QANTAS Status Challenges

[Mr Bill]

After being inactive for over 20 years, I recently reactivated my QF FF Bronze membership with a return business class trip DPS/BNE. I was subsequently upgraded to Silver status. After reading an article re Qantas Status Challenges in a "back issue" of AFF (18 Nov 2018), I decided to see if QF would recognize my QR Privilege Club Gold membership, particularly as I am about to relocate back to Australia. I emailed QF on 16 Oct 2019 (identifying info removed) with supporting QR documentation. I received an auto response advising me that "A member of our team will personally attend to your Email." To date I have yet to receive any other response from QF despite two requests for an update/progress report (identifying info removed of 5 Nov and identifying info removed of 19 Nov). Is this normal QF practice, did I fall through the cracks or was the 18 Nov article really written on 1 April ?

 

[samh004]

I think your best bet would be to give them a call, as their email response times can often be awful.

That said, a key sticking point will be that Qatar is not technically a competing airline (they are part of the same loyalty alliance: oneworld) and this often puts a spanner in the works when looking for a status match/challenge.

 

[harvyk]

QR gold makes you OW Sapphire, thus you'll get the lounge and baggage as if you were a QF gold.

Link the flights to your QF account, and then flash the QR card (I'm assuming there is one) at lounges. That said it doesn't sound like it'll be too long before you're QF gold anyway. Worst case, link the flights to QR to get the on ground privileges and the back to QF just before boarding to get QF sc's.

 

[Mr Bill]

Thanks for your informative replies. My main point was to highlight the lack of communication from QF. Notwithstanding that I am still overseas, the last time I was in in BNE I tried three times to call QF on their 131313 number to correct a booking problem. Each time a recorded message advised me that my call had been placed in a queue and waiting time was estimated to be two plus hours. The situation was finally resolved with an online chat. Having no interaction with QF for 23 years, I admit to my ignorance on QF matters. Silly me even though there was a QF office in BNE CBD!!

 

[Tropic]

It's seems from the experience of many, me included, that QF response time to answer phone calls and respond to email enquiries has gone down the gurgler over the past 3 months, and if you do manage to get through, invariably you end up having to educate the consultant on QF's own business rules and processes...reason for decline not clear.