Re: QF Upgrade Success Rate
My partner and I have applied for Y+ to J upgrade for QF9 MEL-LHR and QF10 LHR-MEL for November. We're Silver - just wondering if the AFF brains trust considers it worthwhile chasing Gold status to increase our chances of success?? I'm currently on 345 status points with June 30 anniversary date...
The Gold status would get you into the international business lounge whether or not you get the upgrade to J and into the Qantas Club (economy) lounge on domestic flights. If you have Qantas Club this would be paused till you fall back from Gold as Gold has all the benefits of Qantas Club plus more. Gold would also get you more frequent flyer points on your flights to/from London (note these will be earned at the rate specified for your Y+ fare when you booked it + the applicable bonus for the status tier).
Having Gold status would put you ahead of Silver status travellers for the upgrade but the difference may be marginal (e.g. worst case it's possible you would have been the first to get an upgrade as silver, but only jump to the last to get an upgrade as Gold - you don't know) and even with Gold status you may still not get the upgrade if higher status travellers grab any spare J seats with their own upgrade requests. It certainly can't hurt your chances though. We can only really speculate as to what difference it would make as QANTAS only provides very limited information as to how they determine who gets an upgrade. Travelling solo I think helps your upgrade chances so travelling as a couple you might be some way down the order for Silver getting an upgrade though that could be off-set a bit by your purchase of Y+ fares rather than the cheapest Y fares that allow an upgrade.
Gold status will last till the end of your following membership year i.e. June 30 2017 unless you earn enough SCs to retain Gold, get a one-off comp at QANTAS's discretion (not going to happen next year as you would be below the 3 year average to retain Gold) or get enough SCs to move to a higher status.
If you expect to fly a fair bit next year (especially if enough to retain the Gold status) it could be worth getting whether or not it helps much with the chances of getting the upgrade.
If you have ExpertFlyer access you may wish to check how full the flights are, but between now and then a number of J seats could be sold.
As for getting the remaining 355 credits to get Gold that could cost you a bit. If you can get yourself to the US (especially if you have a work trip there) and do a run there that might be the most affordable way to do a run but you'd want to book soon.
Also keep an eye on your inbox to see if you get a 50% SC bonus offer for QANTAS flights.
Whether it's worth doing a status run is up to you. When you are that far off I wouldn't do it just to improve upgrade chances, but when you consider the other benefits you get from it as well you need to way up the cost vs the benefit.
You could get lounge access for a lot less than doing a status run and if you get upgraded in time you'll get into the lounge anyway. Also as silver you should have a voucher each you can use to get into the lounge in Australia when flying internationally if you haven't already used it.
