Article: I Have Zero Qantas Points and It Feels Liberating

[Bindibuys]

Agreed it’s unrealistic to expect 4+ seats in premium cabins on points. Ive been flying on points (Krisflyer, Qantas, Cathay) in first and business for 15+ years and never had problems finding seats for 2 pax usually go overseas 3-4 times a year, nowadays First class is harder to get seats but there are plenty in business with the 3 programs I use you jut need to be patient and flexible.

Agree with your comments, in the past we have had to fly on separate flights from DEL to SYD via BKK (same day) to get award seats in J.
To expect 4+ seats on high demand routes on the day you want to fly is unrealistic.

Having said that I did score 6 J seats SYD-AKL on Emirates when they flew that route, then they cancelled the route and moved us to QF, was very surprised that QF let the booking stay, but the day before the flight moved us onto Latam, which in my opinion was better than QF.

 

[Jacques Vert]

I'ld like to get my QFF points close to zero but the lack of CR availability is prevented this. Last year I needed to find seats from EUR to AUS in December with about six months notice. I searched every QF partner for seats from every airport and wasn't able to find a single option into Aus. OTOH SQ had seats in J available on a number of days into MEL (and with only around $100 in taxes). Ended up going BOR-CMN-IST-SIN-MEL.

I'm now left with zero SQ points (which I'm quite happy with, given the three-year hard expiry), a couple of hundred thousand Amex points and a shipload of QF points that that keeps growing due to the ease of earning them and the lack of CRs. As I live in a town that is not served by VA, then hopefully I can use them on flights to SYD or MEL, but lately even those flights seem to be infected with CR+.

For me, it has been death by a thousand cuts with QF. I remember when WPs had anytime access to the F lounge, then there was simpler and fairer, the o/s call centre fiasco, ridiculous wait times during Covid, various price rises, etc., etc.

Perhaps the thing that annoys me the most is the change to the multi-city tool so that you can only search a maximum of 6 lines, making the booking of OW awards so much more difficult.

While QF would argue that the points cost of awards needs to increase to reflect inflation, it's the increase in the co-payment that I find unjustifiable. There is nothing in the last round of enhancements that encourages me to look on QF more favourably.

Maybe I'll take Matt's lead and look for a First Class ticket to JNB.

 

[straitman]

My QF points balance has raced up to 6674 again with 6 Business rewards points.

I did drop my VA point balance to 1 point recently though it's now quickly bounced to 41,068 again thanks to a 50,000 point bonus from flybuys.

Lots of untransferred Amex points that can be used in multiple programs.