A very long run comes to an end...

[TomVexille]

Interesting that they rebooked you on VA. They must be confident that VA J will not match QF J on the same route.

Or they didn't have any available J seats at a comparable time and did the right thing by the customer

 

[N860CR]

One of the best times of my travelling career was when I lost QF WP. Now I fly with whichever airline suits me best for a specific route. It's great to not be tied down. I do miss the F Lounge... but the J lounges provided by the other airlines have generally been fine.

 

[Flying mermaid]

Or they didn't have any available J seats at a comparable time and did the right thing by the customer

and so they should - QF domestic J is quite pricey and they should look after customers.

 

[kermatu]

QF domestic J is quite pricey

Understatement of the year!

 

[Pleb Status]

Does QF send out membership cards anymore?

Twenty days have now past since my demotion with no valid QFF card (of any colour) in my possession.

I may need it next week as I may be flying on a partner airline...

 

[jamesatfish]

And again, same boat here. No new card as yet.

Have flown 3 QF flights this week (ironically more than in the last 3 months prior to my demotion) and the old card still works fine as a boarding pass, though the dragon at the QP in Sydney pulled me up for it being expired and wouldn’t let me in without checking my details on the system.

 

[Pleb Status]

And again, same boat here. No new card as yet.

Have flown 3 QF flights this week (ironically more than in the last 3 months prior to my demotion) and the old card still works fine as a boarding pass, though the dragon at the QP in Sydney pulled me up for it being expired and wouldn’t let me in without checking my details on the system.

I will not take it personally then.

 

[kermatu]

Yet I just received a totally unnecessary new P1 card.

Old card valid for 11 more months. But a new design warranted a new card.

Such a waste.

 

[Flying mermaid]

My membership year finished 31 August and it was early October before the new cards arrived. Mr FM and I dropped from WP to Gold (LTG for me). I just printed boarding passes and used them, rather than using the card. Interestingly for two trips I stayed Platinum on the boarding pass. Mr FM showed as Gold. I thought maybe because I booked them while Platinum and I was the booking person. Haven’t booked anymore but I am assuming that when I do it will show Gold. My account showed Gold from about 3 days after the end of the membership year, it was just the bookings that stayed Platinum. Weird.

 

[Pleb Status]

Called QF this afternoon. No record of any card being sent, 21 days into my new year. An email has now been sent so someone else can order a new card and I may receive it in 10 to 15 business days. Quality service...

 

[JB expat]

It's a shemozzle as the benefits are ordinary and it's just a fallback option for most on AFF.

I really don't undedstand the rush to achieve Lifetime Gold and then credit to other carriers. Why not just credit to other carriers? What's so great about Lifetime Gold?

I like the matching OW sapphire (I think) that aligns with Gold as I travel to the US a lot and then do personal domestic flights where it is really handy. Plus the check in lines and the supposedly higher WL for upgrade with points seats.

Edited to add - and the luggage allowance - esp for US carriers where it is not part of same ticket

 

[dairyfloss]

Hmmm... it's sounding like customer service takes a pretty major dive in the fall to LTG... and that's enough for me to keep retaining WP, at this point! Perhaps the reaction to calls for LTP can be enhanced with an interim and other milestone goals for QF Loyalty to incent us with:

7,000 SCs - Lifetime Silver
14,000 SCs - Lifetime Gold
28,000 SCs - Lifetime Decent Call Centre access
35,000 SCs - Lifetime Platinum
70,000 SCs - Lifetime Platinum One / (a) Lifetime Wasted on QF

Cheers,
Matt.

 

[clarksnow1]

After almost 11 years of continuous QF WP (or higher) status and over 24000+ SC earned during that time, in a few hours I will drop back to LTG.

A lot has changed over that time and WP is now just a hollow shell of what it was previously. This does make leaving WP behind a lot easier however.

The highlight of being WP (compared to LTG) is undoubtedly OW F lounge access. This will be the only thing I will genuinely miss moving forward and something that OW does better than the other major alliances. I suppose the positive side of dropping back to LTG/OWS is there is now a whole new set of lounges I have never been to in SYD, MEL, HKG, DXB, LAX, LHR T5 etc.

The biggest lowlight of those 11 years is undoubtedly my two and half years being P1. This period irrevocably destroyed my relationship with QF to a point where I could not even obtain my 4 QF/JQ ~ sectors over the past qualifying year.

I have prepared for tomorrow over the past two and half years by weaning myself off my previous 'QSheep' ways and it has now been about seven months since I have set foot onto any QF aircraft. This is a big change from when a period of two weeks would have been a long time between QF flights.

Moving forward, as someone who pays for their own flights and is based in Perth, other airlines and alliances currently provide a far better 'value for money' experience (and are just better in some cases regardless of cost). Since January 2015, I have saved over $25,000+ by not flying QF and their partners, including ~$1000 saved this month alone.

With over 1M+ QFF points still to burn, I will still fly QF and their partners once and while on J/F award flights when convenient/available. Also, if major adverse changes were to occur to the status quo between QF and the competition, regaining WP is only six months away (three months with a fake status promotion)...

 

[clarksnow1]

Agree with Pleb Status. Actually amazed it has taken Pleb Status so long to make the change. Living in Perth and doing up to 28 overseas trips per annum, I felt it tough when I achieved 4000 Status points in one year with One World partner flights and didn’t achieve Platinum one with Qantas. Qantas explained that I didn’t fly the minimum number of flights on Qantas aircraft.

Bit hard to fly Qantas metal in Perth when they had no international departures from Perth. Interestingly Qantas said I should fly Perth to Melbourne and then to Hong Kong to achieve the status credits. I said why would I do a 12 to 15 hr journey to Hong Kong on Qantas when I can do a cheaper <8hr journey “direct flight” on Cathay Pacific? Qantas did change some of the qualifications for status credits for Perth based customers, but it was not retrospective and it was too late for me. Also note that I would only do one domestic flight a year.

