Qantas apologises to frequent flyers with status extensions, lounge passes, points & more reward seats

[jetset]

If you did cut'n past or screen shot or write it down, you'll have to wait for the email.

oh cough. no I didn't. Accidently swiped the window down and now I can't get it back

 

[GrahamBRI]

Does anyone know where the $50 code is? It was somewhere in my app and now i've los

If you did cut'n past or screen shot or write it down, you'll have to wait for the email.

yep, will have to wait for email, I got mine within 24hr but instructions said you will get email within next 7 days and to screenshot app

 

[SYD]

oh cough. no I didn't. Accidently swiped the window down and now I can't get it back

My email arrived around 2:30pm yesterday after accepting the voucher around 7:30am Monday morning AEST.

 

[exLXCXFF]

Well, they've reduced the liability... by around 0.34%

How Many Qantas Points Are There in Circulation?

Ever wondered how many Qantas Frequent Flyer points there are in existence? The exact number of Qantas points in the total pool is a closely guarded

www.australianfrequentflyer.com.au

This morning's investor presentation seems to imply that the unredeemed frequent flyer revenye (i.e. liability) stood valued at AUD 3.1bn as at 30 June 2022. (https://investor.qantas.com/DownloadFile.axd?file=/Report/ComNews/20220825/02557909.pdf, page 29). However, on page 62, they actually do not talk about absolute numbers of members etc, just relative to 30 June 2021.

 

[Flyinfish]

For those who received the complimentary lounge passes, what is the validity? 12 months? Hoping to pick up a couple May next year.

 

[Mattg]

This morning's investor presentation seems to imply that the unredeemed frequent flyer revenye (i.e. liability) stood valued at AUD 3.1bn as at 30 June 2022.

If that's the case, the unredeemed frequent flyer revenue has increased by another $100 million since last year!

 

[sudoer]

If that's the case, the unredeemed frequent flyer revenue has increased by another $100 million since last year!

Not massively surprising given the lack of international travel for the first half of the FY followed by lack of award seats for the second half.

 

[Peanutbladder]

Got the e-mail for the $50 (annoyingly just after I had booked a flight) but when I go into the app home page there is no voucher just my next booking information ?? Any suggestions ?

 

[Mattg]

Got the e-mail for the $50 (annoyingly just after I had booked a flight) but when I go into the app home page there is no voucher just my next booking information ?? Any suggestions ?

Is your app up to date?

 

[Ade]

Airlines hold the aces.

The House always wins ...

FF schemes were once good but have arguably become poorer value over the years

Would it be safe to say that the once good schemes were good because of less customers/pax? Nowadays it is so easy to rake up 1 million points. Just sign up to a bunch of credit cards. I have no data point to back this and I'm only a recent frequent traveller, but I'd assume that 10 years back if someone had 1 million points in their FF membership, it would have meant something. Now any & everyone I know have a million points. Not that a million points is much, but it is definitely something to someone who starts at 0 points.

The "value" of a scheme is only good if there are more options as part of the scheme OR less takers/participants in the scheme. QF (pretty much any airline these days) have "sold" their points (and in turn the "value" of the point) to credit card companies. This has enabled the participant pool to grow but no increase in the benefits of the scheme and hence the decline in "value"

I'm also guilty of this - meaning, I have churned CCs to get to where I'm today. I'm still working towards my "goal" in terms of points. But what I wanted to achieve using the points is now looking bleak - thanks to increase in taxes, reduction in rewards availability etc. An airline could advertise that they have increased their reward availability by 50%. But we need to know 50% of WHAT ? If there is an increase from 2 J seats to 3 J seats - that is 50% increase, isn't it?

It would better if airlines say - I can guarantee "X" J seats on any international service departing AU and "Y" J seats domestic

I do wonder what message this kind of thing sends to Joe Public (ie: not FF's with status).

Agree. Going by what I know of my immediate social, work, personal circle - not many Joe Public know/care/think/agree/understand what an organisation is doing, unless, they are directly impacted by the services offered by said organisation.

