

I just think (petty as it sounds) that they are presumptious or at least childlishly inaccurate by using the terminology they use. A simple "you flew X km on our planes, or QF, or whatever, would be a much more sensible spin.

And btw, I completely agree with your comment that someone doing 800,000km would have no life. I have half a life

 

[ameno]

Any P1's from PER received Platinum One gift or email from them? Last year I received an email 3/12/16...... nothing this year

Hey mate, I received the email from Sendle on the 4th with tracking as follows.