Article: Qantas Points “The Envy of the World”? Absolutely Not!

[kangarooflyer88]

It shouldn't take an advanced degree in the comprehension of airline FFPs and route maps, the flexibility of an unemployed gymnast and/or Lucasfilm-level creativity just to have the possibility of finding a leprechaun's pot of gold before someone else. That's the point of the article.

People here in Aus accumulate QF points expecting, not unreasonably, to use them to fly from here to somewhere else. They shouldn't have to plan to travel to god knows where to fly some other airline to some place hopefully within the same hemisphere as where they'd like to go all within the same season when they'd like to be there.

You are right that it should not take a PhD in Airlines and Routings to book an award on QF or any frequent flyer program. I suppose my argument to that would be that there is plenty of availability anywhere you want to get to on virtually any date. Basically if QF or one of its partners is selling a J ticket you can book it using points. Don't believe me? Here's SYD to LHR for tomorrow on EK:


Now I suppose one may argue that spending over a million points for a one-way business class ticket to London is steep, but you are booking the flight you want when you want it to say nothing of the QFF points (29,450) and status credits earned (295). In many respects this is far better than the bad old days where you were limited to strictly the award seats airlines made available for members which one could only count on one hand.

Would I personally book a million+ point redemption to Europe in J? Absolutely not! And I reckon most people on this forum wouldn't either but we are a different animal. For us travelling to Europe in J rather than being a once in a lifetime experience is something we do regularly. Is it fair that these saver awards are only available to basically folks who frequent this forum? I don't know. I think many of us made a considerable
investment in time and money (i.e. ExpertFlyer subscription) to make this happen including engineering creative routings. This clearly wasn't a gimme from the airlines but was something that often had to be earned over the course of many days or even weeks of research.

One thing to keep in mind too are deals to Europe do still crop up from time to time. Looking at this week in particular I see that a departure out of Sydney on Sunday yields First classic award on EK:


Now I suppose some on this forum may argue that $1,777 is a bit excessive in taxes & fees for such an award, but then again you are travelling EK F and that's got to be worth something!

-RooFlyer88

 

[MEL_Traveller]

I would argue the first examples are not award availability… they are simply seats being converted into points, at QF’s hefty conversion rate.

Even the EK F seat is pretty expensive at QFFF’s notional value of .07 of a cent, especially after adding $1500 in airline fees

 

[levelnine]

Now I suppose some on this forum may argue that $1,777 is a bit excessive in taxes & fees for such an award, but then again you are travelling EK F and that's got to be worth something!

What is the point of this post? It is the ultimate example of a strawman. You can also redeem your points for toasters. No one is questioning that it is possible to redeem points.

It is the availability of classic flight rewards that is the issue. And the problem at the moment is that it isn't possible for even people who are well versed in frequent flyer programs because there are simply no reward seats being released on many routes and on many carriers. Availability has cratered since the resumption of travel post-pandemic.

 

[kangarooflyer88]

It is the availability of classic flight rewards that is the issue. And the problem at the moment is that it isn't possible for even people who are well versed in frequent flyer programs because there are simply no reward seats being released on many routes and on many carriers. Availability has cratered since the resumption of travel post-pandemic.

Classic flight rewards by their very nature are limited. Aside from the occasional points plane, Qantas and partners make a small number of seats available at this discounted rate. Now Aussies have finally been allowed to leave their house by their government in nearly 2 years and is it any wonder that demand for flights is through the roof and consequently those coveted classic award seats are snapped up? Combine that with an airline industry which in many respects isn't operating anywhere near the capacity they need to fill the demand due to crew and equipment shortages and frankly what other outcome can you reasonably expect?

I can appreciate everyone's frustration here in finding and booking classic awards, but what else could be done? Do you honestly think Qantas would open the floodgates for classic award booking given they are struggling at the very moment to get revenue customers accommodated with the various schedule changes occurring? And in spite of the challenges in finding these award bookings, there is still some availability if you know where to look. Sure you may not be able to find your desired routing or destination sitting down for 5 minutes at the QF website, but there are other destinations in the region that are open for classic award booking if you have that flexibility.

And if none of this works? Hang tight! Classic award seats continue to be made available for future travel on QF each and every day. Set some alerts on ExpertFlyer or heck even manually search every few weeks and I assure you that you will find something that works. Maybe it won't be this week or this month but certainly in the months ahead! After all, it's not like QF points expire and to the extent that they get devalued over time that tends to be fairly minimal compared to other market forces like inflation.

