Qantas Classes

Ok.

First off. check out the Qantas Domestic Fare Card:

http://www.qantas.com.au/agents/dyn/qf/policies/Dom_cc0806.pdf


B/H/K/W/Y classes on Australian domestic earn full Economy.
The rest in Economy earn Discount economy.

So, only Flexi-saver/Fully Flexible tickets will earn Full Economy on purely domestic flights.

 

Booking a flight SYD-HKG the other day, I noticed the Flexi Saver fare of $6025 was "Classed as Discount Economy for Status Credit Earn".

Business Saver was also available for $6025. Not sure if this is the norm, but really makes you wonder how much needs to be paid for an economy ticket to get the full economy SC's.

 

For international, only Y is full Economy. Often dearer than discount business, but sometimes there are cheap Y fares available.

 

It gets worse. For QFF, domestic flights within NZ are classed as international and so every fare is discount economy.

 

That seems awfully expensive!
I recently did a SYD-HKG return trip in (what I assume was) Y, and the ticket was approx $1,800. I didn't book it, but our tickets are always booked as fully-flexible, and I received the full compliment of Economy SC's.

It may not have been Y, but I did receive all 120 SC's.

Cheers,
- Febs.

 

That is very lucky or an error.

A sale fare with QF is around $1000-$1200 if travelling low season. A B class or H class fare could be around $1800, not a Y class fare, but these classes only yield discount Economy SC's for international flights.

Who books your tickets? Does your company have a special deal with QF?

 

Since posting I've realised that it seems we don't in fact book Y int'l fares, unless the situation calls for it (eg: booking a trip to Europe departing in <7 days, in which case the fare must be full economy I'm told).

We book tickets through a division of Flight Centre. They have a special team who handle all our bookings.

I guess the real test will be my Europe trip next week...we'll see whether I get the discount or full economy points and credits (it's been booked in some form of discount economy, but one that is fully refundable).

Cheers,
- Febs (always learning... ).

 

I would be interested to know the outcome. Good luck!

 

I would also be interested to know. I fly economy internationally (typically discount economy) and am always less than impressed at the SC earned on these flights. Any way to maximise economy SC would be greatly appreciated.

 

One way to maximise economy SC's is to route your trip via another city rather than the direct option. eg SYD-SIN-SYD direct in discount economy yields 60 SC's where as the routing SYD-PER-SIN-PER-SYD in discount economy yields 90 SC's. The cost is only marginally higher than routing direct, the flying time is increased from around 7 hours direct to around 10 hours with a few hours in transit.

Another option would be to travel in starclass on Jetstar (cough) thereby earning business class SC's. Obviously the destinations are limited right now and the cost depends on where you are going.

YMMV!

 

I will definitely have to look at routings in future to maximise SC's, particularly as I may struggle to requalify for platinum this year.

My recent fare to the US (MEL-LAX return) booked in H and V class (~$2,200) yielded 90 SC. For approximately the same $ I can fly MEL-BNE return 3 times on a flexi saver fare and earn 180 SC. Do other airlines (particularly OW) have the same attidtude towards SC earn for anything other than full Y class fares? Even an international flexi saver fare on QF only earns discount Y SC's, whereas domestic is full Y SC's.

 

It all depends where you travel to the most overseas. Is your travel time flexible or constrained by work?

I am sure others can do better, but in SE Asia for ~$2,300 I can get 600 SC's. In the US QUP/YUP fares are very good SC's earners where for <$1,000 you can earn ~600SC's or more. But for all of these you need to do the research and have some spare time to do short SC trips.

Some frequent flyer programs are better than others. Not all have SC's or tier points. Many are mileage based.

With some FFPs you do not earn any miles/status for the lowest booking classes. CX, SQ, AA are some that spring to mind. With other FFPs some booking classes only earn 50% or 70% miles/status.

 

Thanks JohnK, there are some interesting points here that I need to pay attention to in the future.

O/S trips usually have some time constraints, but I could work in some flexibility - i.e. for a ~10 day trip I could extend this by a couple of days to do short SC runs. As 90% of my travel is work related this would make good sense, providing it fits in company's budget (or mine if $$$ not too excessive).

Most O/S travel at the moment is to US. I wish I had known about the QUP/YUP fares you mentioned on my last trip as I could have easily extended that trip by a couple of days.

Thanks again.

 

I don't think xUP's are quite that good. More like <US$1000 for 480 SCs.

A$4/SC you can get around this rate on some cheapie fares within NZ

 

Even at A$2/SC it's still great value, especially if you are already in the US on an employer funded trip!

That is pretty good value for Australia/NZ but for double the cost of airfare SYD-AKL return I prefer to go to SE Asia and do some short SC runs from there.

 

Cheers.
Just an update - I've received my tickets (paper - how 90's!) and I've been booked in B class for all OW flights.

Cheers,
- Febs.