Qantas Confirmed Upgrades

[levelnine]

So loyalty is dead
Cash is king

It will depend on how regularly they offer these confirmed paid upgrades and at what price. To be seen.

 

[SYD]

It will depend on how regularly they offer these confirmed paid upgrades and at what price. To be seen.

The “price” being the key thing. Expect not cheap.

 

[mviy]

My plan has been to try to get LTG (still working towards that) then pivot to travelling on points a lot. Not sure that’s going to work out as hoped, especially with the confirmed upgrades using cash changes. Still, lounge access for life (hopefully) will be nice.

 

[moa999]

Just remember confirmed redemptions are released first. Just got to be quick.

 

[Spamam]

Points upgrades on long hauls are the main reason I stick with QF. If the upgrades by points become unobtainable then I’ll look at another strategy when I hit lifetime gold in a year. Going to the US I’ll stick with QANTAS, but Europe and Asia has so many good options with comfier seats and better service. Hopefully the confirmed upgrades will be too expensive.

 

[Assassin]

Has anyone actually receive an offer yet?

 

[gethsemene]

I also think this will affect the availability of last minute award flights, I sometimes find long haul award flights to become randomly available 1-2 weeks out and then if you'd booked fully flex you could switch to that, if they have a $$ option to shift unbooked seats instead...

 

[dairyfloss]

It certainly seems from the outset like this will be another net negative for QFF members, particularly those with meaningful status that lose some of their inside track on upgrades, but I also think we need to wait and see how expensive these are before getting into a panic about it.

This is not like 'Bid Now' upgrades, where sometimes quite low offers, using points as a payment method might be accepted for a last-minute upgrade; these are confirmed paid upgrades - something as others noted have always been possible to call up and secure at any point, but people rarely do it as it's generally more expensive than having bought a Y+/ J / F ticket outright in the first place.

If you had the money to do it, would you not have done that at the beginning? Circumstances changed? Saved up some more since ticketing? Maybe. There's also the business travellers on a Y or Y+ travel policy who self-fund upgrades, but I do think it's a relatively tough sell when there is no additional status credits over the original fare.

Again - it will all come down to the price and how it compares to paid cabin class upgrades today. I chance nothing and book the cabin I want to travel in, but I'm looking forward to seeing the kinds of offers they put out there, and how often they appear.

Cheers,
Matt.

 

[logicallysynced]

Now that you mention it, I went to the Classic Upgrade Rewards page and there’s no longer any mention of instant confirmations on domestic flights (or maybe I’m missing it)..

https://www.qantas.com/au/en/frequent-flyer/use-points/classic-upgrade-rewards.html

So I emailed the P1 VIP Service team about this and they confirmed that domestic CR upgrades would continue to be instantly confirmed if there is sufficient inventory available.

Here was their specific reply:

In response to your first question, I can confirm that the ability to request and confirm an upgrade from available inventory will remain unchanged and continue to be offered.

 

[SYD]

So I emailed the P1 VIP Service team about this and they confirmed that domestic CR upgrades would continue to be instantly confirmed if there is sufficient inventory available.

Here was their specific reply:

Nice one!