Velocity changes: Changes to status credits

[Misha]

Ok I'm now revealed as a old fart.

don't be silly....

... that was revealed ages ago


23 hours is waaaay too long without a smoko!

 

[connieguy]

don't be silly....

... that was revealed ages ago


23 hours is waaaay too long without a smoko!

You must be kidding? On Connies their pilots, crews and passengers smoked big time. You came off that flight and all your clothes needed to be dry cleaned to get out the smoke smell!!! But back then no one complained.

Back then you could spend a few hours in the coughpit, sitting on the jump seat as long as you could talk flying, sports, sex, etc with the pilots to keep them from getting bored. I did that many times and was the Goofer to get them coffee. S**t now the memories are flowing back. Back then flying in the pointy end of the plane was good. Really good. Now you just get food first and get to immigration first. cough what have we done to ourselves? Killed the joy of flying? Yup. cough.

I really do miss flying on the IP / Jump seat on Connies and 707s, talking to the pilots and the enjoying the views out the coughpit windows. If I tried to do that today I would be restricted in hand cuffs and thrown in jail.

My son, who is now the senior Orion RAAF pilot, had a BOAC Junior Jet Club book which was totally full. When ever we gave the book to the steward for the pilot to sign, the pilot always came to see my son, remarking on that he had never seen such a full JJC book and invited him to do the coughpit IP seat deal. No wonder he joined the RAAF and became a pilot.

Today all that is gone. cough what have we done to the joy and adventure of flying? Turned it into a noisy and long taxi ride? Give me the world of the Connies and the 707's anytime.

 

[Misha]

You must be kidding? On Connies their pilots, crews and passengers smoked big time. You came off that flight and all your clothes needed to be dry cleaned to get out the smoke smell!!! But back then no one complained.

Back then you could spend a few hours in the coughpit, sitting on the jump seat as long as you could talk flying, sports, sex, etc with the pilots to keep them from getting bored. I did that many times and was the Goofer to get them coffee. S**t now the memories are flowing back. Back then flying in the pointy end of the plane was good. Really good. Now you just get food first and get to immigration first. cough what have we done to ourselves? Killed the joy of flying? Yup. cough.

I miss flying on the IP / Jump seat and the views out the coughpit windows.

ahh too true. i used to smoke on airlines (even during toe 2000s! bless Europe!) and i remember the old coughpit view (i used to be petrified during landing).

i used to fly on staff (standby) fares in europe (ex-partner was airline employee) and say in jump seat. worst ever (due to time frame) was Madrid - Toronto!!!

I was for years fearful of flying Olympic Airways till I got on and saw the FA (with the most beautiful moustache I had ever seen - of course we argued most of the flight as to whether he had shaved before starting work that morning :mrgreen: ) walking down the aisle checking seat belts with a ciggie hanging out of his mouth. I swear on a bible - when I sat down the opposite aisle had a woman in one seat and her dog on the next!

Loved it!

 

[connieguy]

ahh too true. i used to smoke on airlines (even during toe 2000s! bless Europe!) and i remember the old coughpit view (i used to be petrified during landing).

i used to fly on staff (standby) fares in europe (ex-partner was airline employee) and say in jump seat. worst ever (due to time frame) was Madrid - Toronto!!!

I was for years fearful of flying Olympic Airways till I got on and saw the FA (with the most beautiful moustache I had ever seen - of course we argued most of the flight as to whether he had shaved before starting work that morning :mrgreen: ) walking down the aisle checking seat belts with a ciggie hanging out of his mouth. I swear on a bible - when I sat down the opposite aisle had a woman in one seat and her dog on the next!

Loved it!

Yup. Give me 5. SLAP. Now are you ready for another Red as that world is gone forever?

Christ, now I know why I drink so much Red on flights. Can't handle where flying has gone and is going.

BTW I HATE CX J Coffin / angled seats. All you see is the feet of the pax across from you. I can get similar in a tube bed hotel in Tokyo for a LOT less than I pay to CK for flying me in J from point A to B.

Believe it or not but the QF F Lounge gives me back the joy of flying. Hey DJ reps. Hint. Bring back the joy, romance and excitement of flying.

