Why I am now flying QANTAS

[extracta]

I have not flown with QF for over 20 years and did not think that I would ever fly QF as there prices were not competitive. I book my international airfares a long way out and I had booked two flights during a sale last year and yesterday booked two flights in the current sale. The two flights I booked yestereday I would have booked with another carrier a couple of weeks ago but because I was given Qantas Club as a Xmas present I was hanging out and hoping QF would have a sale.

My reasons for now booking QF in priority order are:

1. Ability to pick up reasonably priced airfares. Doesn't need to be the cheapest but at least competitive.

2. Ability to pay extra and choose a better seat. I like this enhancement a lot.

3. Qantas Club Membership. I feel trapped by the Qantas Club Membership and will only renew if I can book flights next year and 1 and 2 above are satisfied.

4. QFF program. Not that important to me but it is nice to pick up points that will be able to be used at some stage.

I know a lot of people that fly internationally regularly and none of them have been using QF. In fact when airfares had been discussed QF was always laughed off as being way too expensive.

I rang a couple of them yesterday and they were very surprised at the prices. Undoubtedly there will be some more bookings for QF there.

 

[MH_fan]

I have not flown with QF for over 20 years and did not think that I would ever fly QF as there prices were not competitive. I book my international airfares a long way out and I had booked two flights during a sale last year and yesterday booked two flights in the current sale. The two flights I booked yestereday I would have booked with another carrier a couple of weeks ago but because I was given Qantas Club as a Xmas present I was hanging out and hoping QF would have a sale.

My reasons for now booking QF in priority order are:

1. Ability to pick up reasonably priced airfares. Doesn't need to be the cheapest but at least competitive.

2. Ability to pay extra and choose a better seat. I like this enhancement a lot.

3. Qantas Club Membership. I feel trapped by the Qantas Club Membership and will only renew if I can book flights next year and 1 and 2 above are satisfied.

4. QFF program. Not that important to me but it is nice to pick up points that will be able to be used at some stage.

I know a lot of people that fly internationally regularly and none of them have been using QF. In fact when airfares had been discussed QF was always laughed off as being way too expensive.

I rang a couple of them yesterday and they were very surprised at the prices. Undoubtedly there will be some more bookings for QF there.

I fly internationally a lot and I never take QF because they are far too expensive, even in Y. I do agree with you though that their recent sales have been much more competitvely priced. For example, $800 to BKK is a really good price. I don't think I've ever seen QF offer such prices previously.

 

[pshepvic]

The 2-for-1 sale in Business last year was brilliant. We got J from MEL-LAX return for under $5.5k each. Upgraded to F on the A380 on the way home and that effectively meant we got a $10-15k F seat for $2750 + 45k points. I'd say that's pretty competitive.


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[oz74]

The 2-for-1 sale in Business last year was brilliant. We got J from MEL-LAX return for under $5.5k each. Upgraded to F on the A380 on the way home and that effectively meant we got a $10-15k F seat for $2750 + 45k points. I'd say that's pretty competitive.


Sent from my iPhone using AustFreqFly app

That is an awsome deal IMO. Hope thay do it again.

 

[pshepvic]

So do I. I'm booking seats on points for the end of this year, but if it comes up again I'll forfeit the 10k cancel fee and book the 2-for-1 again.

It was pretty good to Europe too - was around $6500 per person.


Sent from my iPhone using AustFreqFly app

 

[MH_fan]

The 2-for-1 sale in Business last year was brilliant. We got J from MEL-LAX return for under $5.5k each. Upgraded to F on the A380 on the way home and that effectively meant we got a $10-15k F seat for $2750 + 45k points. I'd say that's pretty competitive.


Sent from my iPhone using AustFreqFly app

That's brilliant!

 

[Alanslegal]

The 2-for-1 sale in Business last year was brilliant. We got J from MEL-LAX return for under $5.5k each. Upgraded to F on the A380 on the way home and that effectively meant we got a $10-15k F seat for $2750 + 45k points. I'd say that's pretty competitive.

And I paid less than $2,500 pp (and so have many) to go to Europe in confirmed First Class, but that's another story.

QF may be competitive when on sale or during a promotion but when they are not, they can be very uncompetitive. I have a similar experience with the OP's where all my friends, mostly leisure travellers, have not flown QF in a long time and its probably comes down to a cost thing. This isn't good news especially when it appears statistically that more and more people are flying other carriers.

 

[VHOEJ]

QF may be competitive when on sale or during a promotion but when they are not, they can be very uncompetitive.