-RooFlyer88

 

[MEL_Traveller]

Classic flight rewards by their very nature are limited. Aside from the occasional points plane, Qantas and partners make a small number of seats available at this discounted rate. Now Aussies have finally been allowed to leave their house by their government in nearly 2 years and is it any wonder that demand for flights is through the roof and consequently those coveted classic award seats are snapped up? Combine that with an airline industry which in many respects isn't operating anywhere near the capacity they need to fill the demand due to crew and equipment shortages and frankly what other outcome can you reasonably expect?

I can appreciate everyone's frustration here in finding and booking classic awards, but what else could be done? Do you honestly think Qantas would open the floodgates for classic award booking given they are struggling at the very moment to get revenue customers accommodated with the various schedule changes occurring? And in spite of the challenges in finding these award bookings, there is still some availability if you know where to look. Sure you may not be able to find your desired routing or destination sitting down for 5 minutes at the QF website, but there are other destinations in the region that are open for classic award booking if you have that flexibility.

And if none of this works? Hang tight! Classic award seats continue to be made available for future travel on QF each and every day. Set some alerts on ExpertFlyer or heck even manually search every few weeks and I assure you that you will find something that works. Maybe it won't be this week or this month but certainly in the months ahead! After all, it's not like QF points expire and to the extent that they get devalued over time that tends to be fairly minimal compared to other market forces like inflation.

-RooFlyer88

Other airline programs don’t have quite the dire lack of FF seats. SQ’s saver awards might have dried up, but their advantage awards are a tenth of the cost of QF’s equivalent (although a slightly product). Some programs like alaska and aeroplan have a range of non-aligned partners, opening up availability.

The other thing is that qantas states it has released millions of FF seats. But are they the ones members are looking for? With Aeroplan or krisflyer I can actually get to asia in business class. Qfff? Dunno.

 

[levelnine]

Classic award seats continue to be made available for future travel on QF each and every day.

No they aren't. That's the point. You seem to be living in some alternate reality where Qantas are releasing two seats per day on flights like they used to before the pandemic.

 

[Dr Ralph]

Whilst booking award flights is no where near as easy as it was pre COVID, I have to say I have used QFF points to book 4 tickets to the USA for 2023 in the last week in J. All appeared at the required days out from departure that would have been expected pre COVID.

 

[kangarooflyer88]

Other airline programs don’t have quite the dire lack of FF seats. SQ’s saver awards might have dried up, but their advantage awards are a tenth of the cost of QF’s equivalent (although a slightly product). Some programs like alaska and aeroplan have a range of non-aligned partners, opening up availability.

The other thing is that qantas states it has released millions of FF seats. But are they the ones members are looking for? With Aeroplan or krisflyer I can actually get to asia in business class. Qfff? Dunno.

I will concede that yes other frequent flyer programs may have better saver award than QF at this very moment. And yes, a lot of that has to do with the fact that they have partners that you can't really book elsewhere like EY J for Aeroplan. However, as someone who booked almost a year in advance with Aeroplan, the availability wasn't incredible. Often there were one or maybe two partner awards in J that I could book SYD to Europe to North America. By contrast, back in late 2021 Aeroplan was handing out saver award space on SYD > YVR on AC J like candy. Indeed I booked SYD > YSJ (via YVR, YYZ) all in AC J for 80,000 Aeroplan points. Today, if I were to look around Aeroplan search I couldn't find such deals.

No they aren't. That's the point. You seem to be living in some alternate reality where Qantas are releasing two seats per day on flights like they used to before the pandemic.

QF continues to release plenty of classic awards everyday. For instance, here's a calendar view of QF classic awards for the routing SYD > LHR:


Virtually every day there is an economy award, and on one day there's even PY classic award availability. Now I know some folks would say, where's the J or F awards? I will concede that in terms of getting the absolute best bang for your buck booking J or F is ideal. However, there is still substantial savings to be had booking a Y award particularly if it's on a flight you want on the routing you want, on the date you want.

Whilst booking award flights is no where near as easy as it was pre COVID, I have to say I have used QFF points to book 4 tickets to the USA for 2023 in the last week in J. All appeared at the required days out from departure that would have been expected pre COVID.

