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

[coriander]

These may even be better lyrics;

 

[kangarooflyer88]

I can certainly appreciate the dire straits some of us are encountering finding Qantas awards and thought I'd contribute a song which I feel is
apt for the situation:

Sultans of Points (Sultans of Swing Parody)

You get a shiver in the dark
It's a raining classic awards on the Qantas site
You clutch your pearls and hope for something
Woolies is blowing Qantas points, double four time
You feel alright when you see the points land

Well now you step inside but you don't see too many awards
Coming in out of the rain they hear the complaints go down
Competition from other elites
Uh but the horns they blowin' that sound
Way on down west
Way on down west
London town

You check out points Matt, he knows-all the rewards
Mind it's strictly hypothetical he doesn't want to make it cry or sing
They said a domestic flight is all, he can afford
When he gets up under the Qantas site to book his thing

And Uncle Alan doesn't mind, if you don't, make the booking
He's got a daytime job, he's doing alright
He can earn the Qantas points like anything
Savin' it up, for one more booking
With the Sultans
The Sultans of points

Then a crowd of young boys they're a foolin' around in the Qantas Pub
Drunk and dressed in their best brown baggies and their platform soles
They don't give a damn about any classic awards
It ain't what they call status for nothin'
And the Sultans
Yeah, the Sultans, they book Brisbane
Brisbane

And then the man he steps right up to the Qantas site
And says at last when the rewards results show up
"Goodnight, now it's time to go home"
Then he makes it fast with one more thing

"We are the Sultans
We are the Sultans of Points"

-RooFlyer88

 

[RooFlyer]

Welcome to AFF @stephanadams

 

[Berlin]

Tried searching for availability to Europe at the 353 day mark, as a Platinum, and found zero availability on any Qantas or Emirates flights, and virtually nothing on Oneworld partners.

Not surprising. Good luck finding any J or F availability on KrisFlyer or Velocity- same same over at the competition in my experience.

 

[siri]

Tried searching for availability to Europe at the 353 day mark, as a Platinum, and found zero availability on any Qantas or Emirates flights, and virtually nothing on Oneworld partners.

Even trying to go around APACJ is getting difficult with Qantas and If you are using multiple one world or transit points, I will not touch Qantas for at least 6 months. I will use Spore air or Malaysia Air and Japan Air.. Japan air is the best choice to go to Europe now..

 

[Berlin]

Even trying to go around APACJ is getting difficult with Qantas and If you are using multiple one world or transit points, I will not touch Qantas for at least 6 months. I will use Spore air or Malaysia Air and Japan Air.. Japan air is the best choice to go to Europe now..

JAL is not a bad choice to get to the US either: We’ll be flying open jaw into JFK and out of LAX (Panama canal cruise in between) in April and are going via Tokyo. No stop overs but good connections to and from Sydney- a little bit tight maybe, if anything.

Came in at under 7k each in Business and JAL’s Business class isn’t shabby at all. Great deal in these times and decent amount of OW status credits even!

 

[Zulu0929]

Qantas Points “The Envy of the World”? Absolutely Not! is an article written by AFF editorial staff:

Qantas Points "The Envy of the World"? Absolutely Not, Mr Joyce!

Qantas CEO Alan Joyce recently told a room full of business leaders and journalists in Perth that the airline's frequent flyer scheme and points "are the

www.australianfrequentflyer.com.au

You can leave a comment or discuss this topic below.

A great article from the AFF Editor. A little slow on my response and without reading all the replies, I have just ended my 30+ year loyalty with QF. I am still waiting for some courtesy and a response to my request for a suitcase repair that QF managed to render useless 3 months ago after spending 10s of thousands of $$ flying with QF. They keep saying they will call back, but in line with the article, they never do and that simply means to me that they expect me to just give up and go away. Any other airline, FF programme and CEO will be better. AJ's departure from the airline is long overdue.

 

[marki]

Well done for Qantas exit!

 

[Spizz]

Not surprising. Good luck finding any J or F availability on KrisFlyer or Velocity- same same over at the competition in my experience.

Plenty of j availability to and from Europe using Velocity points IMO.

 

[Berlin]

Plenty of j availability to and from Europe using Velocity points IMO.

Whaaat? Close to zero ever any J award availability on Velocity. At least not when I want it. Worse than Qantas actually.

 

[Human]

Whaaat? Close to zero ever any J award availability on Velocity. At least not when I want it. Worse than Qantas actually.

The difference is that Velocity consistently and predictably releases reward seats to Europe 330 days out from the flights (on Qatar, and a couple of days later on Singapore and Etihad). Yes, it goes very quickly, but (in my frequent experience) if you log on to Velocity at midnight AEST, 330 days before the flight, the reward seats in Business are there for the taking. This is true even if you hold no status with Velocity.

None of the above is true of Qantas.

 

[Spizz]

The difference is that Velocity consistently and predictably releases reward seats to Europe 330 days out from the flights (on Qatar, and a couple of days later on Singapore and Etihad). Yes, it goes very quickly, but (in my frequent experience) if you log on to Velocity at midnight AEST, 330 days before the flight, the reward seats in Business are there for the taking. This is true even if you hold no status with Velocity.

None of the above is true of Qantas.

Exactly found seats to Europe for 2 people with our choose of either Qsuites on Qatar, Ethiad Business, or Singapore Business class using Velocity points for later next year.

My huge amount of Qantas points are sitting idle currently as I can't use them for my usage case. Having points spread amongst different programs pays off. YMMV.

There are still seats there as far as i can see for next year on Velocity as opposed to Qantas where I can only see availability on Qatar/Emirates from Australia 2 days before departure, or if you are lucky and snap up the BA Business seats as soon as they appear 353 days out.

And you don't need to be a Gold member to score the seats first with Virgin. They are open to all.

