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?

 

[RichardMEL]

By the way let me state that a huge improvement for P1 would be to definite a benefit to provide say domestic upgrades where space is available say 30m before departure or something. It wouldn't really cost QF anything and would be a tangible benefit. Will they do it? No. It's very USA style for such things but really I agree with the Collingwood supporter above (this is something that pains me deeply as a tiger !! ) but reading about other experiences does lead to a sense of expectation and thus disappointment when it doesn't happen. Sharing is great but I also think we need to be clear about what SHOULD be expected and what shouldn't.

Of course even some of these things can be nebulous.. eg if you're on an international flight and an upgrade doesn't clear ... does it mean a fail of the P1 benefit, or that there were no seats to allocate? Or that any that were at time of departure went to CL or other P1's in the queue? One you'd never know without inside access.. but it may not be a fail....

Really life is often like that though... sometimes you don't get what you feel you're entitled to or expect... it can just be like that.

 

[teebow]

I think far more important is if the apparent priority of P1 is not being met in terms of upgrades being confirmed(points) or other types of priority service that are published... In my time I've had them all happen as expected with no issues so I'm fairly happy from that point of view.

i just flew LAX-SYD in Y, had a points request in for Upgrade, EF was showing 9 seats available 24 hours out, all seats showed filled a few hours from departure, no upgrade for me, so not sure what's going on, maybe there is 9 CL or P1's ahead of me on the upgrade list or P1 priority is not always given, i can't work it out, I must say that for me the biggest benefit of P1 is getting points upgrades confirmed early, but after this last flight i'm kind of questioning the point of P1 right now.

Also totally agree with your views on receiving non-published benefits like free upgrades, I don't ever expect to get them.

 

[cove]

There could have been some booked on Premium Economy who scored those J seats.

 

[trippin_the_rift]

Feel free (pun intended) to flame me but....

since when have comp upgrades been a published benefit of P1? Never.

It's a strongly perceived and implied benefit of being a high-value frequent air traveler. Let's consider the inverse, can you imagine if Qantas published "Platinum Ones will never receive complimentary upgrades"?

In QF defense, there are multiple stakeholders involved in a complimentary upgrade scenario.

- Who pays for the upgrade? (hard costs ie: F&B)
- Qantas (airline) may be seeking 100% recovery from Qantas Loyalty (total rubbish argument, but could be expected as internal politics)
- Likelihood of that pax next flight being on Qantas? (QF logic will be: high score = why upgrade?)
- Pax responsiveness to higher class fares after receiving a complimentary upgrade (free upgrades = marketing. Does it result in increased revenue above their expected patterns?)
- Individual pax behavioral drivers (data science issue: What does this pax value more than anything else? Is it free upgrades, or is it having an on-time departure? Action on the pax side would vary depending on expectations)

Essentially meaning that if you continue to fly with Qantas and send those CC points to Qantas while being disappointed about not receiving benefits, upgrades or any other expectation you feel comes with status; then all you are doing is proving the data science & analytics team correct in their assumptions. It's like watching the same movie over and over but expecting a different ending. Nothing will ever change unless you stop spending.

By the way let me state that a huge improvement for P1 would be to definite a benefit to provide say domestic upgrades where space is available say 30m before departure or something. It wouldn't really cost QF anything and would be a tangible benefit. Will they do it? No. It's very USA style for such things.

"USA Style," You say like it's a bad thing. The US3 are more profitable than Qantas. Southwest is also in a league of its own re profitability (albeit upgrades are of a different nature).

 

[RichardMEL]

TTR I'm not going to have a protracted discussion with you on my "USA style" comment but I will say that in recent times carriers like DL providing upsell to the Premium Cabin (I refuse to call it "First" ) and/or selling the product at an appropriate level has actually lead to more and more of those seats going out generating revenue rather than the "free" upgrades for elites. I note DL as there was a study maybe 6 months ago that hilighted DL as an example.

My point really being that the "USA Style" which was for quite some time that elites would receive space available upgrades on domestic flights caused more expectation and disappointment than happiness. I mean consider a hub-hub route full of elites on whichever legacy carrier offering comp upgrades.. even top tiers would grumble because there's so many (and the local equivalent would be MEL/SYD/BNE flying for QF) such that even top tiers could not guarantee that they would get an upgrade.

And isn't expectation the theme of this entire thread in one way or another? From the original P1 promise (which they clearly never seemed to deliver by most people's definition) through to upgrades or other "special services" (such as flight monitoring which seems to be hit or miss - even I've experienced this both ways).

