Article: Qantas Pleased with Classic Plus Uptake

[AFF Editor]

Qantas Pleased with Classic Plus Uptake is an article written by the AFF editorial team:

Qantas Pleased with Classic Plus Uptake

Qantas Frequent Flyer members booked more than 80,000 Classic Plus reward seats in the first three months after launch. The airline is now looking at expanding the range of reward options for members even further.

www.australianfrequentflyer.com.au

You can leave a comment or discuss this topic below.

 

[Kendall Roy]

AFF members unhappy with cannibalisation of Classic Awards since the introduction of CP.

 

[levelnine]

Qantas is hardly going to come out and say it is a flop.

There is a striking statistic in the press release. 80,000 seats have been booked with Classic Plus in the first 3 months of operation.

Qantas have claimed there are 20 mil new reward seats under Classic Plus. That means they have sold 0.4% of available seats, a low figure by pretty much anyone's estimation.

Now that undersells it because the 20 mil figure is presumably all Classic Plus seats and they haven't rolled out the program to domestic seats yet.

So to be fair to Qantas, the latest BITRE statistics have Qantas International operating 550,000 seats to/from Australia in April 2024. That gives Qantas about 6.6mil seats over a 12 month period. That means 1% of seats for the coming 12 months have been purchased using Classic Plus.

About a year ago, Qantas claimed that 1 in 11 seats were classic award seats with a total capacity of 5 million seats.

Classic Plus is currently 10% the size of the classic awards program with 400% more seats available.

Qantas might publicly claim to be happy with the result, but these figures are telling.

Edit: Another way of splicing the numbers.

If most customer are booking a return ticket using Classic Plus for 1.5 passengers (ie a rough split between a customer buying a solo ticket and a customer buying tickets for two people), that means they've only had ~27,000 members use the program.

That is, 0.2% of Qantas' Frequent Flyers.

 

[elanshin]

About a year ago, Qantas claimed that 1 in 11 seats were classic award seats from its 5 million seat capacity.

Agree with most of what you said, just becareful with a stat like this. QF can easily manipulate it as they need to. Eg my upgraded flights show as award booking (with some extra bits). So they could also have counted it that way and we know that J gets filled with upgrades every flight. I doubt we have any QFi flights that doesn't have a very full J.

 

[SydneySwan]

Are Y Classic+ redemptions getting 1c per point? I will have to take another look. My initial searches a few weeks ago indicated less than 1c per point.

 

[levelnine]

Agree with most of what you said, just becareful with a stat like this. QF can easily manipulate it as they need to. Eg my upgraded flights show as award booking (with some extra bits). So they could also have counted it that way and we know that J gets filled with upgrades every flight. I doubt we have any QFi flights that doesn't have a very full J.

Absolutely. Indeed, I find it funny that the 80,000 figure is the most favourable statistic they could find in favour of the Classic Plus program. All it does is underscore its weakness.

The fact that they had to resort to individual anecdotes to show the usefulness of the program only makes it worse. If you read the anecdotes carefully, you'll see they don't have a single long-haul business/first class redemption — that is very deliberate.

 

[Willpanzer]

Classic Rewards Plus is an excellent option for those focused solely on redeeming Classic Reward flights. By decreasing the overall points pool, it benefits the program's health and sustainability.

 

[flyguy77]

BUT CLASSIC PLUS CAN BE "CHEAPER" THAN CLASSIC REWARDS FLYING TO NZ (and no where else)

Repeat this ad nauseam by Qantas and all their media puppets every time a NZ Sale comes up....

This press-release is nothing more than classic company spin to make it sound the bees-knees no matter what.

 

[Gold Member]

With all respect to Matt, a lot of that article reads like it’s Qantas sponsored. Perhaps it might be better located on the AFF parent company website Pointhacks where we know they are very open to paid content (just like Exec Traveller).

 

[Doctore1003]

Qantas has much less leeway to mislead in its ASX announcements, so it’ll be interesting to see what it says about all this in its next earnings release, due in late August.

 

[elanshin]

Are Y Classic+ redemptions getting 1c per point? I will have to take another look. My initial searches a few weeks ago indicated less than 1c per point.

They are more or less, have to minus taxes from the flight cost first. That's how you get the 3400 point + $167 flights to PVG right now ($200 cash). This is one area where I don't expect any mess ups (besides minor rounding) as it's a very very simple maths to code.

