Anyone transferring/withdrawing qantas points?

[tomlee1986]

I have not much intention to do it yet.. but I feel secure with qantas at the moment

 

[jenib]

I am keeping mine for now. I have about 900K. I just received my new platinum card which expires at the end of August 2021.
My woollies everyday rewards and credit card keeps the points active (DON'T FORGET to keep your points active!).
I will review if the situation changes dramatically and also early next year as you also need to do four flights to keep your status. However, I am LTG so a drop from WP won't be too difficult and when things open up again it is not that difficult to requalify.

Also I just noticed that I got a status boost of 650 status credits as described on another thread

 

[ChrisMars]

All right, I have done the exercise of valuating my points. In the last few years, I had:

• 4 domestic awards
• 8 international long haul upgrades
• 3 flights points+pay
• 1 hotel points+pay

The interesting bit of the exercise is to put a value to each of those items, and that's very personal. Let's take a Y -> J upgrade on SYD->LHR. It would cost thousands of $$ of ticket value, but I wouldn't pay that much with my own pocket. I tried to put a dollar value, thinking how much I would have been happy to pay for the upgrade, and also, how much I would have accepted for the equivalent downgrade. Yes, those two numbers should be equal for a perfectly rational brain; it took me a few iterations to get those numbers to converge to the same value. I came up with 350AUD. I guess that's probably lower than most of the aff members

Anyway, I found out that my point valuation is between 0.30 cents and 1.1 cents, with an average at 0.54.
At least my hotel booking mentioned above was at 0.73 according to my own value (and would be higher according to the advertised price)
But ... woolies gift card is at 0.53

 

[Pom-DownUnder]

All right, I have done the exercise of valuating my points. In the last few years, I had:

• 4 domestic awards
• 8 international long haul upgrades
• 3 flights points+pay
• 1 hotel points+pay

The interesting bit of the exercise is to put a value to each of those items, and that's very personal. Let's take a Y -> J upgrade on SYD->LHR. It would cost thousands of $$ of ticket value, but I wouldn't pay that much with my own pocket. I tried to put a dollar value, thinking how much I would have been happy to pay for the upgrade, and also, how much I would have accepted for the equivalent downgrade. Yes, those two numbers should be equal for a perfectly rational brain; it took me a few iterations to get those numbers to converge to the same value. I came up with 350AUD. I guess that's probably lower than most of the aff members

Anyway, I found out that my point valuation is between 0.30 cents and 1.1 cents, with an average at 0.54.
At least my hotel booking mentioned above was at 0.73 according to my own value (and would be higher according to the advertised price)
But ... woolies gift card is at 0.53

heya mate,

just curious do you have really good status with Qantas? I kinda assume an upgrade just wont happen and always look to just do points + cash to get the seat in the class i want to end up in, are upgrades actually in the realms of possibility ?

 

[33kft]

just curious do you have really good status with Qantas? I kinda assume an upgrade just wont happen and always look to just do points + cash to get the seat in the class i want to end up in, are upgrades actually in the realms of possibility ?

Oh boy, I wouldn't do that. P+P is the worst value possible. It's effectively 0.68c per point when "cost of acquisition" for points is usually more than that - if you pay a 0.8% surcharge to pay with a points earning card you're paying 0.8c in the dollar which means you'd be losing 0.12c per point earned if used for P+P.

I keep a spreadsheet of all of my redemptions and I calculate them this way:

• For upgrades, retail J/F minus retail booked class at time of booking (although to be fair I miss out on SCs and points of the upgrade so I should add a fudge factor to reduce it slightly)
• For classic rewards, retail booking cost at time of booking. Same issue as above.
• For P+P (I try to minimise this), retail price minus any paid amount. There's no issue with my P+P calculation as I get SC/points at the booking class rate.

My results are: As high as 7c for some upgrades, with P+P and Jetstar being the worst (at 0.68c/pp each). I don't shop on the QFF store but if I suspect that would be even worse. My average for upgrades that I actually got (as I have to track every one I attempt as some do and some don't come through) is 6.3c. I am pretty careful about how I use my points. I only ever used P+P to earn some SCs to get over the line for status and that's a pretty desperate move, but I can thankfully do a lot less of that now thanks to Points Club which gives me 70% of the SCs in Y, so I might actually get booking classic rewards Y seats which in the past would have been a massive no no for me, since they were previously much worse value than premium seat classic rewards. They are now slightly less so, plus SCs if you're Points Club making them a new proposition for retaining status if I ever need a small status run to close out the year.

