Status run - waste of money [if work pays for J travel]?

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FL360

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Hi fellow FFers,

Just want to see if you concur.... that personal status "top-up" run, just to achieve / keep a status for future benefits especially for Y travel is a waste of money, I believe for most of us

1. work pays for J travel, in this case all the benefits such as lounge access / priority bags / additional bag allowance / seat selection are already there.

however my point is if you need to achieve / keep a status using personal money so you can travel Y better later, that is not worth it, for example if you spend 1,500 - 2,000 to achieve / keep a status so you can have lounge access / seating preferences when flying Y personally, the same can be done via paying for lounges and buying better Y seats.

1,500 to 2,000 can be a lot of paid lounge access / paid exit row seats.....

what I have experienced is that even as a WP / OWE, the lounges worldwide can be disappointing even for OWE, and the seating in Y is not always guaranteed !
however cash can buy you these....

I have tried the OWE lounge in LHR T5 and the *A Gold lounge in SIN, they are terrible...
 
If your work is flying you in business and you can't get platinum, then you're not flying enough to worry about needing status.

Personally, I track and manage annual earning to make sure I hit certain levels with programs. That might mean paying for flexi fares when non-fleixble would do, or even business when the increase marginal cost isn't great compared to economy. Flights I need to take, but paying more than I need to pay.

This is highly beneficial when we have 3 with status and are able to invite good friends into a lounge, who have never ever been in a lounge before, while waiting out a 5 hour delay.
 
This is highly beneficial when we have 3 with status and are able to invite good friends into a lounge, who have never ever been in a lounge before, while waiting out a 5 hour delay.
Agree on this point. I have had the opportunity to take my mates into a lounge for the very first time in their lives and they were happy :)
 
Do you mean the BA First Class lounge in T5? There is no oneworld lounge in LHR.

If so, looks like you're at the "beyond lounges" stage and thus beyond all help.... Even their J lounge is pretty good (much better than SYD T1 J IMHO).
Glad you pointed that out - I too was a bit confused... the BA F lounge is pretty amazing...
 
I too keep track of my travel expenses v SC earn.... it's a bit rainman of me, but I've been doing this at least 10 years and I have DEFINITELY seen a continual drop in spend to maintain WP. This is of course in part due to the DSC promos which I "feel" are more common the past few years (sorry, I am not rainman enough to add them on to my spreadsheet!)

I have never taken a flight I don't "need", but I do choose more expensive fares sometimes if the SC yield is better.

As many people have pointed out, it is difficult to get all your SCs from flying domestic in AU because we are just a joke of country with a duopoly and a fat Government that doesn't care (I'm looking at you AJ and ScoMo) and you end up paying a fortune. To think that if you fly EVERY week SYD-MEL rtn (that's 104 flights) in discount economy you still cannot attain WP.... yet there is certainly no doubt you are a frequent flyer!!!

My personal strategy to retain WP has been:

Whenever I fly to NZ always fly EK codeshare in F (sadly no longer an option)
Whenever I fly domestic US always fly AA F (translates to J in SC but is always worth it)
Whenever I fly domestic Japan always fly JL F (really worth it)
50% of my AU domestic flights are on JQ with a "Max bundle" which give you full Y SCs

Last year I was able to maintain WP with only about $8k spend..... which I spend anyway. So its more about the "value" of the spend I suppose.
 
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Thanks for your input,

I did some J runs to NZ, and frankly it is a bit boring.

May be nowadays the lounge can be crowded easily and seat request cannot be fulfilled easily for me give me this thinking... Save the $ and use money to buy good seats and lounge entry.....
 
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I’m a long term SG (14 years?) and always end up with around 700-800 SC’s so chasing WP is pointless. If I was in a position where I would loose this benefit due to reduced flying I would do a status run worth ~$600-900 if that got me back on track just because paying for QP membership would cost similar $$ (and is practically worthless beyond a few lounges). Plus the benefits of SG for priority check in, bigger chance for points upgrades and access to all OW lounges is worth it for me! Thankfully I haven’t had to consider this option for a long while.
 
