Qantas v United FF program

[pagan]

OK, second post on this website and another gripe about Qantas....

Can someone tell me where Qantas get off charging 72,000 points for a one way international (LAX - MEL) upgrade? This is a blatant ripoff as far as I can tell.

Lets see.... United I can spend 15,000 and get the same upgrade (ff econ to business) plus from friends I know who are United members upgrades are generally very easy to obtain.

Can someone please tell me what I am missing here?

Seems to me it's yet another fine example of truly outstanding ripoff by the flying Kangaroo.

Cheers

Pagan

 

[Dave Noble]

They charge it because they can. United is primarily competing against other US schemes such as AA. You can often get free business tickets using AA miles for less than the number of points to upgrade using QF miles

QF only competitor in AU is DJ and their scheme is also poor

Also consider :which of QF and UA is making a profit and which has huge losses

Dave

 

[bfmi]

Exactly. Have a couple of FF programs and use them to your advantage. I score at least 6 system wide upgrades on UA each year. But this just means an "upsize" to the next class - not really an upgrade, the aisle just gets wider!!

Different airlines and different schemes. You choose who you fly.

 

[NM]

Can someone please tell me what I am missing here?

The other point you missed is that the 72,000 point QF upgrade is only waitlisted and not confirmed until the day of travel, while most other FF programs that offer miles/points for upgrades awards will provide confirmation at the time of request if available and waitlisting if not available at that time and confirmation is generally provided several days in advance.

 

[bravoecho1]

The other issue to take into account is the difference between business class on QF and business class on UA.

Having travelled on both, I wouldn't say that J on UA is equivalent to J on QF, but whether QF is almost 5 times better than UA on a points cost is up to you to decide.