 

[Misha]

i'm well ahead of you on the 'another red' front.

i haven't flown cx since i went to rome a few years back and they had those seats that 'slide' down - non-reclining - now that was horrible. okay for 5 foot tall hong kong folk - but i struggled HKG-ROM - never again. that's when i first went to Y+ & J international - and have not flown them since...

shame shame

more wine!

everyone!

*pop*

 

[alien]

Hi All,

Anyone know what the Status earn rate would be from Sydney to Honolulu with Hawaiian Air???? I've looked at the miles and it would be classed as Zone 4 but that is a guess as there is no mention of Hawaiian Air earn rates that I could find.

Cheers

 

[oz_mark]

I don't believe you earn status credits on Hawaiian.

 

[Misha]

from looking at the velocity website it appears you'd earn 5066 points (on economy ticketing) but no SCs - shame - I thought they did. I have friends flying Hawaiian soon purley for Velocity perks... d'oh!

still - 10,000 points return by the looks of things (based on GCMaps) is still better than a slap in the face?...

 

[NM]

"The L-1649A holds the record for the longest-duration, non-stop passenger flight, during TWA's inaugural London-to-San Francisco flight on October 1–2, 1957, the aircraft stayed aloft for 23 hours and 19 minutes (about 5,350 mi/8,610 km at 229.4 mph/369.2 km/h)"

Yes you read that right, 23 hours and 19 minutes in the air between Sfo/Lhr. Oh my aching BUTT.

Butt they could only manage that duration when the engines were new. It was not too long into their operational life that the endurance was limited by oil consumption of the R-3350 engines rather than fuel consumption.

 

[connieguy]

Butt they could only manage that duration when the engines were new. It was not too long into their operational life that the endurance was limited by oil consumption of the R-3350 engines rather than fuel consumption.

But nice when the pilots "tuned" / synced the 4 engine revs and prop pitch to give the cabin a nice soothing Humm / Buzz to put you to sleep. I seem to remember New York to Dublin to Rome and return.

Super Connie coughpit and pax seats:

http://www.rbogash.com/connie_interior.html

 

[NM]

But nice when the pilots "tuned" / synced the 4 engine revs and prop pitch to give the cabin a nice soothing Humm / Buzz to put you to sleep. I seem to remember New York to Dublin to Rome and return.

Super Connie coughpit and pax seats:

CF-TGE Connie Interior

As much as I love reminiscing about aviation history, given that its most unlikely that any Velocity partner airlines will operate L-1049 / Super Connie, perhaps we need to allow this thread to get back on topic.

 

[Deleted member 29185]

From what I see, for how I fly, QF and their partners are far ahead of DJ in the A$ cost of retaining Gold on the 2 FFer programs. YMMV.

May I ask (genuninely.....I'm not intentionally swiping at you ), why does it matter if QF is cheaper than DJ or vice versa if you have no trouble retaining Gold (or silver, or platinum). You mentioned many times that you fly a lot so are you concerned for when you don't fly as much?

 

[connieguy]

May I ask (genuninely.....I'm not intentionally swiping at you ), why does it matter if QF is cheaper than DJ or vice versa if you have no trouble retaining Gold (or silver, or platinum). You mentioned many times that you fly a lot so are you concerned for when you don't fly as much?

My budget does not extend to buying Y+ or J seats, I mostly fly in -Y exit rows as it is my buck and I see those seats as the best value for the $. Doing that and starting to fly DJ gives me no status, no Lounge, no quick check-in, and maybe no chance to get an exit row seat, etc until I gain Gold. I was going to invest in doing the Mel/Bne/Ntl SC runs to quickly gain Gold, but that plan is now dead. My 2nd choice was to use the PP Card to give me Lounge access, but that plan is also now dead. 3rd choice was to buy Lounge passes at A$30 until end July and then A$60 but those passes do not work internationally and so offer me little value.

I did try to talk the Ms into doing 2 SC runs to Apia with a week in the sun for each trip but at A$6k per trip (A$12k to get DJ Gold) plus expenses (say A$2k) than was outside our holiday budget and there was no way I was flying to Samoa (twice) without her and spending A$4k. BTW she is happy being QF Partner Gold and sees me wishing to do DJ Gold as putting her QF PG renewal in jeopardy, which it probably will do.

