Qantas Platinum One experiences?

[aus_flyer]

To all the newly-minted Platinum One frequent flyers out there... I'm curious to hear... what's been your experience so far?

Anything different?

Free upgrades?

... or all hype?

 

[zachary.august]

I am CL and one of my close friends in P1. We both flew the same route with each other to see what services are on offer for us. He recieved exit row seating in Economy despite business being empty whilst I recieved an op-up. Also, upon landing an escort (I know it sounds naughty) was ready to take me to my next flight. He did not recieve one. However, his bags did arrive at our final destination before mine.

 

[impartiality]

To all the newly-minted Platinum One frequent flyers out there... I'm curious to hear... what's been your experience so far?

Anything different?

Free upgrades?

... or all hype?

Recently titled platinum one, with a lower-class friend who is _only_ platinum status cool. Decided we wanted to do east coast of America later this year - rang the "special service squad (team)" and received exceptional service. Managed to score business class tickets the entire way over and back flying A380 sexiness (for Syd-LAX and LAX-Syd legs), for both myself and friend (we both had enough Classic Award points to do it in theory - but the qantas website method hardly returned anything except economy seating on *really* bad dates). That was the other point too - I was able to pick the exact dates that were best for us. There is no way the website would give you this unless you possibly tried 353 days early.

Very happy with this outcome - 256,000 points burned (each), but is there a better outcome for a holiday plan to the US? My friend also has a slightly different travel schedule coming home and they were happy to accommodate this because of my platinum one status, and still put him in business too.

Seems to be worth it in this regard. Mind you, this is a once-off for me as I will probably lose the status this year - but wow, it got me a great trip for a little in over $500 in tax charges.

 

[awilcockson]

Very happy with this outcome - 256,000 points burned (each), but is there a better outcome for a holiday plan to the US?

Well a JASA for same cost would have been even better

 

[Oneworldplus2]

I am CL and one of my close friends in P1. We both flew the same route with each other to see what services are on offer for us. He recieved exit row seating in Economy despite business being empty whilst I recieved an op-up. Also, upon landing an escort (I know it sounds naughty) was ready to take me to my next flight. He did not recieve one. However, his bags did arrive at our final destination before mine.

Can l ask what sector that was?
Long haul, short haul, domestic, Int?
Did you purchase Red eDeals/Flexi and how far in advance were bookings made?

If a WP1 can't secure a op-up with a empty J Class cabin, what chances does a vanilla WP or SG have? (...little...)

 

[JohnK]

If a WP1 can't secure a op-up with a empty J Class cabin, what chances does a vanilla WP or SG have? (...little...)

You should know the answer to that question already.

In my experience in 2011 I had 3 op-ups on QF out of 70 flights or ~4%. Not good at all but by the same token I do not expect to get any.

 

[Oneworldplus2]

You should know the answer to that question already.

QF inconsistency is their consistency???

 

[Pleb Status]

Can l ask what sector that was?
Long haul, short haul, domestic, Int?
Did you purchase Red eDeals/Flexi and how far in advance were bookings made?

If a WP1 can't secure a op-up with a empty J Class cabin, what chances does a vanilla WP or SG have? (...little...)

In my experience, it is not how full the J cabin is, it is how full the Y cabin is.

In 2011, I did not do too bad with regards to op-up's (at about a 12% strike rate, all domestic unfortunately).

In all but one case (which happened to be my birthday), Y was full and space was still available in J when checking the flight availability the day before/on the day of departure on qantas.com.

QF will not op-up a WP (and looks like WP1 also) unless they need the space in Y.

 

[Oneworldplus2]

In my experience, it is not how full the J cabin is, it is how full the Y cabin is.

QF will not op-up a WP (and looks like WP1 also) unless they need the space in Y.

I thought that QF might make WP1 more like CL in regards to op-up's and not take a 'how full Y is to op-up to J' approach. Seems l am wrong. And from some CL reports, even they don't get automatic op-up's either.

 

[amaroo]

In my experience, it is not how full the J cabin is, it is how full the Y cabin is.

In 2011, I did not do too bad with regards to op-up's (at about a 12% strike rate, all domestic unfortunately).

In all but one case (which happened to be my birthday), Y was full and space was still available in J when checking the flight availability the day before/on the day of departure on qantas.com.