I think you hit the nail on the head there in 2023. Anyone who thinks they'll be able to find award tickets at the last minute for travel this month or next are deluding themselves. Often the best award availability is either found a year out or on day of travel (when airlines are desperate to get rid of unused inventory for points).

-RooFlyer88

 

[MEL_Traveller]

Economy awards aren’t the issue though… QF says they have released millions of those. I was corrected in an earlier post in this thread when I made the assumption that the points collectors on facebook groups would be looking for economy… in fact many are saving for premium awards.

Compared to other programs, QF is extremely limited for premium seats. Part of that is because they didn’t read the market and brought back operations using smaller aircraft. Now they have stated their continued intention to reduce services but increase fares. Another part is because some of their partners are limiting award seats, for example Qatar.

 

[Berlin]

Oh please! Those entire useless cattle class rewards are not even worse a mention. They are about as useless to me as toaster ovens and therefore not even part of my consideration when judging on the quality of a frequent flyer programme.

If I want to torture myself in the back of the bus, then I just fork out the cash and pay for the ticket, just like I’d simply buy a Weber grill if I needed a new one. Not a reason at all for me to be in the frequent flyer game.

 

[Princess Fiona]

Economy awards aren’t the issue though… QF says they have released millions of those. I was corrected in an earlier post in this thread when I made the assumption that the points collectors on facebook groups would be looking for economy… in fact many are saving for premium awards.

Compared to other programs, QF is extremely limited for premium seats. Part of that is because they didn’t read the market and brought back operations using smaller aircraft. Now they have stated their continued intention to reduce services but increase fares. Another part is because some of their partners are limiting award seats, for example Qatar.

I didn’t see the post about Facebook but I would disagree with the assumption that those points collectors are primarily booking / looking for premium cabin awards.
IMHO having scanned a lot of the posts, there is a fair mixture, certainly plenty of them booking Y Awards, a lot of hopeful Bronze looking to upgrade their family to J from Y revenue (they are quickly told that won’t be happening) and those who do want to book Premium cabins.

There seem to be plenty of people with hefty points balances but in the main they are not really the same audience as we have posting on here.

 

[Guvner]

I think you hit the nail on the head there in 2023. Anyone who thinks they'll be able to find award tickets at the last minute for travel this month or next are deluding themselves. Often the best award availability is either found a year out or on day of travel (when airlines are desperate to get rid of unused inventory for points).

-RooFlyer88

There's availability tomorrow morning. If you pack now you can get to the airport a few hours early.



or next week if you want save a few points:


or you could be munching on a schnitzel tomorrow night:

 

[kangarooflyer88]

Oh please! Those entire useless cattle class rewards are not even worse a mention. They are about as useless to me as toaster ovens and therefore not even part of my consideration when judging on the quality of a frequent flyer programme.

If I want to torture myself in the back of the bus, then I just fork out the cash and pay for the ticket, just like I’d simply buy a Weber grill if I needed a new one. Not a reason at all for me to be in the frequent flyer game.

One of the assumptions you are making there is that you use those points to book a pedestrian domestic flight like SYD > MEL or BNE > OOL on QF. I am talking about expensive domestic destinations that are offered at a steep discount using said points such as LRE, LDH, BME, etc. Certainly if you talk to people who live in regional Australia and not a major capital like Sydney, they would find immense value in booking those classic awards with the savings being far more than a toaster (i.e. SYD > LDH is $1,200 return versus 16,000 points + $200 in taxes & fees - hardly a toaster in my book)

I should also point out that a simple reading of the Qantas classic award table would provide you with a decent hint that you won't get fabulous value booking long haul international awards with your QF points. For instance, SYD > YVR is 108,400 points versus 85,000 points with Aeroplan. Where I could see plenty of value though, and something Aeroplan doesn't really offer are the round the world OneWorld awards QF offers. For instance one could fly round the world in J for 318,000 miles with a number of stopovers permitted which in my book is a very good deal indeed. Another place where QF points shines are partner awards that are short in distance but high in fare cost such as SYD > PPT in J.

I didn’t see the post about Facebook but I would disagree with the assumption that those points collectors are primarily booking / looking for premium cabin awards.
IMHO having scanned a lot of the posts, there is a fair mixture, certainly plenty of them booking Y Awards, a lot of hopeful Bronze looking to upgrade their family to J from Y revenue (they are quickly told that won’t be happening) and those who do want to book Premium cabins.

