Worth the upgrade?

[Tortuga]

I am taking my partner from Argentina to Melbourne and I have a connecting flight out of Sydney to Melbourne on QF 489, at 20:30 in the evening - quoted as a 737-400. These flights are all booked in economy, we have a 2 hour layover, which may mean only 1 hour after dealing with customs etc in Sydney and I want to know if anyone thinks it is worth upgrading the flight from Sydney>Melbourne to get lounge access? Qantas is quoting 18,000 points for both of us, and I understand it is not guaranteed I will get it. Interested to hear from the experts what you would do in my situation. I don't have any status either. The main reason I was thinking about it is because I will be stuck in a middle seat in Y due to the 3-3 config, unless the plane is empty. At the moment I only have 80,000 points, however I don't see them being used anytime soon but who knows ! Thanks

 

[tuapekastar]

I doubt it is worth the upgrade but it is a personal thing obviously. 2 hours is not a long transit depending on time of day, queues etc. so you may not find yourself having to wait very long at SYD at all (and may not have time to visit the lounge anyway). And while I detest middle seats, ~1 hour is not a long time to be stuck in one.

Having said that, if you have the points, and they are not going to be used elsewhere then why not? I probably haven't helped at all.

BTW, flying purely domestically, you can (or certainly used to be able to) tell prior to requesting whether you can get the upgrade, and secure it. Not sure how that fits with a domestic leg connecting from an international leg on the same PNR though.

 

[TonyHancock]

BTW, flying purely domestically, you can (or certainly used to be able to) tell prior to requesting whether you can get the upgrade, and secure it. Not sure how that fits with a domestic leg connecting from an international leg on the same PNR though.

Definitely works the same way.

 

[mannej]

I would say not worth it on a 737-400

 

[Tortuga]

Thanks for all the replies, seems like it is not really worth it. My other flight is at 6:45am MEL>SYD on a 767-300/300ER , I wonder if that is a better option?

 

[serfty]

Really for such a short flight a 734 would not deter me. The seats are Ok.

It's the lounge access I would see the value in but not for only an hours or so.

As for the early am flight, I'd give that a miss as you'd need to get to a bed overnight.

Are the flights all on the one booking?

 

[Tortuga]

Really for such a short flight a 734 would not deter me. The seats are Ok.

It's the lounge access I would see the value in but not for only an hours or so.

As for the early am flight, I'd give that a miss as you'd need to get to a bed overnight.

Are the flights all on the one booking?

Hi serfty, yes all the flights are on one booking. I'm kind of regretting not getting an upgradeable Y fare for my EZE>SYD return flights, unfortunately though it was going to set me back over $6000 total if I wanted a Y fare bucket which could be upgraded with points.

 

[serfty]

At least by booking the last flight to MEL, of your flight into SYD is late and you miss the connection, QF would put you up.

Posted on a wing & a prayer

 

[ozbeachbabe]

I am taking my partner from Argentina to Melbourne and I have a connecting flight out of Sydney to Melbourne on QF 489, at 20:30 in the evening - quoted as a 737-400. These flights are all booked in economy, we have a 2 hour layover, which may mean only 1 hour after dealing with customs etc in Sydney and I want to know if anyone thinks it is worth upgrading the flight from Sydney>Melbourne to get lounge access?

Qantas is quoting 18,000 points for both of us, and I understand it is not guaranteed I will get it. Interested to hear from the experts what you would do in my situation. I don't have any status either. The main reason I was thinking about it is because I will be stuck in a middle seat in Y due to the 3-3 config, unless the plane is empty. At the moment I only have 80,000 points, however I don't see them being used anytime soon but who knows ! Thanks

Personally I would save my points for a JASA fare within Australia eg 24,000 points for an ADL/xBNE/TSV or a TSV/xBNE/DRW plus approx AUD120.00 pp each way.

Don't underestimate what 80,000 points can get you. Once you get back from Argentina have a look at the points you have accrued & how much you would need to get a couple of return JASA's each ie 96,000 points.

You can purchase up to 20,000 ff points pp per year with QF which costs AUD557.50 each. You could both do this then after doing that your other half can do a one-off family transfer each year to your ff account so they could transfer their existing points plus the 20K they just purchased across to you.

I would not spend thousands (or even hundreds for that matter) of extra dollars for a higher airfare just to get a chance to upgrade to PE or J. You might be able to upgrade but if it doesn't come through you can't get that money back. Not sure if you have status with QF which allows you to allocate seats free of charge but if you don't why not get the best economy seat you can & spend the $20 pp each way for the SYD/EZE vv flights & select one of the pairs of two seats towards the back eg 70AB. This can be done immediately the booking is made, don't leave it to the last minute.

Another alternative would be to or splash out on an exit row seat $180.00 pp each way eg 58BC. Note that they don't charge for the window seat in the exit due the the interior of the exit door (containing life raft) encroaching on the leg space of the window seat so if you allocated 58AB you would only need to pay $180.00 each way for 58B.

 

[Tortuga]

Personally I would save my points for a JASA fare within Australia eg 24,000 points for an ADL/xBNE/TSV or a TSV/xBNE/DRW plus approx AUD120.00 pp each way.

Don't underestimate what 80,000 points can get you. Once you get back from Argentina have a look at the points you have accrued & how much you would need to get a couple of return JASA's each ie 96,000 points.

You can purchase up to 20,000 ff points pp per year with QF which costs AUD557.50 each. You could both do this then after doing that your other half can do a one-off family transfer each year to your ff account so they could transfer their existing points plus the 20K they just purchased across to you.

I would not spend thousands (or even hundreds for that matter) of extra dollars for a higher airfare just to get a chance to upgrade to PE or J. You might be able to upgrade but if it doesn't come through you can't get that money back. Not sure if you have status with QF which allows you to allocate seats free of charge but if you don't why not get the best economy seat you can & spend the $20 pp each way for the SYD/EZE vv flights & select one of the pairs of two seats towards the back eg 70AB. This can be done immediately the booking is made, don't leave it to the last minute.

Another alternative would be to or splash out on an exit row seat $180.00 pp each way eg 58BC. Note that they don't charge for the window seat in the exit due the the interior of the exit door (containing life raft) encroaching on the leg space of the window seat so if you allocated 58AB you would only need to pay $180.00 each way for 58B.

Thanks a lot for the info, very much appreciated. I did end up paying the $20 to select each of our seats, unfortunately for me the flight map EZE>SYD was showing row 69 as the first of the 2 pair seats, instead of 70 so I selected them to be as far away from the toilet as possible. Yesterday I logged into my account to check if any better seats opened up and it looks like the config has changed so now row 70 is the first of the pairs, and row 69 has the 3 seats.. Quite annoying, so I ended up having to go for row 72 instead... It is still showing row 69 as a 2 seat pair on the return journey.

 

[oldbold]

I'd take the QF487 at 20:00 which (at least on the random day I chose) is a 763, and book two seats in a window/aisle pair. You won't need an upgrade, and would not have much time to enjoy the lounge what with re-checking bags at the far end of the International Terminal and bussing round to Domestics.