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?

 

[calmelb]

This is an experience I put down to just that - experience. It shows that nothing is guaranteed no matter how hard you try - and I tried hard!!

I rarely travel much domestic other than connections to an international departure point, solo. So this was a big learning experience for me. My concern on a flight to Canberra was that some CL bigwig would try to squeeze us out of row 1. As a family we have had the fortune to do some quality international travelling, much reduced lately, so just being in the whole front row meant a lot to me. So I monitored everything with QF and expertflyer. I never thought that the entire flight would be cancelled.

As I said, the delay to the new flight was not long, but when you travel heaps (as all P1's do) it is the small things that start to count. You suffer an expectation that is bigger.

If the SST only monitors international travel, I get that. They have finite resources, and travelling international is a whole different kettle of fish. The SST has saved me on international bloopers that made me love them.

And the staff aboard did a great job. It was a win/fail.

Besides the travel stuff, this is the first time I have been in canberra since a kid, and I actually am loving the experience!!

OT but I highly recommend going up to either Telstra Tower or Mt Ainslie to get a good view of the city. It’s pretty fantastic up there. Especially if you go at night

Otherwise yeah even though I travel a lot less than some of you here, the smallest things are the ones that start to matter to you

 

[juddles]

OT but I highly recommend going up to either Telstra Tower or Mt Ainslie to get a good view of the city. It’s pretty fantastic up there. Especially if you go at night

Otherwise yeah even though I travel a lot less than some of you here, the smallest things are the ones that start to matter to you

I did Mt Ainslie today. Spectacular view. For such a young country, Canberra is set out very well.

 

[kermatu]

I did Mt Ainslie today. Spectacular view. For such a young country, Canberra is set out very well.

Some lovely views to be had from Red Hill or the (still young) arboretum too if you have a chance.
In the approx 20 years I've been in Canberra the city has grown significantly and yet still looks and feels like a web of loosely linked, relaxed regional towns. The benefit of space as you say.
Well, as long as you have a car. If only we had a semi-competent local government that didn't waste money on frolics we'd have a lot more services to look after and connect such a well-spaced city.
A visit to the AWM is a must. I have a great interest in 20th Century history and have been fortunate to visit many WWI and WWII museums in Asia, Europe and North America. The AWM stacks up very well against them all.

 

[JessicaTam]

[mod hat]
Back to the P1 discussion, thanks folks.
[/mod hat]

 

[RooFlyer]

As a non P1, can I ask: Is it documented anywhere that the SST only 'monitors/services' international flights? If so, does that include domestic connections to international flights.

I can but again compare the SST's performance I read here to that which I experienced from Air Canada's 'Concierge' team, when I was P1 equivalent on Air Canada for two years ('100K Super Elite' ). Besides very pro-active re-booking etc in times of domestic or international irrops (as in "You don't even know there's a problem yet, but here's a replacement boarding pass"), they could make restaurant bookings for you, get and hold lost property (eg if you left something at security - ). There were 2 Concierge team members at every major Canadian airport, plus a number of international hubs you could actually go and chat to. Thems were the days ....

 

[calmelb]

As a non P1, can I ask: Is it documented anywhere that the SST only 'monitors/services' international flights? If so, does that include domestic connections to international flights.

I can but again compare the SST's performance I read here to that which I experienced from Air Canada's 'Concierge' team, when I was P1 equivalent on Air Canada for two years ('100K Super Elite' ). Besides very pro-active re-booking etc in times of domestic or international irrops (as in "You don't even know there's a problem yet, but here's a replacement boarding pass"), they could make restaurant bookings for you, get and hold lost property (eg if you left something at security - ). There were 2 Concierge team members at every major Canadian airport, plus a number of international hubs you could actually go and chat to. Thems were the days ....

Not documented I don’t think, but as a new P1 in the welcome email & phone call they mention they only monitor international flights, but can try to assist with domestic if you call (essentially it’s up to you to make contact with them for a domestic flight, but my dad was going to be affected by a QF1 delay and they rebooked him whilst he was still over Australia from Melbourne, choice of BA or SQ, plus got chauffeur drive in London sorted even though he was now on SQ)

 

[amaroo]

Nothing documented in my welcome pack .... this is the only mention of the P1 team. It is page one though....