I don't know that comp upgrades are "strongly implied" anywhere, but I guess that's a personal feeling - and as previously mentioned here obviously the more one reads of experiences others of the same status receive that underlines the expectation

I do absolutely agree with your statement that if one flies, credits points etc with QF then the data suggests to them that yeah this P1 is happy with the services. It may be that, or it may be the pax is tied to QF in a corporate sense through a contract, or flying patterns mean QF is the best fit, or one lives somewhere with majority QF service or few alternatives, or price is good (OK that one is not entirely serious ) or any number of reasons that have nothing to do with P1 benefits.

There may even be P1's out there who have no idea that things like the odd comp upgrades even exist.

On a purely personal note the upgrade issue doesn't affect me all that much. I'm in a very lucky position where I can and do fly in a J cabin more often than not. And the times I book Y, while few, that's all I expect. I've been r reasonably fortunate on that score, but given my Y flying (as in CoS paid for in a multi-class cabin) is a very small % of my overall flying pattern I am probably not a person that is going to be affected that much. I know P1's who do it only on Y(!) and man I hope they get lots of upgrades!!

At the end of the day though, everyone will have their own value judgement based on their own expectations and what they feel they should be receiving (as in what benefits are implied or suggested). And it's absolutely everyone's personal choice as to how to respond.. with their $$$ elsewhere, or not, or whatever.

This is not intended as a criticism of anyone's choices or feelings on the matter of comp upgrades.. just my own opinion.. and we all have one

 

[kermatu]

I completely agree that more clear and defined benefits are what's needed. In the absence of that, there is only inconsistency, which inevitably frustrates.

But in terms of tangible benefits, even this is slipping. I still haven't received my free bottle of 'something' -- after an initial email with a new link, my follow-up query has been effectively ignored, as has my request for some info on the flight sim experience - promised a follow-up to both almost immediately, but have heard nothing further from the team in a month. Neither are urgent (and I said as much in my emails to the P1 team), but failure to follow-up as promised on what should be the simplest of queries is just poor.

I'm just thinking of my P1 year as an extra year of WP at the end - which is a real benefit of OWE status in overseas ports.

Meanwhile a friend of mine whose partner is a CL told me yesterday she has had 4 upgrades in a row on domestic flights this year (CBR-MEL-CBR so not that much of a wow - but still quite telling). She hasn't purchased a QF J fare for 2 years. Her partner (the CL) flies less than half of what I do on average and his outfit has a pretty strict 'best fare of the day' policy and directs very little business to QF. Go figure.

 

[boomy]

I know P1's who do it only on Y(!) and man I hope they get lots of upgrades!!

No they don't

1/10 on average which is pathetic.

I wonder how many upgrades WPs get these days... 1/50, 1/100... more often than not I see empty J seats on Dom flights while row 4 is fully occupied (include middle seats). Used to bother me but I'm over it now.

 

[trippin_the_rift]

TTR I'm not going to have a protracted discussion with you on my "USA style" comment but I will say that in recent times carriers like DL providing upsell to the Premium Cabin (I refuse to call it "First" ) and/or selling the product at an appropriate level has actually lead to more and more of those seats going out generating revenue rather than the "free" upgrades for elites. I note DL as there was a study maybe 6 months ago that hilighted DL as an example.

My point really being that the "USA Style" which was for quite some time that elites would receive space available upgrades on domestic flights caused more expectation and disappointment than happiness. I mean consider a hub-hub route full of elites on whichever legacy carrier offering comp upgrades.. even top tiers would grumble because there's so many (and the local equivalent would be MEL/SYD/BNE flying for QF) such that even top tiers could not guarantee that they would get an upgrade.

Don't get me wrong I fully agree with the sentiment of what you're saying When I put my airline loyalty hat on, things get distorted as there's MUCH more to the dynamic of pax <-> program <-> airline relationship than most understand.

Ultimately the goal of an airline is profitability. The goal of loyalty programs is to sell points and drive new revenue to the host airline using the FFP as a conduit to make this reality.
Nowhere in this arrangement does anyone really give a **** about providing benefits to frequent flyers. The airline views frequent flyers as an EXPENSE, and the FFP will see the flyers largely as an EXPENSE but required as to drive revenue and deliver value to banks, partner airlines etc. Fundamentally meaning, you are the product and not the customer.

It's only when both the host airline and loyalty prog work together that the magic happens. Alaska airlines CEO Brad Tilden told skift recently that "loyalty is part of successful growth" when speaking about frequent flyers and upgrades. Alaska has one of the best FF programs around right now on both the air-benefits and air earn and burn side.

Personally, I think Qantas (airline) should be funding regular free upgrades via QFF (loyalty) based on agreed metrics. Eg: Each combination of $xx_x spend and N miles equates to K upgrades at a Level 1 priority.