Post automatically merged: Dec 31, 2022

Whaaat? Close to zero ever any J award availability on Velocity. At least not when I want it. Worse than Qantas actually.

When are you looking for and what destination? As mentioned above, their calendar goes as far as 330 days out.

 

[mitchd]

The difference is that Velocity consistently and predictably releases reward seats to Europe 330 days out from the flights (on Qatar, and a couple of days later on Singapore and Etihad). Yes, it goes very quickly, but (in my frequent experience) if you log on to Velocity at midnight AEST, 330 days before the flight, the reward seats in Business are there for the taking. This is true even if you hold no status with Velocity.

None of the above is true of Qantas.

To add to this: the SQ J reward availability on Velocity to/from Europe specifically has been great over the last 2-3 months. If it’s Heathrow you’re after, you really have to book it within 48 hours of release. But if you can settle for Copenhagen, Frankfurt and others, I’ve recently had success even at <300 days out. I recently forgot to book the return leg for three months and found plenty of availability. The scaremongering stories of how you MUST book at 330 days on the minute are only true of North America in my experience.

 

[drron]

With QFF only releasing a few premium awards often snapped up quickly by its own members it surprises me that partner airlines release as many awards as they do to QFF members.

 

[kangarooflyer88]

With QFF only releasing a few premium awards often snapped up quickly by its own members it surprises me that partner airlines release as many awards as they do to QFF members.

It's unclear to me whether the pool of award seats QF releases partners is the same as the pool released to QFF elites.

 

[Anna]

I've been living under a rock apparently - to my utter astonishment I have been able to do a points upgrade on a Y classic reward sector ADL MEL! An actual QF enhancement that I didn't even know about until QF emailed me the other day inviting me to bid for an upgrade and somehow the penny dropped that I could just ask for an upgrade in the same way as asking to upgrade with points on a paid domestic fare. Well not exactly the same way, it wasn't approved instantly, but the approval text came through this morning for the flight later this week. 13000 points for the upgrade, happy with that. 12000 for the original Y booking which is actually ADL MEL SYD for the 12000 points (no direct ADL SYD classic award availability when I booked it, but via MEL was available at the same points cost - go figure . And yes I did ring and ask QF in HBA for a Y seat to be released direct ADL SYD but that was no go either ).

Update: I checked my account balance and QF had deducted 26000 points. I was getting pretty stroppy trying to work out why, but it turns out, although QF hasn't sent me an approval text about it, the upgrade came through for the MEL SYD sector as well. It shows up on my activity statement and I've been able to select seats in J on both sectors. Hope they still serve the Koko Black Christmas chocolate bars! My local KB store sold out before I could grab any.

 

[kangarooflyer88]

I've been living under a rock apparently - to my utter astonishment I have been able to do a points upgrade on a Y classic reward sector ADL MEL! An actual QF enhancement that I didn't even know about until QF emailed me the other day inviting me to bid for an upgrade and somehow the penny dropped that I could just ask for an upgrade in the same way as asking to upgrade with points on a paid domestic fare. Well not exactly the same way, it wasn't approved instantly, but the approval text came through this morning for the flight later this week. 13000 points for the upgrade, happy with that. 12000 for the original Y booking which is actually ADL MEL SYD for the 12000 points (no direct ADL SYD classic award availability when I booked it, but via MEL was available at the same points cost - go figure . And yes I did ring and ask QF in HBA for a Y seat to be released direct ADL SYD but that was no go either ).

You've always been able to do a points upgrade on classic award bookings. For domestic flights specifically the upgrades from economy to business are instant and guaranteed if there is U (i.e. business classic) space available on your flight. This is precisely the strategy I now use when booking red e-deals with Qantas. Find the domestic flight that has U space, book the cheap red e-deal, then make the instant upgrade. In that way I'm spending maybe $129 to fly lie flat on an A330 between SYD and MEL, earn 10 status credits (from the base fare or more if DSC) whatever the QF points are for the flight, get a hole punched in my QF loyalty card, etc. Sure you can always book the business classic award but either way you'll still end up paying taxes and fees. May as well save some points and earn a lil bit of status whilst you are at it!

 

[SYD]

I've been living under a rock apparently - to my utter astonishment I have been able to do a points upgrade on a Y classic reward sector ADL MEL! An actual QF enhancement that I didn't even know about until QF emailed me the other day inviting me to bid for an upgrade and somehow the penny dropped that I could just ask for an upgrade in the same way as asking to upgrade with points on a paid domestic fare. Well not exactly the same way, it wasn't approved instantly, but the approval text came through this morning for the flight later this week. 13000 points for the upgrade, happy with that. 12000 for the original Y booking which is actually ADL MEL SYD for the 12000 points (no direct ADL SYD classic award availability when I booked it, but via MEL was available at the same points cost - go figure . And yes I did ring and ask QF in HBA for a Y seat to be released direct ADL SYD but that was no go either ).

Yes, been around for a while. Obviously redeeming up front for J is better value, but if that’s not available, this works. I believe it still gets processed in the same order of priority as classic upgrade on a paid whY flight.

The “bid” with dollars only get processed after all the points requests

 

[SYD]

You've always been able to do a points upgrade on classic award bookings.

No. It’s only been around for a few years. There’ll be a thread here discussing it.

 

[kangarooflyer88]

No. It’s only been around for a few years. There’ll be a thread here discussing it.

Interesting, I thought it was always around since it appeared in the points calculator, and I heard the last time that tool was updated Ronald Reagan was the President of the US

Joking aside, what is unique about upgrading classic awards with points is that this unlocks the ability to use points accrued from multiple frequent flyer programs to book a QF award. For instance, you could use BA Avios points to book an economy award on QF then use QF points to upgrade the "classic award" up to J.

-RooFlyer88