For instance, assuming there is a pharmac_ that offers a group/family discount on flu vaccinations when all members in the family get vaccinated in their store - those without a family (or a group of mates to make up the required number) would not even know/care about this group/family discount thingy offered. Similarly, those that don't fly as often, OR, those that don't like paying "premium" to fly QF, would not even notice/know about what QF is doing to apologise to it's customers.

However, the above being said, if anyone who is keen to know/keeps oneself updated on the happenings in the news might think the "QF is only taking care of it's elite pax, so why bother. I will keep continuing to fly whoever is cheap". This is one way to lose potential customers, however, I think QF has got enough issues with their existing customers and so won't have the time to look into new customers.

proper training of offshore call center.

properly functioning Qantas website.

Absolutely agree with the above 2 points. If you train & take proper care of your employees/staff, they will take care of your customer. It is business 101.

I'm impacted by the non-functioning of QF website deeply. I'm trying to book an international trip for 2nd week of September and I'm unable to get past the homepage. I always a HTTP 400 error when I click on anything. I've also learnt that as part of my work I get an additional 10% of Sale & Saver fares when booked on QF. I have no way to check/validate this because the QF website isn't working for everyone. The app works fine for me, but not the website. And I like to book tickets on the website - much nicer and easier to use the computer than the phone to enter details.

They are certainly now a great deal more accessible compared to a few months ago but what's the point in calling them if they can't perform their job!?

Going back to my post a few weeks ago, QF "heard" the complaint that customers had to wait for over 7 hours to talk to a human being and they fixed it. Now you can talk to a human being in under 10 minutes. Will that human being be able to resolve your issue ? Now, that is a very different question and not what you had complained earlier! come on guys Cut QF some slack

<slightly OT>

This reminds me of my project manager, who, on my complaint, provided me with a fresh-out-of-uni, work-experience-kid-trainee to support the team to meet deadlines. I told him I will spend the time I have left to train the trainee, rather than use the trainee to deliver the work. My PM was not happy with the way I phrased my frustration

</slightly OT>

On a serious note though, I can say that I have seen improvements in the way CPT & MNL staff handle customer queries these days. I have had to call QF a few times in the past week to have some of my booking sorted it. All the calls were directed to CPT/MNL and they were good. Not great/exceptional, but they got the job done, eventually. So with a bit more training, they should be fine.

Why the Dickens would anyone in Qantas think it necessary to have the IT in synch with what the CEO announces? That would imply there was some planning and coordination within the airline

Might I hazard a guess that the IT support team is offshore based and it's still 2am wherever they are Just Kidding!

The biggest advantage of the changes that will help people like me (status year ends between July and Dec 2022) is the rollover of SC to the new year. My year ends in Nov. I've already locked in WP for 2023 by taking one flight (I'll actually be close and possibly meet the 1200 SC anyway) but I will rollover 500 SC for 2024 and hopefully another 100 from PC+ meaning maintaining WP in 2024 should be easy enough.

I think I understand what you are saying. But just for my clarity - if the membership years ends in Dec 2022, of the SCs earned from 1 Jan 2022 to 31 Dec 2022, 500 SCs (or 40% of what you earned) will be rolled over to the membership year from 1 Jan 2023 to 31 Dec 2023. How will this rollover any (500SCs/40% earned SCs) SCs to the membership year from 1 Jan 2024 - 31 Dec 2024 ? May be I'm missing something here?

Emergency PR "fire fighting" - despite flying through the entire pandemic - I have stopped flying Qantas since late of 2021once VA started to get their cr*p together, nothing I have seen so far this year tells me that they deserve my business, let alone any loyalty.

Rubbish unreliable uncompetitive overpriced service, incompetent deluded management, have lost all focus on the basics of running an airline and core competencies, I'll look at them again seriously once management learns some new tricks that aren't cost cutting/nickel & diming, industrial skullduggery and superficial PR spin.

Agree with your points, @eastwest101 . However, if I may, QF has been good for those that are trying to redeem domestic flights using points. I spoke to a few folks at work and those that I meet at lounges, most of them were using points to book reward tickets domestically. So yea, QF is overpriced for commercial fares, but I think QF has been good in terms of having reward seats in domestic. I, as a WP, was able to request over 20 seats released (on separate flights over a 3 month period) for family and myself. Most of my QF $ fares are international fares in Y and domestic is almost always on points.

