Article: A Brief History of Qantas Frequent Flyer

[AFF Editor]

A Brief History of Qantas Frequent Flyer is an article written by the AFF editorial team:

A Brief History of Qantas Frequent Flyer

Qantas Frequent Flyer began with just 50,000 members in 1987. It has since evolved significantly from its original model of only targeting business travellers.

www.australianfrequentflyer.com.au

You can leave a comment or discuss this topic below.

 

[Mr H]

Interesting to see that even in the 1990s, access to the highest level of telephone service was considered a major drawcard for gold tier members.

 

[jpp42]

Ah, so when they get complaints about how terrible the lower-tier phone service is, they can just claim this is a "Heritage" experience?

 

[SYD]

The paid lounge memberships also had a bit to do with handcuffing frequent flyers. QP membership was pretty close to SG today and included reciprocal lounge access with BA, AA and US (some others I’ve forgotten). The commencement of OW was the slippery slope for QP membership.

I never got to do one of those circle Oz redemptions. Never could convince SYD+1 at the time “the fun” it would be….

 

[Mr H]

I never got to do one of those circle Oz redemptions. Never could convince SYD+1 at the time “the fun” it would be….

It looks great, but I imagine the accommodation and even airport shuttles would start to add up - plus if you could only get points from flying, 37,500 would feel very precious.

 

[bashworth]

I've been a member for 25 years and though it is easier to collect points, through partners, its certainly harder to redeem them and the value has gone massively.

Back in 1998 my wife and I did take advantage of 2 tickets Melbourne-Alice Springs-Perth-Melbourne on the proceeds of one business class return to Europe.

I was horrified last week at the number of points needed for a business class ticket to London!

These days I just regard points as a 1% discount when using a credit card, and a 0.5% discount shopping at Woolies.

At the moment I do have gold status due to flying business on a long haul route with no competion.

Lounge access is nice for my couple of Australia trips a year which are in economy, but for my couple of long haul trips a year I pay business so get the lounge access anyway.

This means my loyalty to fly Qantas starts to evaporates if the additional cost of an international flight is $100-$200 more than the alternatives. (Often its more like $1000- $2000 more)

 

[SYD]

It looks great, but I imagine the accommodation and even airport shuttles would start to add up - plus if you could only get points from flying, 37,500 would feel very precious.

The ANZ/Telstra CC had kicked in by then plus AMEX MR used to let you convert to QF. Also, most of the major Hotel chains would award points direct to QFF before they all started requiring you to sign up to their own programs.

BTW, who remembers Telstra Telecard? Actually quite handy overseas before mobile roaming and you earn a handful points per use!

Post automatically merged: Apr 13, 2023

I was horrified last week at the number of points needed for a business class ticket to London!

Points for Classic Rewards to LHR haven’t changed for several years. The taxes and surcharges are variable of course .

 

[bashworth]

Points for Classic Rewards to LHR haven’t changed for several years. The taxes and surcharges are variable of course.

When you can get them. The only classic awards I could find booking 11 months in advance (With Gold Status) were through Tokyo taking 30 Hours. Everything else was well over 1,000,000 points.

 

[SYD]

When you can get them. The only classic awards I could find booking 11 months in advance (With Gold Status) were through Tokyo taking 30 Hours. Everything else was well over 1,000,000 points.

Yeah, the 1mil cough are “Any Seat Rewards”.

Agree, the availability of CR post Covid is dire and discussed a lot elsewhere here.

 

[Beano]

I'm afraid I am one of those with the "golden handcuffs". Living in NZ and doing a lot of flying around Australia in Y, meant using Qantas if I wanted lounge access as at the time I started there was very little alternative. (My company paid the QC membership). Since then I have achieved LTG and currently WP. There is little chance of achieving free lounge access with any other airline, no matter how good their deals are, so I stick with Qantas, or should I say I'm stuck with Qantas.

