Benefit of Gold - Award Bookings

[PaulZ]

Hey,

I have tried searching the existing forums for the answer to my question without luck!

As a gold member, do I get any benefits when booking award international Business or First class seats? I.e. are any more seats available to me?

Thanks,

PaulZ

 

[Mal]

Nope. None officially. Perhaps some at the discretion of the CSA you speak to.

Your only "official" benefit as a gold is for extra seats available for redemption in Y. Plus some waivers for fees when changing tickets.

You might if you are really lucky get some award seats opened up for you, but doubt if this will be the case. Worth asking? Of course...

 

[aus_flyer]

Mal - is the only benefit the waiving of 2,500 point penalty for date/time change?

 

[Mal]

Mal - is the only benefit the waiving of 2,500 point penalty for date/time change?

That benefit is pseudo "unofficial" but applies to Silvers and above.

There aren't any better benefits that being Gold/Plat gives in that respect. Of course any fee/charge is at the discretion of the CSA you speak to and/or their supervisor...

 

[NM]

Gold and Platinum FFs have access to more economy class award seats. But this is not the case for business class and first class awards.

Being Platinum may mean they will release award seats of none exist, but there is no promise or guarantee of that. I have had this happen twice - first time was in 1999 where I wanted 2 business class award seats to London and only 1 seat was available on the return leg and they released a second for me. The second time was when I wanted 2 business class awards to Singapore for Mrs NM and Mini-NM#1. I was on a paid business class flight and of course we wanted to travel togther on the same flight. I could only route them via SYD while my paid flight was the non-stop service. Again, a request for seats to be released was upheld. That was in 2000, so things may be different now.

 

[aus_flyer]

I am quite impressed by their willingness (at times) to release seats. I managed to get return flights to Hong Kong in business - both days there were none available, and they released them for me.