I'm sure there will be folks here on AFF who had success in redeeming points for flights. It may not be what they had wanted (itinerary wise) but they were able to snap up some good seats along the way. Happy to be corrected.

So, I called the UA Australian number and immediately got through to a very helpful agent (female) in Palm Beach, FLA, who quickly, efficiently and in a very friendly manner made the booking and had it ticketed on the spot.

According to me this a very good data point. You were able to access an agent based in the US, who know how to get stuff done for a US based airline. If only customers were able to access AU based agent for their AU based airline needs, things will be very different. I get that it makes economical sense to outsource work, but this outsourcing should be done in a way that anyone calling in should not notice any different in the service level or competency of the agent on the phone. We may not be able to ignore the accent, but if the job is done, who cares where the agent is located/based.

 

[Peanutbladder]

Is your app up to date?

It should be set to auto update (note luddite here when it comes to tech ) but will check.

Thx

 

[Peanutbladder]

Is your app up to date?

@Mattg that worked a treat many thanks

 

[JRWhite]

I received the 15,000 points WP email but I would have / will retain WP anyway with forward bookings. However, it is a bonus so greatful even if others were who have already done enough flying to also retain got offered 30,000.

To me the points are of more value the $50 promo code

Questions
1. Anyone seen the points appear in their profile?
2. Do the points appear when the promo code comes through via email?

 

[Ade]

A DSC is not far away

Perhaps and I look forward to it. One of my international trips is always planned a year in advance. So I would be happy to book 1 international trip should a DSC be announced.

If it happened, I probably wouldn't bite.

Some might (like me) as the status do count towards the lifetime status. I'm a WP for the past 4 years, but I'm halfway to LTS. I might consider flying QF until I hit LTG. So any DSC is welcome

Probably in the eyes of Joe and Josephine Public.

This could be true to some extent. Even foreigners think QF is AU's national airline. My parents & sister were here for a week and we all flew QF everywhere domestically. And I'm pretty sure that they equate QF to AI (Air India) and hence make the connection that QF is AU's national airline. My parents were surprised that QF had it's own terminal (we went to SYD, MEL, CBR) and that bolstered the thought that QF is indeed AU's national airline. I told them that AU doesn't have a national airline and QF is not government/public owned.

Who primarily purchase best fare of day from whatever airline gives then the fare, connections and timing that suits them.

Exactly and this ties into my previous post in this thread re : how much Joe Public care/know/understand/agree with what QF does, if the Joe Public only cares about things such as BFOD, etc..

In addition to status extension, temporarily reduced qualifying thresholds from actually flying for the next level of status would get my attention.

As a WP, I'd likely be lured by the possibility of P1 at say 2400 SCs, and I bet Golds would be prepared to pay extra to score WP with 950 SCs. Arbitrary threshold based on 50% of the current difference between each step.

It's wishful thinking, because it wont happen.

All great points, including the last one about wishful thinking

In all seriousness, a really good point re : reducing thresholds for requal. I have been WP for 4 years and if I could get WP1 for a reduced SCs, I'd jump on the opportunity. One might argue that there is nothing fancy at WP1 level, but it is definitely something nice to have.

Reminds me of the Dean Martin's song on Money ; (lyrics corrected to include WP1, WP and any gender/identity neutral audience)

<Lyrics>

Ask the WP1 they'll confess
WP1 can't buy happiness
Ask the WP they don't doubt
But they'd rather be miserable with than without

</Lyrics>

None of this addresses the actual issues!

Train your airport staff - they are the one who meet customers face-to-face everyday!