QF will not op-up a WP (and looks like WP1 also) unless they need the space in Y.

Agree totally with your comments.

My wife & I jagged an op-up into J BNE-LAX back in April.....I got another one for the return sector but the cheese & kisses missed out. Did the right thing and offered to my wife, she rejected - so I did the same.

The bloke sitting behind us in the lounge was very happy when he got paged a few minutes later

All three up-op's were due to whY being chock-a-block.

 

[Canny man]

Agree totally with your comments.

My wife & I jagged an op-up into J BNE-LAX back in April.....I got another one for the return sector but the cheese & kisses missed out. Did the right thing and offered to my wife, she rejected - so I did the same.

The bloke sitting behind us in the lounge was very happy when he got paged a few minutes later

All three up-op's were due to whY being chock-a-block.

True love indeed.

Did you consider a half time swap? Last time we had a class divide we agreed to toss a coin to decide who got the first half and who got second. Then it transpired that the adjacent J set was free and the cabin crew were happy to to an on-flight upgrade. Champagne all round! Wasn't QF though.

 

[zachary.august]

Can l ask what sector that was?
Long haul, short haul, domestic, Int?
Did you purchase Red eDeals/Flexi and how far in advance were bookings made?

If a WP1 can't secure a op-up with a empty J Class cabin, what chances does a vanilla WP or SG have? (...little...)

It was domestic Sydney-Brisbane-Sydney at 1PM on a Saturday

 

[richie9x]

Does platinum one get a better choice of seat selection? For example on a 737 domestic flight, online a platinum before T-80 can only select seats up to row 6. While I believe CL can select up to row 4. Could a P1 confirm, are P1s able to select from row 4 or 5 before T-80?

 

[trippin_the_rift]

Does platinum one get a better choice of seat selection? For example on a 737 domestic flight, online a platinum before T-80 can only select seats up to row 6. While I believe CL can select up to row 4. Could a P1 confirm, are P1s able to select from row 4 or 5 before T-80?

yes p1 can select any Y seat

 

[amaroo]

True love indeed.

Did you consider a half time swap? Last time we had a class divide we agreed to toss a coin to decide who got the first half and who got second. Then it transpired that the adjacent J set was free and the cabin crew were happy to to an on-flight upgrade. Champagne all round! Wasn't QF though.

We were traveling PE & have never tried it before. Never been a big fan on the non-flat J QF bed so thought bugger it I'll stay where I am. Now if it was a truly flat bed?

PE was really good, IMO.

 

[JohnK]

I know this thread is only young but from the posts so far it would appear the Platinum One experience to be totally underwhelming.

Releasing a couple of award seats and being able to pre-select row 4-5 or row 23-24. If you do 3600 SCs a year there won't be many times you cannot get the first 2 rows and how often would you need award availability opened up?

 

[AirKat]

Yes it all seems underwhelming... it is tough to decide whether to take an SC run to make it.

Or perhaps it isn't tough and that's the problem.

 

[Oneworldplus2]

I know this thread is only young but from the posts so far it would appear the Platinum One experience to be totally underwhelming.

Releasing a couple of award seats and being able to pre-select row 4-5 or row 23-24. If you do 3600 SCs a year there won't be many times you cannot get the first 2 rows and how often would you need award availability opened up?

I agree JohnK. WP1 seems like a fizzer (not that l'm even going to achieve it in my lifetime).

In order to get WP1, you'd be doing a fair bit of flying in J or F to make the required SC's.
What puzzles me - on the odd occasion that a WP1 has to sit in Y, they get a exit row even if J is wide open (from the example in this thread). Looks like AA Executive Platinums get taken care of better (by their own airline), than QF does to it's top achievable tier :shock:

 

[N860CR]

I've always been able to have award seats released as just a lowly WP. Is this now a special WP1 benefit?

 

[JohnK]

Looks like AA Executive Platinums get taken care of better (by their own airline), than QF does to it's top achievable tier :shock:

And that is not likely to happen at QF either. Not saying that we need to have op-ups thrown around left right and centre but for someone like me to have a 4% op-up success ratio on70 flights is extremely poor. And I know there are others with worse success ratios.

I have lost count of the number of times I have flown where the business class has almost been empty.And yes QF should leave it empty just to maintain the integrity of an empty business class cabin....