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I’m a long term SG (14 years?) and always end up with around 700-800 SC’s so chasing WP is pointless. If I was in a position where I would loose this benefit due to reduced flying I would do a status run worth ~$600-900 if that got me back on track just because paying for QP membership would cost similar $$ (and is practically worthless beyond a few lounges). Plus the benefits of SG for priority check in, bigger chance for points upgrades and access to all OW lounges is worth it for me! Thankfully I haven’t had to consider this option for a long while.

I was in a very similar position a few years ago. My travel has increased slightly where I can get WP fairly easily (but with not much to spare).

After one year of platinum, and requalifying, I'm now within 2000 SCs of LTG - so now starting to value that more than retaining WP. I've always been afraid QF would increase the threshold, so I don't want to delay too much to earn it. It's only a matter of time.
 
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First, the golden age of mileage and airline status programs is over. My UA MP Million Miler status reached in 1999 is now worth very little in terms of tangible benefits. Second, in Sweden there is already a great deal of pressure on people to reduce how much they fly and this is likely to spread as the environmental costs of air travel become more widely discussed and criticized.
 
i did my first 'status run' this year to get some sectors to keep VA gold which my wife & i turned into a weekend on the goldcoast to catch up with some friends, i'm not sure i could stomach flying "there & back" just to collect the points though.
FWIW, my status came a few years ago thanks to a lot of domestic work travel (predominantly MEL-ADL or MEL-BNE) and it was always booked as discount economy, never business, so having status made my day job a hell of a lot more bearable given i was doing about 60 flights a year for 3 years.

my wife & i both love it for our personal travel too, we're doing 1 or 2 overseas vacations a year at the moment and really enjoy the benefits at check-in (i swear we saved an entire day when we went to the US a few years back due to being able to check in via the business queue!) so it's worth it to us to ensure we keep at least gold status.

I'd agree that if you're constantly flying J then you don't need to keep status as you get all the useful perks anyway, but for those of us confined to the dark depths of saver fares, that little bit of gold plastic means a hell of a lot!
 
Hi FL360, some of the things you have missed mentioning and the only reason why I do a few trips to retain status...

Disruption Management, Additional Baggage (and better leniency), business class / first class check in line (saving time in busy airports), generally more patient aircrew (check in), priority screening / immigration where offered..

I remember flying back from India with wife on SQ as VA WP. Now in India you needed to have your boarding passes stamped when you cross security and this would be verified before you board. Now we managed to drop this pass somwhere between security and boarding. Did not have much time to think, so went the the lounge who initially shrugged us off saying your fault, this is a lounge... and when I mentioned I am VA WP and need your help, the agent went back with us to security and got it all sorted.
 
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I did 3 Double SC J class runs to Christchurch last year. I stayed overnight but no longer as that was all the time I could afford. The first and second were to get WP status. The third to maintain it. I was traveling a lot for work (53 domestic flights in the year) and with the two DSC runs, it was pretty easy to get to WP. It meant that my wife and I could easily get J class points flights to and from Vancouver this year (admittedly with China Eastern, which was excellent by the way) ... I'm getting J and F flights to and from LAX in February next year. I reckon the increased availability of points booked flights for WPs was worth sitting on the plane for a few unnecessary hours (and burning a few of my own $). Just flying over the NZ alps was worth the price of admission. If there are no Double SC deals I doubt I will be able to maintain WP and won't bother as I'll reach LTG in the next year or so. With DSC I'll be prepared to waste a bit of money on Qantas. If not, there are plenty of other airlines out there that will take my money to fly up the front.
 
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It really depends what you want status for. Personally, Gold is fine as it gets me early access to classic award points bookings for long haul flights in J, and that's what is really valuable to me.

i have done domestic status runs to get me over the top for Gold, because that made perfect sense for my needs.
 
Joining the chorus of people who appreciate a status run. I did my first one earlier this year by going to Brisbane via CHC to tip me over to SG. This was to gain priority check-in, priority baggage and unlimited lounge access when going on a longer trip with my partner. And it sure was worthwhile.

The aim now is to maintain SG (the current travel supports that quite easily even without DSC's). If it happens that I come close to hopping to WP, a well-priced status run would be serious consideration, especially if there's another long trip in sight again. That's because all work trips are in the deepest and darkest discount Y fares and I'm yet to dish out own money for higher cabins on my own trips. Status (and potential run) brings at least a little uplift to the mix.