There seem to be plenty of people with hefty points balances but in the main they are not really the same audience as we have posting on here.

This is another real sweet spot with QF are points upgrades and something I think a lot of folks forget about the program. I can buy a $99 red eDeal ticket from SYD to MEL on QF's A330 service (with lie flat beds) then proceed to use 10,900 points to upgrade into J and that upgrade can be confirmed right away provided there is U space available. And with that I get the usual helping of status credits, don't have to pay taxes and fees on the award and also earn some QFF points to boot! I know for many on this forum flying SYD > MEL in J on QF isn't exciting, but for many folks who don't have status, don't have access to a lounge, and have never even tasted J flying it can be a real treat. And compared to the cash fares of buying a domestic J ticket it can be a great deal. And this is a quirk of the QF system. Many FFP do not enable their members to use points to upgrade from one cabin of service to another. Aeroplan certainly does not.

-RooFlyer88

 

[MEL_Traveller]

I didn’t see the post about Facebook but I would disagree with the assumption that those points collectors are primarily booking / looking for premium cabin awards.
IMHO having scanned a lot of the posts, there is a fair mixture, certainly plenty of them booking Y Awards, a lot of hopeful Bronze looking to upgrade their family to J from Y revenue (they are quickly told that won’t be happening) and those who do want to book Premium cabins.

There seem to be plenty of people with hefty points balances but in the main they are not really the same audience as we have posting on here.

i was surprised too about facebook, but it was pointed out in post 27 above that ‘a lot‘ are saving for premium cabins to europe and OWAs… at least on the group(s) frequented by the responder.

 

[MEL_Traveller]

I should also point out that a simple reading of the Qantas classic award table would provide you with a decent hint that you won't get fabulous value booking long haul international awards with your QF points. For instance, SYD > YVR is 108,400 points versus 85,000 points with Aeroplan. Where I could see plenty of value though, and something Aeroplan doesn't really offer are the round the world OneWorld awards QF offers. For instance one could fly round the world in J for 318,000 miles with a number of stopovers permitted which in my book is a very good deal indeed. Another place where QF points shines are partner awards that are short in distance but high in fare cost such as SYD > PPT in J.

-RooFlyer88

With aeroplan is would be ~220k for three stops and a couple hundred dollars of [actual] taxes. And easy availability. QFFF it would take me a week of searching to put together a round the world, with thousands of dollars in carrier imposed charges, and requiring me to have a high degree of flexibility.

Back to the title of the thread.. QFFF points might be the envy of the world in terms of business profits. Not so much for the passenger redeeming (with some exceptions such as ultra-top tiers in QFFF).

 

[levelnine]

I didn’t see the post about Facebook but I would disagree with the assumption that those points collectors are primarily booking / looking for premium cabin awards.
IMHO having scanned a lot of the posts, there is a fair mixture, certainly plenty of them booking Y Awards, a lot of hopeful Bronze looking to upgrade their family to J from Y revenue (they are quickly told that won’t be happening) and those who do want to book Premium cabins.

There seem to be plenty of people with hefty points balances but in the main they are not really the same audience as we have posting on here.

Strongly disagree.

Let me go through the most recent posts on this group. Every single post that mentions points redemptions is about flying in business class. The only people seeking to redeem points for economy are those that are resigning themselves to that fact due to a lack of availability (ie the exact problem we are discussing in this thread).

#1

#2

#3

#4

#5

#6

#7

#8

#9

#10


I've now reached the maximum number of attachments for a post, but I could go on.

 

[levelnine]

QF continues to release plenty of classic awards everyday. For instance, here's a calendar view of QF classic awards for the routing SYD > LHR:

Again, you keep deflecting.

Yes, Qantas offers you plenty of ways to redeem your seats, except for the method that is sought by lots and lots of people. And it has gotten harder, not easier, to attain premium cabins since the pandemic. In that sense, the article is spot on. By comparison, there is heaps of availability into and out of Australia on QF's main competitor internationally, SQ, which makes it laughable to claim that Qantas' currency is the envy of the world, at least from the perspective of the consumer.

If I could transfer my QF points to SQ points at 1:1 or even 2:1, I would do it in a heartbeat. And I'm sure many others would too.

 

[RooFlyer]

I can appreciate everyone's frustration here in finding and booking classic awards, but what else could be done? Do you honestly think Qantas would open the floodgates for classic award booking given they are struggling at the very moment to get revenue customers accommodated with the various schedule changes occurring?