But that is the problem. The airline loses a lot of money with the sale fares - they only way to make that up is to have the fares when they are not on sale at price where they aren't losing any more money.

And people wonder why the international business is struggling

 

[horseman]

Main thing for me is the fee for excess luggage domestically, 20 odd buck for my 23kg toolkit is a damn site better than virgins 15 buck per kg or whatever it is, out of my home airport they are really the only options.

 

[straitman]

Main thing for me is the fee for excess luggage domestically, 20 odd buck for my 23kg toolkit is a damn site better than virgins 15 buck per kg or whatever it is, out of my home airport they are really the only options.

Get some status with DJ and you get an 69KG allowance :!:

 

[horseman]

Get some status with DJ and you get an 69KG allowance :!:

True, however get to gold with QF and theres no more having to pay the 20 beans anymore
if I have to fly with DJ then I get a PE ticket for the extra luggage, works out cheaper then paying excess on a standard Y fare

 

[extracta]

But that is the problem. The airline loses a lot of money with the sale fares - they only way to make that up is to have the fares when they are not on sale at price where they aren't losing any more money.

And people wonder why the international business is struggling

I have given them about $5K over the last few months for flights and QP.

If they had not had the sales that money would have gone elsewhere, probably SQ.

The international business is struggling because QF fares were way over the top and most Australians chose to use other carriers instead of being ripped off.

IMHO Most people would prefer to fly their national carrier. In the past when I have been looking for flights the QF price was generally more than twice the price I could get on another carrier. I don't mind paying a bit more to fly QF but I don't want to be taken to the cleaners.

 

[addyoni]

How about that they're Australian? Buy & support local.

Aussie flight attendants! OK usually, some are Kiwi, but close enough! And how cool is the Kiwi accent?! Aksint. I love it! Sweet as bro! After the Irish my face accent is Kiwi.

OK, OK, they've offshored maintenance to Asians in Malaysia, and they're ****ty is just about all areas of pricing, but you get what you pay for, saving 10 or 20% of $2k per flight might appear a good deal, but at the expense of Qantas losing your revenue and it's finances getting shaky and having to do silly stunts like extra fees and scraping back on basics and extras. If you want to bankrupt out national airline g'head, but don't complain when we don't have one and Singapore & Emirates take full advantage of it.

Comparing our high wages to cheap Asian ones aren't fair. Plus those Asian airlines only hire gals of a certain age and fire them as soon as they turn 27. So I'll take my money to companies that generally care about their workers and don't have silly rules that are discriminatory. The laws in Asia are so different too, they're usually overworked. So young, naive, less experienced, tired Asian workers can get nasty and snippy too, I've seen it.

At least when Aussies get snippy they still have a dry sense of humor about it and do it with class.

 

[JohnK]

In my experience QF has been competitive at certain times over the last few years. They are actually not that bad when purchasing airfares from overseas either.

And as I posted in the other thread this deal to BKK is almost to good to be true.

BNE-(SYD)-BKK-xSYD-BNE for $799, overnight stopover in SYD, almost guaranteed a bulkhead, much better flight times (get into BKK at 18:50 and depart at 9:00pm), First class lounge in SYD, 20,376 QFF points and 80 SCs.

Brilliant!

 

[oz_mark]

In my experience QF has been competitive at certain times over the last few years. They are actually not that bad when purchasing airfares from overseas either.

And as I posted in the other thread this deal to BKK is almost to good to be true.

BNE-(SYD)-BKK-xSYD-BNE for $799, overnight stopover in SYD, almost guaranteed a bulkhead, much better flight times (get into BKK at 18:50 and depart at 9:00pm), First class lounge in SYD, 20,376 QFF points and 100 SCs.

It's a good price, but wouldn't it yield 80SC?

 

[JohnK]

It's a good price, but wouldn't it yield 80SC?

Let's see. That would be 10 SC's + 30 Sc's + 30 SC's + 10 SC's = 80 SC's.

Yes you are right it is 80 SCs. Don't know how I got 100!

 

[fly by wire]

And I paid less than $2,500 pp (and so have many) to go to Europe in confirmed First Class, but that's another story.

I'm interested in this story..

 

[simongr]

Given the high yields on intl routes it is something other than price that is killing QF.

 

[codash1099]

Given the high yields on intl routes it is something other than price that is killing QF.

and we all know what that something is: poor decision making.

 

[Alanslegal]

I'm interested in this story..

Here's a tip; go to the Airline Frequent Flyer Program thread and you will find it, its normally the first few topics on top