The only airport where I have thought the status does not make much difference has been Bromma (BMA, Sweden). A cute little port. Though, the best comfort so far has been provided by Kittilä (KTT, Finland). Their rocking chairs and fireplace in the public area rock and it was pretty hard to give up the spot to board that a noisy flying metal tube! That's pretty hard to match in the usual airport design. :cool:
 

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I think it depends on two things.
First what your goal is, and second what measures you are taking to acheive it.
Taking the second point first, I have never done a pure status run in the sense of a flight from A to B and return, purely for status credits, with no other activity.
However I have chosen to take holidays at specific times, or to fly to specific destinations, with status credits firmly in mind.
When VA flew to Bali, I used to structure a holiday in SE Asia to keep my status with both QF and VA.
For example I once flew PER-DPS return with VA, then took advantage of cheap MH J fares to fly DPS-KUL-HKT return, with a HKT-KUL-HKG return nested in the middle. But I did not only receive status credits. I had a great holiday spread between Bali, coughet and Hong Kong as well.
Unfortunately this sort of strategy for dual status has gone by the wayside since VA dropped PER-DPS flights.
This year I had flights booked to Nouméa shortly before my QF membership year end (today).
However I overlooked the fine print on a DSC offer which expired on 31 August 2019 and my plan to attain WP would have fallen just short as a result.
Realising this in August, I booked flights PER-SYD-CNS on a Friday returning PER-BNE-CNS Sunday which put me back on track.
But I also went on a day trip to the outer reef and did three (scuba) dives on Saturday, and caught up with a good friend for dinner Saturday night.
So, again, I feel I got a lot more out of the trip than just SCs.
Earlier this year I flew to Paris with a friend for whom J was not an option. Flew over on QF codeshares on EK metal to give him the cheapest fare on the day.
But returning on my own I flew CDG-LHR-SIN-PER to maximise status credits and use a double SC offer (again).
I don't know if the extra money I have spent is more or less than I could have spent on paid lounge access and seat selection.
However I do know there are other benefits such as extra baggage allowance, priority baggage handling, priority check in and priority security lanes, which you can't buy. If I am flying in J most of these benefits come with the cabin. But they were very useful on the trip to Paris in Y, for example.
I used my extra baggage allowance to check all our bags in under my name and we thereby received the benefit of priority baggage handling and were among the first PAX to retrieve our bags in Paris. More subjectively, I have always received superb treatment flying on OneWOrld flights as a WP. CX in particular have gone out of their way to welcome me onboard, even if I have been flying in Y (mandated by work for short flights such as HKG-PVG), with the CSM or equivalent coming to chat to me and on more than one occasion telling the cabin crew to keep me supplied with champagne from business class throughout the flight. I have to admit that my own airline, QF, does not accord me the same treatment. Which is one reason why I prefer CX for international flights - with access to the First Wing Lounge in HKG another! Not all these benefits can be bought!
Finally making an effort to keep status each year is part of my longer term strategy to acheive QFF lifetime WG before I retire. When I have no employer to pay for my flights, and I am on a fixed income and can't afford to fly business, it will be nice to have lifetime lounge access and other privileges.
So to answer your question, I agree that mindlessly chasing status at any expense is a fool's errand.
However if you have a sensible strategy based on a realistic understanding of status benefits, and a reasonably proportionate limit as to the amount of time and money you are prepared to spend, then I think retaining status can be worthwhile.
I understand OWE means One World Emerald, but waht does WP stand for?
 
I understand OWE means One World Emerald, but waht does WP stand for?

It's this forum's abbreviation for Platinum.

 
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Disappointed that I have got this far in an AFF thread deriding status runs (for any reason) and noone has yet posted “BURN THE HERETIC”* or similar. Admittedly QF has taken much of the fun out of the good old status runs like TSV-DRW via BNE, xx_-NAN via as many places as possible, JASAs and other such entertainments, but I look back fondly on such days. Many a dollar spent on such activities with obscure objectives that include enhanced dinner party cred, improved self-importance, and putting the wanker back into WP.

* The term “BURN THE HERETIC” is used for dramatic effect only, and this post does not endorse public immolation or any other adverse activity towards heretics, including flaming, shouting or any other ill-mannered commentary or poor form. Nor does it expressly or impliedly deride heresy as an activity.

Cheers skip
 
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