Anyway, I realise how retentive this all sounds but it doesn't have to be this way! You can... or at least could (let's see post COVID) get good value for your points.

 

[33kft]

Also, I apologise that I didn't answer half of your question @Pom-DownUnder - I am platinum and I do find upgrades easy to come by. It is significantly harder for a Bronze member to get upgrades. I find status about as important as points in effectively making use of a large points balance, sometimes to beat the bank you have to take care of both parameters - having just a lot of points or just a lot of SCs doesn't really give the optimal point redemption opportunities unless you don't mind flying in Y.

 

[PineappleSkip]

Further elements of the lottery results; my experience is that upgrades seem 10x easier to come by if travelling alone rather than with a partner, and it varies greatly depending on the route. cf Y>J SYD-MEL (easy peasy) and SYD-LHR (close to buckleys).

Cheers skip

 

[albatross710]

Further elements of the lottery results; my experience is that upgrades seem 10x easier to come by if travelling alone rather than with a partner,
Cheers skip

a long time ago in a qld regional city I had far better upgrade success when i travelled WITH Mrs Albattross. Over the years we lived there she had been involved in the birthing experience of a number of the QF check-in staff. So when she did fly they treated her well. Then I learned even if she wasn't flying I had her come to the check-in counter with me. I was getting 100% upgrade success in those days before computer algorithms.

 

[Pom-DownUnder]

Also, I apologise that I didn't answer half of your question @Pom-DownUnder - I am platinum and I do find upgrades easy to come by. It is significantly harder for a Bronze member to get upgrades. I find status about as important as points in effectively making use of a large points balance, sometimes to beat the bank you have to take care of both parameters - having just a lot of points or just a lot of SCs doesn't really give the optimal point redemption opportunities unless you don't mind flying in Y.

Sorry I missed the response.

By points + cash I mean classic reward, I should have been clearer about that

my remit is basically going home to uk every other year, as my wage progresses perhaps once per year but we will see how things go! so my main concern is getting access to a class I could not otherwise afford to travel in, rather than maximising value per point.

I know this is slightly off topic, but ... is there a way to combine the ticket that flights are on if you do some reward / some just regular cash purchase separate initially?

Thanks!

 

[Scr77]

Sorry I missed the response.

By points + cash I mean classic reward, I should have been clearer about that

my remit is basically going home to uk every other year, as my wage progresses perhaps once per year but we will see how things go! so my main concern is getting access to a class I could not otherwise afford to travel in, rather than maximising value per point.

I know this is slightly off topic, but ... is there a way to combine the ticket that flights are on if you do some reward / some just regular cash purchase separate initially?

Thanks!

You can get creative and do things Like pay for Au to Singapore return and then rewards from Singapore. Or book early and go via Hong Kong etc.

 

[Pushka]

I just spent mine on buying a QF 747 bar trolley.

 

[Pom-DownUnder]

You can get creative and do things Like pay for Au to Singapore return and then rewards from Singapore. Or book early and go via Hong Kong etc.

yea i currently have SIN -> UK and UK - SYD Booked,

I was just wondering if i buy a flight from SYD to SIN can I call qantas / qatar and roll the tickets together incase of delays / cancellations etc or do i just get to SIN super early and leave spare room for foul ups (the current plan)

 

[sudoer]

can I call qantas / qatar and roll the tickets together incase of delays / cancellations etc

It's not possible to protect two separate PNRs from a misconnect due to late inbound arrival.

do i just get to SIN super early and leave spare room for foul ups (the current plan)

Yes, this is the best course of action. Preferably arrival a day prior.

 

[Pom-DownUnder]

It's not possible to protect two separate PNRs from a misconnect due to late inbound arrival.



Yes, this is the best course of action. Preferably arrival a day prior.

Yea I believed that was the case, i'm planning to leave about 8 hours spare so that worst case I can dive on a different flight / airline, fingers crossed not til June