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?

 

[juddles]

Hi all, just sitting on a deck with a G&T, overlooking the Brisbane river as the sun sets, about to head off to the "Qantas Platinum One Gala Event 2019" (their title, not mine).

Not sure what to expect, but it has been a great excuse to visit Brisbane. I am the only AFF member heading to this one that I know of. I hope I behave myself and thus be a good ambassador

 

[kermatu]

Hi all, just sitting on a deck with a G&T, overlooking the Brisbane river as the sun sets, about to head off to the "Qantas Platinum One Gala Event 2019" (their title, not mine).

Not sure what to expect, but it has been a great excuse to visit Brisbane. I am the only AFF member heading to this one that I know of. I hope I behave myself and thus be a good ambassador

Enjoy, and we look forward to your report!

 

[Hawkeye]

Hi all, just sitting on a deck with a G&T, overlooking the Brisbane river as the sun sets, about to head off to the "Qantas Platinum One Gala Event 2019" (their title, not mine).

Not sure what to expect, but it has been a great excuse to visit Brisbane. I am the only AFF member heading to this one that I know of. I hope I behave myself and thus be a good ambassador

Two colleagues of mine will be there. They were surprised I wasn't attending ... even more so when I informed them I wasn't invited.

 

[juddles]

.....Hi all, just sitting on a deck with a G&T, overlooking the Brisbane river as the sun sets, about to head off to the "Qantas Platinum One Gala Event 2019" (their title, not mine).....

Hi all, just sitting on a deck with a very large bottle of water, overlooking the Brisbane river as my brain wishes it was gently floating in it.

Will report on the event later.......

 

[Deleted member]

Hi all, just sitting on a deck with a G&T, overlooking the Brisbane river as the sun sets, about to head off to the "Qantas Platinum One Gala Event 2019" (their title, not mine).

Not sure what to expect, but it has been a great excuse to visit Brisbane. I am the only AFF member heading to this one that I know of. I hope I behave myself and thus be a good ambassador

I was ALH’s Plus 1 for this, we ran into a couple of AFF types there, the champagne offering was pretty good and it kept flowing all night.
Food was below par for a “Gala” event. So we filled up on a late night Pizza later .

 

[Deleted member]

Two colleagues of mine will be there. They were surprised I wasn't attending ... even more so when I informed them I wasn't invited.

It (the guest list) did seem a little bit hit and miss IMHO

 

[travellerqff]

Hi all, I’ve just passed the P1 threshold after doing the most flying I’ve done in one year with Qantas and Oneworld, ever.

Although I haven’t flown yet as P1, I can say the SST via email have been trimendous. Sent a couple emails throughout the week for some minor issues and everything was rectified within minutes each time...

I can already sense the dread of slipping back down to WP if I don’t keep my flying up this year!

 

[Deleted member]

Hi all, just sitting on a deck with a very large bottle of water, overlooking the Brisbane river as my brain wishes it was gently floating in it.

Will report on the event later.......

When are you flying home?

 

[ALH]

Hi all, just sitting on a deck with a G&T, overlooking the Brisbane river as the sun sets, about to head off to the "Qantas Platinum One Gala Event 2019" (their title, not mine).

Not sure what to expect, but it has been a great excuse to visit Brisbane. I am the only AFF member heading to this one that I know of. I hope I behave myself and thus be a good ambassador

Dang. If only there was some kind of forum or place to keep abreast of events and attendees

Just kidding. I completely forgot to come back to this thread to look.

Would love to have met you.

 

[juddles]

Dang. If only there was some kind of forum or place to keep abreast of events and attendees

Just kidding. I completely forgot to come back to this thread to look.

Would love to have met you.

When are you flying home?

Would love to have met you both.
I drove back up to Noosa today (home?). Fly back to Chile in a week.

 

[La Mouette]

Has anyone who is P1 plus a Qantas Business Rewards member used the flight discount offered in the P1 newsletter last year?

My flight has credited as 0 QBR points. The QBR service team's response was:

"The flights were booked as a Private Corporate Airfare which is ineligible to earn points on Qantas Business Rewards. Please contact your travel agent to discuss this."

I've contacted the SST as my "travel agent" in this instance, but I'm wondering if anyone else experienced this, or if I should HUACA.

Thanks.

 

[ALH]

Has anyone who is P1 plus a Qantas Business Rewards member used the flight discount offered in the P1 newsletter last year?

My flight has credited as 0 QBR points. The QBR service team's response was:

"The flights were booked as a Private Corporate Airfare which is ineligible to earn points on Qantas Business Rewards. Please contact your travel agent to discuss this."

I've contacted the SST as my "travel agent" in this instance, but I'm wondering if anyone else experienced this, or if I should HUACA.

Thanks.

I haven't used the flight discount, but the golden rule with Qantas Customer Service is always HUACA until you get someone who knows what they are talking about.

 

[ALH]

Would love to have met you both.
I drove back up to Noosa today (home?). Fly back to Chile in a week.

Happy to catch up in Chile, and pick up some wine while we are there

 

[RichardMEL]

So yesterday flying BNE-MEL the CSM asked me if I went to the P1 event in Brisbane last week. That was a bit odd. Well maybe good she even knew about it? Anyway I said no as I'm MEL based etc and she suggested they'd do one in Melboourne probably....

another oddity on that flight. I swapped seats so a couple coule sit together(that's not odd) but I got talking to my new seatmate and seems that SHE had had her seat changed between the lounge and boarding ?!! No real idea why. She did'n't seem to have a problem with it or anything, but seems odd (I mean her J seat was changed from 2A to 3F). It did seema a pair were in 2A/C who were together so seems some practive swapping may have gone on, but odd that on that flight I moved as the couple kind of asked/I offered to swap, while this other pax's seat was somehow changed with her being asked or advised. So badsically we sat in seats neither of us had picked or been allocated originally. Had an amazingly good chat though so it was a great flight.

crew gave great service on that flight too.

