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Qantas will offer flight discounts, more Classic Reward availability and other bonus benefits to its frequent flyers in an attempt to apologise for the “recent operational challenges” that have seen many flights delayed or cancelled and bags go missing. All Qantas Frequent Flyer members will also receive a further 12-month status extension.
Qantas says it will reach out directly to its millions of frequent flyers with a formal apology email on Monday, but the details were first sent to Australia’s media outlets on Sunday afternoon.
The “mea culpa” follows a scathing Chanticleer column in the Australian Financial Review last Friday, as well as a barrage of criticism from Qantas customers and many other media outlets (including AFF). It also comes ahead of the airline’s Preliminary Final results announcement to shareholders next Thursday.
In a 90-second video released as part of this announcement, Qantas CEO Alan Joyce admitted that his airline’s return to flying “hasn’t all gone smoothly”.
“Over the past few months, too many of you have had flights delayed, flights cancelled or bags misplaced. There are good reasons why, but when it comes to what you expect from Qantas, it’s not good enough. On behalf of the national carrier I want to apologise, and assure you that we’re working hard to get back to our best,” Joyce said in the video released by Qantas.
To address these issues, Joyce said that Qantas had hired 1,500 more people since April, adjusted its schedules (a.k.a. cancelled flights in advance) to have more crew in reserve, and invested in new technology at airports.
“Throughout this time, our customers have been very understanding. So as well as saying sorry, we also want to say thank you,” Joyce said.
You can watch the Qantas apology video below:
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Frequent flyers promised status extensions and other gifts
As an apology to frequent flyers for the airline’s poor performance, Qantas will offer several ways of saying “thank you” for sticking with the embattled airline. Here’s a full list of what’s being offered to whom…
Status extensions
Qantas is now giving all Silver, Gold, Platinum and Platinum One frequent flyers a further 12-month status extension.
Qantas was already offering easy status extensions until the end of 2022 to many frequent flyers who book a new Qantas flight, as part of the Status Support it has been rolling out since the start of the pandemic. The Status Support page on the Qantas website has now been updated that the requirement to book a flight no longer applies.
All Qantas Frequent Flyer members with a membership year ending between now and June 2023 will now automatically have their status extended at the end of their current membership year, regardless of the number of status credits earned or flights booked.
Frequent flyers who’ve already qualified for status by flying will not receive an additional extension. However, all members with membership years ending until June 2023 will now be eligible to rollover a certain amount of status credits into their following membership year.
Qantas Lounge invitations
Qantas will provide Silver and Gold members with one additional complimentary Qantas lounge invitation which can be used for themselves or gifted to another Qantas Frequent Flyer member. Silver members will receive an invitation to a domestic Qantas Club or Qantas-operated international Business Lounge, while Gold members will receive an invitation to visit a Qantas domestic Business Lounge.
If these passes are subject to the same restrictions that usually apply to the use of complimentary lounge invitations, they will only be redeemable at selected Qantas-operated lounges and not during school holidays or other peak periods.
Flight discount offer
All Qantas Frequent Flyer members based in Australia and New Zealand will be eligible to receive a promo code that can be used for $50 off a return Qantas flight. The promo code needs to be accepted in the latest version of the Qantas App by 30 September 2022.
It can then be used towards any Qantas-operated return flight for new bookings made until 30 November 2022, and travel up to 30 June 2023. The discount can only be used when booking directly with Qantas, not through a travel agent, and can’t be used in conjunction with a flight credit or towards the taxes on a Classic Flight Reward booking. Full terms & conditions are available on the Qantas website.
Coincidentally, Qantas just increased the airfares on its two cheapest Economy fare classes last week, and will raise fares on the third-cheapest fare class tomorrow.
Bonus Qantas points for Platinum & Platinum One members
Qantas Platinum and Platinum One members will receive a one-off bonus of between 15,000-30,000 Qantas points. While Qantas hasn’t publicly explained why some members are receiving more points than others, it seems that you’ll get 15,000 points if your membership year ends between January and June, or 30,000 Qantas points if your membership year ends from July to December. (You’ll need to accept the offer in the email sent to you by Qantas to receive these points.)
Classic Reward availability extension
This is perhaps one of the most promising commitments because Qantas Classic Reward availability for international travel in 2023 is currently extremely limited, as we wrote about earlier this week.
Qantas says that will extend its offering of “up to 50% more Classic Reward seat availability”, which was due to end on 31 December 2022, until 30 June 2023. Qantas says that the “first tranche of additional seats” will be released from 12pm (AEST) on Monday 22 August, and will include more reward seats across international and domestic flights.
What do AFF members make of this announcement?
The improvements to Qantas’ operational reliability will be welcome news for travellers. The increase in reward seats will also go some way towards addressing the current dearth of Qantas award availability that is driving Qantas Frequent Flyer members to other programs like Singapore Airlines KrisFlyer, which routinely offers up to four (or sometimes even six) Business Class award seats per flight on popular routes like Sydney-Singapore or Melbourne-London.
But this is just a temporary solution to a much greater problem.
Ignoring the fact that there’s no way to verify whether Qantas actually increases award availability by 50%, and on routes that people actually want to redeem their points to fly, the extra seats are only for another six months. There will still be almost no Qantas reward seats available to Europe or North America beyond July 2023, and Qantas Frequent Flyer members still can’t access most Qatar Airways award seats after they vanished from the Qantas website more than two weeks ago.
The latest announcement also fails to address the serious customer service issues faced by Qantas Frequent Flyer members on a daily basis. Many Classic Flight Reward bookings aren’t being ticketed correctly, leading to seats being lost, and many frequent flyers can’t even access competent assistance through the airline’s call centre. One AFF member recently resorted to emailing Qantas Chief Customer Officer Stephanie Tully 300 times just to get an issue with their Classic Flight Reward booking fixed.
Many frequent flyers will welcome the bonus benefits including status extensions. But this post sums up the mood on the Australian Frequent Flyer forum quite well:
I don’t want anything just fix the bloody problems!
– Saab34
What do you make of this? Join the discussion on the Australian Frequent Flyer forum: Qantas apologises to frequent flyers with status extensions, lounge passes, points & more reward seats