So now it appears the only way to get DJ Gold is to place all my Adl/Mel and Adl/Syd connecting -Y flights to my international long hauls with DJ. That is a long road to DJ Gold, at 20 DJ SCs per return flight or 25 such flights to earn DJ Gold and no baggage interlining and thus it will probably not happen.

So until I can find a way to fly to Lax, Bkk and around the states at a lower $/SC earn that with Air Pacific, Jet* and AA it looks like I'm stuck with QF and the 20 or so visits to the QF F Lounge every year.

Bottom line is the initial DJ offering looked interesting but now that the devil in the details is openly on the table, DJ do have a bit of work to do before then can expect QF WPs and Golds to alter who they spend their flight money with.

 

[serfty]

..
The idea is that they'd change the SC earning table to exclude F SC on flights shorter than a set distance, which would exclude all but a few of the AA fares. ...

Believe it or not, this WAS a feature of one or more pre 2005 iteration(s) of the QFF SC/TC earning tables.:shock:

 

[Deleted member 29185]

My budget does not extend to buying Y+ or J seats, I mostly fly in -Y exit rows as it is my buck and I see those seats as the best value for the $.

As a fellow self-funding business traveller , I understand your logic entirely with that one, which is why I could never attain even QF silver and until recently had only a slim chance to pass DJ silver.

DJ do have a bit of work to do before then can expect QF WPs and Golds to alter who they spend their flight money with.

Well, to be fair, you did say you were atypical of a FFer. Perhaps other QF WPs and Golds won't have to work so hard due to a penchant for spending the companies money on J.

 

[samh004]

Why would do AA / QF do that? To make DJ's FFer program more competitive to that from AA / QF and to lose revenue? Please DJ's offer is not that good now that they have retracted their SC earn offer back to their original, canned PP Card Lounge access and are not competitive.

Just remember AA offers their EXP FFers unlimited F upgrades on all domestic flights and 8 system wide J upgrades. You think AA will remove those so DJ be able to compete?

Please DJ are so far down the worldwide FFer program pecking scale that AA probable will probable never see them.

You keep comparing a domestic Australian program (Virgin Australia's) to a domestic US program (AA's), as if they're competing and really care about the other?

AA wouldn't be changing anything about their YUP's and QF wouldn't be losing customers if they changed how YUP's earned SC, as anyone using YUP's to get cheap status isn't loyal to QF.

It's like comparing apples and ... flamingos. No where near even close.

 

[sydstar]

Am I correct in reading that DL does not accrue SCs? Anyone know why? If I was choosing US domestic flights and had choices between QF points and SCs on AA or DJ points on DL I know what the choice would be!!

 

[connieguy]

You keep comparing a domestic Australian program (Virgin Australia's) to a domestic US program (AA's), as if they're competing and really care about the other?

AA wouldn't be changing anything about their YUP's and QF wouldn't be losing customers if they changed how YUP's earned SC, as anyone using YUP's to get cheap status isn't loyal to QF.

It's like comparing apples and ... flamingos. No where near even close.

I was comparing, in a world wide sense, what being a QF WP brings to my table as compared to being a DJ Gold.

As for QF FFers using YUP fares to gain QF SCs, well welcome to the real world. AA has to BUY those QF SCs from Qantas. So QF does make money from AA YUP Status Runs. QF does require it's FFers to do at least 4 sectors per year on their metal, so it is not possible to get any QF status tier from flying totally on non QF OW metal.

 

[jsd]

Doing that and starting to fly DJ gives me no status, no Lounge, no quick check-in, and maybe no chance to get an exit row seat, etc until I gain Gold.

Answer me this, why should Virgin Australia give you the status up-front? I'll put a sizeable amount of money on it that Qantas didn't give you WP status up-front did they?

If you want it, you have to earn it the hard way (I.E. the same way everyone else has to)

 

[777]

Am I correct in reading that DL does not accrue SCs? Anyone know why? If I was choosing US domestic flights and had choices between QF points and SCs on AA or DJ points on DL I know what the choice would be!!

You are correct that they don't although the full VA/DL deal only got final regulatory approval a few weeks ago - so watch this space on that one.

However, if you have a choice between flying AA and VX (which does earn VA SC's) i reckon you'd be mad to pick AA if the price and schedule is even vaguely comparable! Unfortunately the VX network is limited but the offering is excellent - probably the best domestic airline i've flown aywhere.