Qantas. You've got to be kidding!

[Sprucegoose]

How have you achieved WP with QF without knowing their ridiculous fees and taxes on award bookings?!?

That wouldn't be hard ask, just keep flying on paid fares. I and a lot of others do this.

 

[AndyGoodyear]

With some current credit card offering sign-on bonuses of 20-30K QFF or VFF points just for a $100-$300 annual application fee most people would consider the $807 cash difference much more significant than the inconvenience and the application fee for a credit card.

Even if you just end up getting the points and then cutting up the card like a lot of people do.

You are making an assumption that the OP has earned their points through signing up to credit card bonuses and also mentioned in a previous post that it is hard to earn that many points through $ spend alone.

I have easily accumulated 170,000 QFF points and 100,000 VFF points in just twelve months without any credit card bonuses or any other such deal - only flying in Y, plus hotel bookings and car hire - mostly for business but an international Y trip for a holiday as well. Not as hard as it sounds.

The point that I and others are making here is that yes - the VA flight is only 13,000 points extra and less $. But, I had to take a lot more flights to earn the 100,000 VFF flights than I did to earn 170,000 QFF points. You cannot compare the points in the two programs - they are completely different.

 

[JohnK]

It is hard to believe the fuel surcharges have increased so much with Qantas.

 

[Febs]

Wow, haven't booked an award seat (at least not a direct award seat) in a while. That's incredible. Just tried dummy dates for a Y classic award SYD-LAX-SYD - plenty of availability, but $873 in taxes/charges. :shock:

Has anyone booked a OneWorld Explorer lately (140/280k RTW fares)? How are taxes on those these days? I've booked 3-4 in the past and from memory the taxes were between $800 and $1,100.

Cheers,
- Febs.

 

[Mal]

Wow. Has it really increased to that much? What a horrible scheme Qantas is becoming.

 

[MH_fan]

I booked a SYD-JFK-SYD JASA recently and the taxes/surcharge was just a little over $1200!!

 

[medhead]

With some current credit card offering sign-on bonuses of 20-30K QFF or VFF points just for a $100-$300 annual application fee most people would consider the $807 cash difference much more significant than the inconvenience and the application fee for a credit card.

Even if you just end up getting the points and then cutting up the card like a lot of people do.

Unlike for QFF, there are not that many VFF bonus points offers and there are not that many VFF credit cards. It would be very hard to earn a significant number of bonus point with VFF IMO

 

[serfty]

Unlike for QFF, there are not that many VFF bonus points offers and there are not that many VFF credit cards. It would be very hard to earn a significant number of bonus point with VFF IMO

IME it's quite easy to garner Velocity points - Amex/Citi transfers, Lumo energy, Virgin Mobile, Foxtel.

I have managed 120K velocity in the last three months.

Moreover, availability on routes such as the OP is far greater. Also, upgrades from flexi can be confirmed on request rather than delve into the intricacies of upgrade packing orders.

 

[infinity]

Just my opinion - but in the case of the OP where they were comparing approx 200K point redemptions on either QF or VA then I would suggest that for most people - those 200K QFF points or Velocity points would not all be earned in the air. To acumulate that many points you would expect that most people would have acumulated 200K QFF or Velocity points through a considerable Credit Card spend - say anywhere from 20-80% of those points would have come via Mastercard/Amex/Visa and other associated frequent flyer scheme retail partners. A massive simplification I know - but with a conservative/lousy 1:1 or say 1:1.25 $/point earned its quite an effort at spending on a credit card.

I think the OP's point is that after a considerable effort like this - that QF is expecting customers to cough up an extra $943 versus VA asking for an extra $136 to redeem thier respective points to fly to LA.

That is quite a difference, an 400% difference - if you would like to think of that as saying that QF think their J class is 400% better than VA J class.

Thank you Affer's for your input.

To help understand where I am coming from;

I earn 95% of my points from Amex transactions and move these to the required airline programs. So it takes the same $ spend to make a QF point as a VA point. hence I view them as currencies with the same value. BUT, every year VA comes out with at least a 15% bonus uplift when moving poiints from your c/c to their program, so infact I see the VA points as cheaper to get than QF because they give an extra 15% for free!
So allowing for the 15% discount (free VA points), then effectively the flight costs me 174335 VA points based upon my c/c spending, whereas QF its 192,000 points.

I see the products as the same, I have used QF and VA a lot on this route in J for VA or J/F for QF.

So its a simple choice for me to buy the same product for the VA price or a massively more expensive QF price!

Easy decision

PS I dont do the sign up strategy to get my points, just the spending

 

[infinity]

I also just wanted to say that VA points availability of teh SYD/MEL/BNE LAX route is way more than QF. I have no status with VA yet have vastlky more choice in my travelling experience in getting seats than QF. I am glasd I am QP (acheived with FASA/JASAs) and can at least ask them to release seats!