 

[kermatu]

The lack of P1 experiences is probably why we easily drift off-topic.
The international only flight monitoring is news to me - and inconsistent with the blurbs and hype of how P1 is touted.
The only proactive SST contact I recall ever receiving was for a domestic flight (SYD-CBR). Albeit about 3 years ago.
I know some here don't like comparing P1 with CL - but FWIW I know CLs get very good domestic flight monitoring, including pre-emptive booking on VA out of CBR when a QF flight is cancelled.

 

[JohnK]

I cannot help but perceive the flight cancellation as simply a planned economic manouvre to blend two under-full flights.

No intervention or communication from the SST.

I'd be more concerned there wasn't a general announcement that flight was cancelled and you found out at the gate.

 

[Kangol]

Have any P1s been invited to the Australian GP? Or are QF no longer sponsors?

 

[nutwood]

I'd be more concerned there wasn't a general announcement that flight was cancelled and you found out at the gate.

Are we sure there wasn't a general announcement? Sometimes these things are very last minute. I was recently in the position of being able to discuss my cancelled flight with a FA who was on the flight. I'd been keeping an eye on the gate from the Melbourne lounge. Everything I could access was telling me the flight was fine but I could see no plane, where I should have seen plane. I wandered up to the lounge service desk to query and they first told me it was fine, and then said, flights just been cancelled.
Comparing notes with the FA the next morning, they'd been circling Melbourne but unable to land. They made the call to return to Launceston due to fuel limitations. The general announcement in that instance would have come well into the "go to gate" period. Plane was there, had it been able to land, flight would have proceeded more or less on time.

 

[NT2010]

Hi all, just wanting to share today's experience that is, on the balance, quite negative.

All in all, it was a win/fail experience. My original flight was cancelled, our seat selections disappeared, and my family was split up. And not a word, not an email/call/message form the SST. For the record, I am P1, my wife WP, my eldest WP also, and the youngest Bronze.

I cannot help but perceive the flight cancellation as simply a planned economic manouvre to blend two under-full flights.

No intervention or communication from the SST.

Compared to my experience on Friday from Honolulu to Sydney, I have much worst experience than Juddles

The original flight on 6 Feb was cancelled due to mechanical problems, and reschedule for next day, then later in the day, then 11pm at night then 10am the day after, then 12 noon... I have lost count of how many rescheduling.
After two days they managed to find an old 747 that still have the old and dirty first class seats with the 1990 entertainment system. The problem was that they put my family of four into 1K, 2K, 3K and 4K in the front cabin section that has 1-2-1 configuration . I rang the unhelpful P1 team asking whether they can at least put myself and my wife in the middle 2 seats. The answer was that cannot be done as it has been pre-allocated. I pushed and asked "other couples were allocated to sit next to each other, how come we miss out"? This P1 lady just said she only knows it has been pre-allocated, or she can move us to the two spare seats in row 25 at the back, leaving my sons at the front.
Onboard the plane, I found out that only 2 out of the 6 people allocated the 3 pair of middle seats (in this old first class section) are couple, the other man and three women are completely unknown/unrelated to each other. Only one gentleman in one of these seats was happy to swap seat with us, the other three were not interested so we did not insist.
So we end up seating behind each other for the entire journey. To make thing worst, my wife's old seat lost power and could not be moved half way through the flight, so she has to seat up right (in landing position) for 6 hours in this broken seat.

What a P1 experience and the business class treatment from Qantas! And not a word/email/call/message from SST to explain the operational/safety/logistic or whatever reason that they can come up for the need to split up my family, by not allowing myself and my wife to sit together. Unless, all of these unrelated people are CL status and they have insisted they need to sit next to stranger?

 

[RichardMEL]

I have had a couple of experiences of the SST monitoring domestic flights but I would also say that it is mostly not a thing that happens.