 

[juddles]

Happy to catch up in Chile, and pick up some wine while we are there

As far as picking up the wine, there may be none left after Johnm goes through soon....

Will drop you a PM.

 

[juddles]

As promised, I will give a run down on what the P1 “Gala Event” in Brisbane last week was like for me.

As I stated before, this was the first P1 invite I was in the country for, so I wanted to attend. Curiosity if nothing else. I do not live in Brisbane, but am up at Noosa when in Aussie, so heading for a thing in Brissy was a bit of a stretch, but after finding overnight childcare for the daughter ( a midweek “sleepover” as I called it ), wife and I agreed it would be fun to drive down and stay the night in Brisbane.

As the other P1 AFF members are so slack on following this thread, I thought there were no other AFF members there – which was a shame – would have loved the chance to catch up. So effectively it was an evening event that we attended with total strangers.

There was very little info in the confirmation emails – it just mentioned the venue (in the Howard Smith Wharf precinct under the Story Bridge), that it involved drinks and food, and suggested “business” attire. Very little info really.

We arrived on the dot at the nominated 6:30pm start time. This precinct has quite a few bars, restaurants, etc, and they had a lady in QF uniform near the entrance to provide guidance to the specific venue. Well done.

The venue was great – right on the river, with a bar and hall and a deck area on the water’s edge. Very pretty. Great location. I am not a Brisbanite but this is clearly a popular modern part of the town’s night life.

As per the scant info in the emails, we arrived not knowing if it was a formal sit-down dinner or whatever. In fact they had a scattering of tall small tables with bar stools, and the event was effectively some drinkies and finger food and mingling.

The food was OK, but not spectacular. (ended up getting a kebab in the street after). The drinks consisted of beer / wine / champagne. The bubbly on offer was Veuve Clicquot, which both my wife and I quite enjoy. I eventually swapped to a nice cab sav but cannot recall the one…. The waiting staff were really good – drinks and nibblies offered continuously and very professional and nice. Well done staff.

Even though the staff did frequent rounds, you could also approach the bar, which at times had a small queue. Funny actually, as it appears P1’s are a mix of people getting what they want, first, but also being very polite in general

After a while there was a small official “speech”. Olivia Wirth (CEO Qantas Loyalty) started it, then Alan Joyce (CEO Qantas) finished it. These talks were obviously slightly commercial, but I think they were very well done. There was a touch of Queenslanderism to cater for the crowd (reminding us all that Qld was where Qantas was born, etc), but overall it was light and personal. It was clear to me that Alan is a real believer in the whole Project Sunrise thing – which I am also. He also said they were very close to announcing direct flights from Brisbane to either Chicago or Seattle – again – I like that.

They dished out three “awards” – bloke with the greatest km flown in last year on QF – about 370,000 if I recall correctly? Bloke with greatest number of QF flights (160? – the joke was that this was approx double what Alan had done), and finally, the bloke with greatest amount of SC. This last one was controversial, as even Olivia said, it is a hard thing to measure at any given point in time. So I understood it to be the member with the greatest SC on the day. I think it was about 4800? (I laughed inside at this, as I am currently sitting on exactly ZERO SC. Due to time home and only having flown on points tickets so far this year )

After the speeches/awards, they got their entertainment in – which consisted of good old Daryl Braithwaite doing some songs. This went down really well.

The rest of the evening consisted of more mingling. They had a wall with QF livery where a few times Alan was there so people could get a photo with him. Not my cup of tea, but I did get to meet him during the evening and chat for a short while – actually really liked him.

I also met Olivia. She appears to be a very competent corporate person.

The evening finished at the designated time, all appeared to go well. A nice evening. Not earth-shattering, but solid and well run.

 

[Princess Fiona]

Has anyone who is P1 plus a Qantas Business Rewards member used the flight discount offered in the P1 newsletter last year?

My flight has credited as 0 QBR points. The QBR service team's response was:

"The flights were booked as a Private Corporate Airfare which is ineligible to earn points on Qantas Business Rewards. Please contact your travel agent to discuss this."

I've contacted the SST as my "travel agent" in this instance, but I'm wondering if anyone else experienced this, or if I should HUACA.

Thanks.

Yes exactly the same experience here. Was told using any discount made the flights ineligible for QBR points. Tried it last week.

 

[La Mouette]

Yes exactly the same experience here. Was told using any discount made the flights ineligible for QBR points. Tried it last week.

Thanks, glad to know it's not just me. This has stumped the SST so far. They've been trying to find out the issue for a couple of days now.

I guess I can't complain about losing 9900 points to save over $1500!

 

[La Mouette]

After the speeches/awards, they got their entertainment in – which consisted of good old Daryl Braithwaite doing some songs. This went down really well.

He must be on the Qantas payroll - he was the entertainment at the Sydney event a year or so ago!

 

[ALH]

He must be on the Qantas payroll - he was the entertainment at the Sydney event a year or so ago!

He was also singing at the lounge prior to us departing for the Longreach Charity flight.