Might I add one more from a very, very recent experience (as recent as 24/08)

I was going to check in at the J desk in MEL. There was an agent monitoring the queue - to let only SG, WP, WP1 or J pax and send the rest to the regular queue. I rocked up with my WP BP and tried to enter the queue. The agent asked for the BP, I showed and I had at least 8 bags and 3 adults with me. She told that I can't use the J desk because I have bags to check in. I was thinking "I want to use the J queue BECAUSE I have bags to check in" If I was HLO or just one bag, I'd have used the kiosks. I was just returning from a trip and was super drained. The last thing I wanted was to wait in the queue (5 people in front of me) to use a kiosks to check in my bags. She then said that I can use the regular queue. I asked why, she said that you have too many bags to check in and you may have to pay excess fees. We were well within our limits (baggage wise). The look on my face had changed by now and I was looking very "not so friendly". And the queue at the regular queue was at least 25 people long. She directed me to the regular queue and I simply asked "Why?". She didn't know what to say. By this time a supervisor walked over to us to check if everything was ok. He say my WP BP and waved us thru. Clearly the gatekeeper staff was not trained on who can use the J desk and who cannot. A clear training miss by QF.

 

[dairyfloss]

I received the 15,000 points WP email but I would have / will retain WP anyway with forward bookings. However, it is a bonus so greatful even if others were who have already done enough flying to also retain got offered 30,000.

To me the points are of more value the $50 promo code

Questions
1. Anyone seen the points appear in their profile?
2. Do the points appear when the promo code comes through via email?

You need to accept the offers by following the link in the e-mail, by a certain date - it looks like this in your 'Thank you from Qantas' mail:


Unsure how long from there until they are credited.

Cheers,
Matt.

 

[JRWhite]

You need to accept the offers by following the link in the e-mail, by a certain date - it looks like this in your 'Thank you from Qantas' mail:

View attachment 289809
Unsure how long from there until they are credited.

Cheers,
Matt.

Thanks Matt,

I have now accepted the points from the email.

 

[downgraded]

Well, they've reduced the liability... by around 0.34%

How Many Qantas Points Are There in Circulation?

Ever wondered how many Qantas Frequent Flyer points there are in existence? The exact number of Qantas points in the total pool is a closely guarded

www.australianfrequentflyer.com.au

It doesn't seem like that many points when you think about a million points being little more than 3 J returns to Europe if you spread it over the roughly 12 month future booking period. I guess the QF ticketing failures on partner airlines, EK's sky high charges and a reduction in the likes of CX options is putting pressure on QF's "boutique" capacity, but if they sell the dream...

 

[Mattg]

It doesn't seem like that many points when you think about a million points being little more than 3 J returns to Europe if you spread it over the roughly 12 month future booking period. I guess the QF ticketing failures on partner airlines, EK's sky high charges and a reduction in the likes of CX options is putting pressure on QF's "boutique" capacity, but if they sell the dream...

The investor presentation indicates that 118 billion Qantas points were earned in the last financial year, while 121 billion points were redeemed.

However, the number of redeemed points excludes refunds on Classic Reward and Points+Pay bookings.

Given the annual report shows unredeemed frequent flyer revenue increased by $100 million from last year, I'd say that well over 3 billion points were given in refunds. Makes sense, given the flexibility given to cancel Classic Rewards for a refund without penalty and the number of partner airline rewards that Qantas accepted payment for, but then didn't ticket or provide an alternative for when there was a cancellation/schedule change.

 

[oz_mark]

I received the 15,000 points WP email but I would have / will retain WP anyway with forward bookings. However, it is a bonus so greatful even if others were who have already done enough flying to also retain got offered 30,000.

To me the points are of more value the $50 promo code

Questions
1. Anyone seen the points appear in their profile?
2. Do the points appear when the promo code comes through via email?

As per the offer terms, the points can take up to 2 weeks to be in your account.

 

[MooTime]

So a $50 voucher the same week QF up their minimal fares, my goodness, all smoke n mirrors. typical.

Nothing clear from QF sloppy apology, detectives here AFF have to piece together how the 15k & 30k points awarded & even still little unclear.

Question;

As a SG, how do the 2 Business Lounge passes (apology bribe gift) sit in the naming table? what will they be named as once they arrive in my account as there isn't a domestic Biz lounge pass only from table below. Seems some confusion with lounge dragons coming.