- one time, some years back. I was doing MEL-CBR-SYD-MEL (because, you know.... Status Run) and MEL-CBR was cxl. I of course knew about this (I was in the lounge at the time) and I actually had gone to the desk and sorted it with the lounge angels. Both P1 *AND* Premium Res (when it was BNE, so this dates it!) called about the cancel just a few minutes later. I suspect much fewer P1's in those days mayhaps.

More recently, a "domestic" QF55 SYD-BNE on the 747 as a tag flight (so may have come under the international monitoring moreso than dom) hit a delay. Just as I cleared through into SYD International terminal and was headed to the F lounge, aware of the delay, SST called and offered to move me to a domestic flight (Well, no I wanted the 74 and I wss airside in international anyway). As the delay creeped, they did keep in touch, specially as I had another domestic connection BNE-MEL that kept needed to be moved (and as a separate PNR, the SST were really good about the whole thing and did not give me grief as to why I was doing such a crazy routing!). However at one point sitting on the aircraft with a further delay I did call the SST myself and they did not know of the extra delay, but were good after that.

My geneneral thought is that I think P1 numbers have increased (via whatever reasons/methods) and the team just has too much to do.. Plus, IIRC there's one staffer on call out of office hours and on weekends which seems like they need more for the numbers (and maybe they have changed that in the past year or so, but it definitely used to be just one) and I think that cn cause issues in terms of them being proactive and/or responsive, specially out of business hours AEST.

 

[747800intercon]

That QF55 tag on SYD-BNE was on the 12NOV - It finally left about 2100 instead of 1400 as scheduled...you prob had to overnight in BNE?

 

[RichardMEL]

That QF55 tag on SYD-BNE was on the 12NOV - It finally left about 2100 instead of 1400 as scheduled...you prob had to overnight in BNE?

Luckily I was not on that disaster flight (I was doing CNS-SYD-MEL ) I'd been on it a few weeks prior when it eventually left 3 hours late and the SST moved me from the 1800 BNE-MEL to the 1830 and eventually to the very last BNE-MEL I think 2000

 

[nutwood]

I've found the SST team very willing to help domestically but they seem to be very limited in what they are capable of. In almost all instances, the service desk in the lounge seems to be in a much more powerful position.

 

[calmelb]

I've found the SST team very willing to help domestically but they seem to be very limited in what they are capable of. In almost all instances, the service desk in the lounge seems to be in a much more powerful position.

Part of that is some of the flights start going under airport control where the external parties don’t get as much access to it.

My mum was once delayed on qantas out of Melbourne and I called the sst to try and help her, both them and res couldn’t do anything except the sst refunded the upgrade points when they realised that she would miss the QF1, and instead it was the lounge staff who forced a rebooking into a nearly full EK flight

 

[funkyr]

Have any P1s been invited to the Australian GP? Or are QF no longer sponsors?

Yes Qantas are no longer sponsors.

Over the last few years they had some Qantas corporate box tickets for sale at Pit exit trackside International. I think it was shared with a few other companies. Whether or not they've given away tickets to this I dont know.

 

[funkyr]

So I was flying domestic the other day SYD-MEL during the peak period and they were weighing everyone's wheeled case carry on luggage.

I had deliberately put my P1 bag tag on my wheeled carry on (to see if it made any difference). When I came to the gate the QF staff scanned my boarding pass, gave me the usual 'welcome back...' and then she glanced at my luggage and hesitated. She then asked me to weigh my bag on the scales.

It was slightly over so she asked if I could move some things from it to my laptop bag (which I did). Whilst I was busy redistributing my belongings she continued to scan other people's boarding passes. When I was done she said 'Thank you. Sorry it's just to be consistent'.

Wasn't really fussed by it all as we are all bound to the rules however was interesting to see the whole event transpire. I'm
guessing it would have been pretty obvious if she didn't ask me to weigh my bag when everyone with a wheeled carry on was having their bags weighed.

 

[Kangol]

Yes Qantas are no longer sponsors.

Over the last few years they had some Qantas corporate box tickets for sale at Pit exit trackside International. I think it was shared with a few other companies. Whether or not they've given away tickets to this I dont know.

Thanks, looks like they've pulled back and Emirates have stepped up.