What else could be done? Try this: The Qantas CEO, when calling for borders to be opened for months and months before they were, could have prepared the airline for it. Instead, he trousered all that JobKeeper $$$, laid off people left, right and centre and began from a standing start when international travel was allowed again. Lets remember again that QR and SQ kept flying to Australia all this time; Qantas chose to shut itself down completely, internationally. Yes, I know the different ownership structure, but Qantas had the opportunity to run government funded flights, and had JobKeeper pouring in.

Your argument seems analogous to: In the face of calls for more 'affordable housing', then reply "There are lots of houses available, just not where you want them. Have a job in Sydney? Look to dwellings in Tasmania". "But if you want affordable housing in Sydney - lots there, just you need to pay millions."

 

[MEL_Traveller]

What else could be done? Try this: The Qantas CEO, when calling for borders to be opened for months and months before they were, could have prepared the airline for it. Instead, he trousered all that JobKeeper $$$, laid off people left, right and centre and began from a standing start when international travel was allowed again. Lets remember again that QR and SQ kept flying to Australia all this time; Qantas chose to shut itself down completely, internationally. Yes, I know the different ownership structure, but Qantas had the opportunity to run government funded flights, and had JobKeeper pouring in.

Your argument seems analogous to: In the face of calls for more 'affordable housing', then reply "There are lots of houses available, just not where you want them. Have a job in Sydney? Look to dwellings in Tasmania". "But if you want affordable housing in Sydney - lots there, just you need to pay millions."

I’m glad Qantas *didn’t* run government funded flights! At least from the perspective as a taxpayer. IIRC they made a significant profit - in the millions? - from their repatriation flights. IMO these should have been put out to tender, or utilised existing flights coming in on SQ or QR where caps could have been increased, and aircraft wouldn’t have had to fly one way empty.

Given the revelations of the past couple of days, perhaps we need an inquiry into aviation funding, and the use of taxpayer funds.

I agree QF got the forecasts wrong, despite making grand announcements that they knew there was pent-up demand (joy flights selling out in record time, etc). They could have brought back a380s from the outset, and filled them. I’d give up a points-only plane to nouméa for a couple extra J class award seats per flight to LAX, DFW, LHR.

 

[BD1959]

One thing to keep in mind too are deals to Europe do still crop up from time to time. Looking at this week in particular I see that a departure out of Sydney on Sunday yields First classic award on EK:


Now I suppose some on this forum may argue that $1,777 is a bit excessive in taxes & fees for such an award, but then again you are travelling EK F and that's got to be worth something!

-RooFlyer88

EK have always been quite good at opening up premium award availability close to departure date, not that I would rely on it but can always be used as a better option closer to the date. eg a couple of years ago was looking at BHX to MEL. When I booked months ahead I could only get BHX-DXB-KUL-SYD-MEL however about 6 weeks prior to departure a DXB-SIN opened up which fortunately meshed with a QF F award SIN-MEL,

I’m glad Qantas *didn’t* run government funded flights! At least from the perspective as a taxpayer. IIRC they made a significant profit - in the millions? - from their repatriation flights. IMO these should have been put out to tender, or utilised existing flights coming in on SQ or QR where caps could have been increased, and aircraft wouldn’t have had to fly one way empty.

Given the revelations of the past couple of days, perhaps we need an inquiry into aviation funding, and the use of taxpayer funds.

I agree QF got the forecasts wrong, despite making grand announcements that they knew there was pent-up demand (joy flights selling out in record time, etc). They could have brought back a380s from the outset, and filled them. I’d give up a points-only plane to nouméa for a couple extra J class award seats per flight to LAX, DFW, LHR.

SQ had the added incentive of increasing freight on the flights ex AU since SIN imports pretty much everything then this worked for them. QR chose to continue to operate throughout - and have used that to garner good (needed) PR as a result, that may have been a Government-backed decision however given the number of cancellations it also imposed over that period, or worse: the number of tickets which were not honoured on those flights (mostly through Australian State Government actions in reducing caps at very short notice) I'm not so sure it was an idea that didn't backfire somewhat.

I do agree with the general sentiment though, AJ (and the QF Board) have seriously stuffed-up in both the restart and their pointing the blame elsewhere.

Regards,

BD