 

[Warks]

I joined in 1995 and have a very high six digit QFF number so the millionth member must have been around the end of that year.
I remember getting my Blue card and thinking I was climbing the ladder fast. First made Gold in 2000 after a RTW trip in J. Only made WP once and achieved LTS just at the end of my corporate life. With my own business I had to be a bit more judicious with spending so VA got my loyalty when they status matched my SG. Since then I've barely flown QF. Actually hardly flown much in the past few years like most but still earning QF points from my Qantas Woolworths Visa card. That all changes at the end of June when the QFF points dry up so will be looking to a new card.
I have plenty of QFF points but the high taxes and charges put me off using them when I could get a ticket on a cheap fare for about the same amount of money as the taxes/charges.

 

[ThePointyEnd]

A Brief History of Qantas Frequent Flyer is an article written by the AFF editorial team:

A Brief History of Qantas Frequent Flyer

Qantas Frequent Flyer began with just 50,000 members in 1987. It has since evolved significantly from its original model of only targeting business travellers.

www.australianfrequentflyer.com.au

You can leave a comment or discuss this topic below.

According to my card I have been a member since October 1986 - I have a 4 digit membership number now preceded by 3 zeros! Occasionally I am forced to use Qantas, such as when the booking system changes the SYD to PER leg of a Star Alliance flight from Virgin to Qantas for no known reason. Otherwise, sorry, but I prefer customer service....

 

[Ikara]

According to my card I have been a member since October 1986 - I have a 4 digit membership number now preceded by 3 zeros! Occasionally I am forced to use Qantas, such as when the booking system changes the SYD to PER leg of a Star Alliance flight from Virgin to Qantas for no known reason. Otherwise, sorry, but I prefer customer service....

My LTG card says I joined in January 1983. It was the TAA Flight Deck club in those days if I recall correctly. Also 4 digits preceded by 3 zeros.

 

[QF WP]

Right, off to the 3 drawer filing cabinet with my QFF (and Australian Airlines) folders in it to grab some of my old QFF documents and I'll post them.

 

[QF WP]

My LTG card says I joined in January 1983. It was the TAA Flight Deck club in those days if I recall correctly. Also 4 digits preceded by 3 zeros.

You must have been lucky to retain the Australian Airlines number, mine was 18044 and it morphed into my current QFF one (Feb 88) of 00566xx. Must go back and see what they said about merging the two membership bases.

 

[NM]

BTW, who remembers Telstra Telecard? Actually quite handy overseas before mobile roaming and you earn a handful points per use!

Yep, I used one of those a lot when traveling.

Also had a few other similar "cards" or services over the years. I worked for a very large global company that had their own branded calling card that worked similarly and which I never saw the bill (was operated by Sprint). it got a hammering for making international called from home to overseas colleagues, vendors, partners etc. The call rate was less than $1 per hour for most international calls, so we were just encouraged to use it. But of course I didn't receive any FF points for the usage.

More recently when I was employed by a global telco, I was issued a similar card, but I think I only ever used it once or twice before it was considered easier to just use your company-issued mobile phone. Then again, the calling rates were pretty good .

 

[SYD]

My LTG card says I joined in January 1983. It was the TAA Flight Deck club in those days if I recall correctly. Also 4 digits preceded by 3 zeros.

A close friend used to hold departure parties at the old SYD T3 FD lounge. There could be a dozen friends there! Obviously back when parking wasn’t the cost of your first born…

 

[ThePointyEnd]

My LTG card says I joined in January 1983. It was the TAA Flight Deck club in those days if I recall correctly. Also 4 digits preceded by 3 zeros.

Yes! TAA Flight Deck, forgotten all about that.

 

[NM]

Yes! TAA Flight Deck, forgotten all about that.

I still have some old Flight Deck lounge member's guest passes (the blue ones) in a drawer somewhere.

 

[SYD]

I still have some old Flight Deck lounge member's guest passes (the blue ones) in a drawer somewhere.

A few years ago I threw out wads of QP guest passes…