I save at least $15k per annum flying other airlines from Perth and like Pleb Status find Qantas expensive most of the time and also self fund all my travel.

Re lifetime Platinum Status, Qantas needs to implement this. I for one would fly more with Qantas if this were the case, Qantas do have nice first class lounges in Sydney and LA, although the Spa is always booked out in Sydney, hence its popularity.

Well done Pleb Status, there are other airlines that are just as good as Qantas, especially in terms of service. Some flights in Qantas are particularly bad with surly, grumpy and moody flight teams.

 

[DTM1]

I know how the OP feels. I have had WP status for 12 years, and had WP1 status for 3 consecutive years. The WP1 status was nice, but underwhelming for the commitment.

I still like the WP benefits and aim for WP each year (although they have also been diluted and I particularly miss the ability to choose the front row on domestic flights at time of booking).

However, the minute I reach WP, I move my overseas flights elsewhere - either CX or SQ. CX honours my status and typically offers better prices and convenience. SQ (even in economy) is often a better option than QF (even with only silver *A status).

 

[nowmedia]

I was plat for three years inc one year comped due to averaging. Easily made gold this year and rang the call centre to see if they would offer me a double status credits challenge for my last last month as an incentive to reach plat again. After 5 mins of checking with a 'manager' I was told 'oh no we don't do that any more'. Pity. QF missed out on AUD2.5k of revenue in status runs.

For me the SYD F lounge was priceless. Pretty well guaranteed front row of cattle on dom flights was the other main benefit of plat for me as 99% of my travel is dom cattle ex SYD.

 

[NSWP]

These days Qantas is JUST an airline, plenty better out there. We fly Cathay Pacific Business Class now to Europe/UK. Superior service and I like HK for stopovers, if we need to. I am still a QFF member linked to ANZ Platinum credit card for the points.

Domestically I fly with Qantas/Virgin as fly out of Canberra for interstate, plus use our points.

 

[bobw]

After almost 11 years of continuous QF WP (or higher) status and over 24000+ SC earned during that time, in a few hours I will drop back to LTG.

A lot has changed over that time and WP is now just a hollow shell of what it was previously. This does make leaving WP behind a lot easier however.

The highlight of being WP (compared to LTG) is undoubtedly OW F lounge access. This will be the only thing I will genuinely miss moving forward and something that OW does better than the other major alliances. I suppose the positive side of dropping back to LTG/OWS is there is now a whole new set of lounges I have never been to in SYD, MEL, HKG, DXB, LAX, LHR T5 etc.

The biggest lowlight of those 11 years is undoubtedly my two and half years being P1. This period irrevocably destroyed my relationship with QF to a point where I could not even obtain my 4 QF/JQ ~ sectors over the past qualifying year.

I have prepared for tomorrow over the past two and half years by weaning myself off my previous 'QSheep' ways and it has now been about seven months since I have set foot onto any QF aircraft. This is a big change from when a period of two weeks would have been a long time between QF flights.

Moving forward, as someone who pays for their own flights and is based in Perth, other airlines and alliances currently provide a far better 'value for money' experience (and are just better in some cases regardless of cost). Since January 2015, I have saved over $25,000+ by not flying QF and their partners, including ~$1000 saved this month alone.

With over 1M+ QFF points still to burn, I will still fly QF and their partners once and while on J/F award flights when convenient/available. Also, if major adverse changes were to occur to the status quo between QF and the competition, regaining WP is only six months away (three months with a fake status promotion)...

My wife and I are also self-funding and take 3-4 overseas holidays pa always in business class. We tend to use oneworld member airlines all the time. Our last three trips have been with Finair or Cathay and our next is booked with JAL. We still accrue lots of QFF points.

After trying unsuccessfully to redeem some points on a business class short holiday to Singapore in any of the next 12 months, we decided to use our points for accommodation. In September we had a great hotel in Amsterdam, and we've booked a hotel in Sapporo for the Snow Festival next Feb.

So our decision is to continue collecting points, but use them for hotels. We collected our 4 QF/JQ sectors on JQ with a couple of local short holidays. But on reflection I don't see a need to collect these sectors in future. I am a QC life member.

 

[Flying mermaid]

We broke up with Qantas 2 years ago. We went through the usual breakup and reconciliation turmoil, with Qantas even sending flowers at one point . We plan to fly whatever makes sense according to the route, although Singapore and Emirates are now at the top of the list. We pay for F, so really all the Platinum frills mean very little, We flew Qantas because we loved them and Platinum came as a by product. I still love the Qantas staff, but First class is just not value for money on Qantas whereas I feel it is on the others.

We still fly Qantas domestically and use points for domestic and the kids. Mr FM will actually get to LTG soon, so we will have 2 LTG in the family and the three kids are LTS and two are LTQP. It was a long history of flying with Qantas, but all relationships come to an end

 

[Albert_Thurgood]

I came a bit late to this thread (having just received the alert from AFF News in my email this morning).

Agree with the OP and I am in a similar position - over 1.2 million FF points, WP status for over 10 years, SC equivalent of 2 LTG.

People in the eastern states don't realise how badly Qantas has treated WA. For some time we had no international flights from Perth. Even now the only Qantas international flight out of Perth is to Singapore. If you want to book a flight to another destination on the Q website, they "helpfully" suggest you fly via Snydey, at a cost of extra thousands of dollars. Pretty dumb if you want to go to China in the same time zone as us but have to fly thousands of km east first!

I brought this up with Q years ago but nothing has changed.

Also years ago I posted that there was no incentive to fly international with Q once you qualify for WP each year and have LTG. So haven't done so, except for flights to US.