 

[cove]

Meanwhile we have found booking and paying for staff to travel in Premium Economy to the US out of Melbourne get a good chance of an upgrade from using points with the upgrade fairy. It seems that this way you jump over P1s who are booked in Y despite lowly status.

 

[JohnK]

I hope things have changed, but this is the exact reason I dis-engaged with Qantas and P1.

100's of segments as P1 - not 1 free upgrade.

From memory your op-up success wasn't very good as a Platinum either. If I remember correctly most of your domestic travel was in premium cabins anyway.

 

[serfty]

Any op up is a bonus.

It was two decades ago when as a top level Gold flyer, Qantas sent me a letter stating they would no longer be providing "Courtesy Upgrades", but I would be amongst the first considered when needing to move PAX up.

I and a group of associates had earlier worked out that one in three flights in full "Y" was resulting in a seemingly unprompted upgrade on check in.

 

[RichardMEL]

I do not consider P1 upgrades to be "op ups" as they are not due to operational requirements and (at least in my small experience) handled ~24h out, which is not the case for oversale situations or other times that op ups usually happen. I definitely consider P1 upgrades to be in the "courtesy upgrade" category.

Obviously op ups do happen and P1's should be at the top of that list, but I think these are separate to the "Enjoy your flight" upgrades that are being discussed here - since I consider op ups can occur to anyone with any status (in theory) rather than upgrades specifically provided by the P1 team (and noted on the BP-usually).

(just a minor comment on what I feel these things should be called )

 

[TonyHancock]

I do not consider P1 upgrades to be "op ups" as they are not due to operational requirements and (at least in my small experience) handled ~24h out, which is not the case for oversale situations or other times that op ups usually happen. I definitely consider P1 upgrades to be in the "courtesy upgrade" category.

I could not agree more. I use the term "Comp Up". These are markedly different from "Op Ups".

 

[nauta1]

Just looking at the last 2 yrs as P1, have the following upgrades.
2014/2015 using points 33 upgrades, + P1 team upgrades 5, total 139 flights.
2015/2016 using points 26 upgrades, + P1 team upgrades 12, total 136 flights.
This yr have had medical problems and will not reach P1, it will be a distant dream.

 

[trippin_the_rift]

From memory your op-up success wasn't very good as a Platinum either. If I remember correctly most of your domestic travel was in premium cabins anyway.

I was swimming in upgrades pre-plat1!! Including a double-upgrade from PE -> F on one trip. I calculated that once I was P1, about 40% of my sectors could have been upgraded to a higher class.

 

[cambriamarsh]

Any op up is a bonus.

It was two decades ago when as a top level Gold flyer, Qantas sent me a letter stating they would no longer be providing "Courtesy Upgrades", but I would be amongst the first considered when needing to move PAX up.

I and a group of associates had earlier worked out that one in three flights in full "Y" was resulting in a seemingly unprompted upgrade on check in.

I never got that letter but at the time I was commuting across the Tasman and seemed to get an upgrade on about 1/6th of my flights, mostly returning to AKL on a Friday night. Now I'm NB so haven't had an upgrade in the last 15 years

 

[Princess Fiona]

The 'benefit' I'd like to see hold true the most are the shadow seat allocations. I've lost count now how many times I've been sitting during boarding to have a passenger sit themself down (in the apparently blocked seat next to me) only to look around and see a dozen free seats elsewhere throughout the plane.

I understand when planes are fully loaded every seat is required, but I would like to think the privilege of space would go to those that fly 100+ times year with the company.


-edit- This is now my personal gripes with Qantas thread

I agree. It might seem petty but it is annoying to find a seat buddy beside you and other solo travellers didn't get one.
It really can't be that hard for the airport staff to try to preserve the P1 seat block.

 

[trippin_the_rift]

I agree. It might seem petty but it is annoying to find a seat buddy beside you and other solo travellers didn't get one.
It really can't be that hard for the airport staff to try to preserve the P1 seat block.

In reality, it's likely a restriction with Amadeus, and having them develop a 'seat shadow module' would come with a 6-figure development cost.

I used to (try) and avoid the seat-buddy issue by selecting rows 6 or 7, and monitoring seat maps right up until boarding where I'd often move myself around to ensure a spare seat.

 

[JessicaTam]

In reality, it's likely a restriction with Amadeus, and having them develop a 'seat shadow module' would come with a 6-figure development cost.

I used to (try) and avoid the seat-buddy issue by selecting rows 6 or 7, and monitoring seat maps right up until boarding where I'd often move myself around to ensure a spare seat.

QF need to get a copy of AB's system.

 

[Solid]

Nearly all my "op upable" travel is domestic, but in 7 years as a WP have had one one at the gate and one on board when someone wanted to be moved - enjoy it when it happens WP1s!