 

[AFF Editor]

With all respect to Matt, a lot of that article reads like it’s Qantas sponsored. Perhaps it might be better located on the AFF parent company website Pointhacks where we know they are very open to paid content (just like Exec Traveller).

I can understand why you may feel this way, but I can assure you that this is most definitely not sponsored content. I simply felt that the AFF community might appreciate an update on how this is going from the Qantas' perspective. Otherwise, the forums only tell one side of the story. Of course, the community is also free to share their own thoughts and interpret what they will from the data Qantas has provided - as is happening in this thread.

The article does also mention the downsides of Classic Plus.

I spoke with some people from Qantas about this recently and they genuinely seemed happy with how Classic Plus was going, although they acknowledged that it's not primarily aimed at the AFF audience. It's more for people who don't have flexibility on when/where they want to fly and are happy for the opportunity to at least use their points when this otherwise might not have been an option.

I must admit that I was surprised to hear how well the Ticketek redemptions were going. I guess it goes to show that not everyone thinks like a hardcore AFF member.

Are Y Classic+ redemptions getting 1c per point? I will have to take another look. My initial searches a few weeks ago indicated less than 1c per point.

I checked this yesterday and Y Classic Plus redemptions are indeed getting pretty much exactly 1 cent/point of value. In premium cabins it's almost exactly 1.5 cents.

For what it's worth, I also discovered that Classic Plus availability appears to be tied directly to commercial fare inventory in the following fare classes:

• Economy: K
• Premium Economy: R
• Business: D
• First: A

 

[SeatBackForward]

AFF members unhappy with cannibalisation of Classic Awards since the introduction of CP.

We're still bitter since JASA's were taken away!

 

[RooFlyer]

I can understand why you may feel this way, but I can assure you that this is most definitely not sponsored content.

I would never suspect you of posting 'sponsored content', but some of it does read a bit like a Qantas media release. I was a bit disappointed that the opening paragraphs

Qantas Frequent Flyer members have booked more than 80,000 Classic Plus redemption seats in the first three months since Qantas launched its new reward type. The airline is now looking at expanding the range of reward options for members even further.

Between 8 April and 1 July 2024, Qantas Frequent Flyer members redeemed a record 10.7 billion points on Qantas-operated international flights. That’s a third more than before the launch of Classic Plus – although the higher number of points required for most Classic Plus redemptions may account for some of that increase.

... weren't prefaced by something like "According to a Qantas spokesman/media release/insider ..." unless, of course you independently came up with the figures (which I know isn't out of the question, and if so, apologies).

 

[levelnine]

... weren't prefaced by something like "According to a Qantas spokesman/media release/insider ..." unless, of course you independently came up with the figures (which I know isn't out of the question, and if so, apologies).

They're taken from this press release: https://www.qantasnewsroom.com.au/m...ity-as-classic-plus-reward-seats-take-flight/

 

[drmatte]

Am I the only one comparatively uninterested in the classic plus rewards, but wondering who the new partner airline might be?

 

[TheInsider]

Am I the only one comparatively uninterested in the classic plus rewards, but wondering who the new partner airline might be?

Probably AZ, considering that they are joining the LH group.

 

[justinbrett]

I would never suspect you of posting 'sponsored content', but some of it does read a bit like a Qantas media release. I was a bit disappointed that the opening paragraphs



... weren't prefaced by something like "According to a Qantas spokesman/media release/insider ..." unless, of course you independently came up with the figures (which I know isn't out of the question, and if so, apologies).

Isn't that a bit redundant to say the figures came from Qantas, given there's no way for anyone else to know the figures independently?

Am I the only one comparatively uninterested in the classic plus rewards, but wondering who the new partner airline might be?

HA? It's gonna happen sooner or later.

 

[trippin_the_rift]

Does anyone else immediately turn off and assume Qantas press releases are basically junk, or is it just me?

Classic Plus.... Paris....

 

[RooFlyer]

Isn't that a bit redundant to say the figures came from Qantas, given there's no way for anyone else to know the figures independently?

When you write something, and base it on what someone else has written or said, its conventional (and in some cases, has more imperative) to give it an attribution#, especially if you are publishing it. Direct quotes are given in quotation marks to the 'speaker'. Paraphrasing or re-writing is attributed to source.

#Unless given in confidence.