Qantas Parental Leave Pause - will miss out on retaining gold by 2 months

[adelee]

Hi All

I'm currently gold, and pregnant. I was excited to read about the qantas parental leave pause, but unfortunately, I think I'm going to miss out on benefitting by the skin of my teeth. The reasons being:

• I'm currently 5.5 months pregnant. I am due to give birth in October.
• I've not been travelling much in the past 18 months (due to giving birth to my first child), so I will not re-qualify for gold for the first time in 3 years
• My membership anniversary is in May (so I will reset to silver in 2 days time)
• The Parental Leave Pause that Qantas has brought in only allows you to 'pause' your membership level 3 months ahead of birth, so due to my anniversary date and 'birth' date being 4 months apart (instead of 3!), I'm going to miss out on pausing my gold status.

Can anyone see any way around this? Obviously, I will be able to 'pause' closer to October, once my status has dropped, but a silver status pause is much less appealing.

Is it worth contacting Qantas to explain the situation and to see if they can show be some 'flexibility'?

 

[opusman]

Ask your doctor about the possibility of early inducement?

 

[Pushka]

They showed no flexibility for me when unable to renew my status for medical purposes.

 

[VPS]

Depends on your past history but if you ask they might just say yes - it's worth a try

 

[Princess Fiona]

Hi All

I'm currently gold, and pregnant. I was excited to read about the qantas parental leave pause, but unfortunately, I think I'm going to miss out on benefitting by the skin of my teeth. The reasons being:

• I'm currently 5.5 months pregnant. I am due to give birth in October.
• I've not been travelling much in the past 18 months (due to giving birth to my first child), so I will not re-qualify for gold for the first time in 3 years
• My membership anniversary is in May (so I will reset to silver in 2 days time)
• The Parental Leave Pause that Qantas has brought in only allows you to 'pause' your membership level 3 months ahead of birth, so due to my anniversary date and 'birth' date being 4 months apart (instead of 3!), I'm going to miss out on pausing my gold status.

Can anyone see any way around this? Obviously, I will be able to 'pause' closer to October, once my status has dropped, but a silver status pause is much less appealing.

Is it worth contacting Qantas to explain the situation and to see if they can show be some 'flexibility'?

There's no obvious way around it but given that you have been Gold for three years QF might be prepared to look at your circumstances if you contact them.

I would send an email through requesting a comp to Gold before your status drops.
Best wishes with everything

 

[adelee]

Thanks for the replies everyone. I'm going to send an email today whilst I still have status. Can anyone advise if there is a better email address to use other than [email protected] which seems to be under resourced? My husband (also gold) recently emailed that address, and it is 2 weeks down the track and he's received no reply as yet.

 

[cmon0005]

Thanks for the replies everyone. I'm going to send an email today whilst I still have status. Can anyone advise if there is a better email address to use other than [email protected] which seems to be under resourced? My husband (also gold) recently emailed that address, and it is 2 weeks down the track and he's received no reply as yet.

Did you ever get a response back?

My wife is in a similar boat except at the time the policy was announced in April our baby was 8 months, the policy requires baby to have been born in previous 6 months, would have availed of this except the policy didn't exist at the time!

There is no way my wife will maintain Platinum (30 Nov expiry), as we only plan to start going on family holidays again from Nov/Dec.

Anyways she has emailed QFF to see if they can make an exception and grant an extension even if just for a few extra months so she can retain Plat on her own right by gaining the SC's required. Fingers crossed they understand and value her loyalty.

 

[adelee]

Hi all. Spoke to QF on the phone last week (way more efficient than waiting for an email response - their email response times are terrible at the moment). Operator had a chat to her supervisor and stated that it was likely that they'd consider my request favourably. Accordingly, I have emailed through the required documentation . Will advise on response once received.

 

[cmon0005]

Hi all. Spoke to QF on the phone last week (way more efficient than waiting for an email response - their email response times are terrible at the moment). Operator had a chat to her supervisor and stated that it was likely that they'd consider my request favourably. Accordingly, I have emailed through the required documentation . Will advise on response once received.

My wife was successful, very happy WP indeed!

 

[adelee]

Confirming I was also successful - status (plus existing SCs!) reset back to gold until 31st December 2017. Very appreciative

 

[Pushka]

Guess some get lucky with the status fairy.