Bronze QFF - stick to Qantas or join AA?

[serfty]

Alan n NM are correct. ...

Yep, & Dave make's 3 ...

That's the wrong part of that web page to quote Simon. You need to look at the notation relating to the * note.

The relevant part goes thus:

oneworld™ Members

oneworld benefits are available to qualifying passengers and eligible guests on scheduled flights that are both operated and marketed by a oneworld member airline. Eligible passengers have access to either the Admirals Club lounge or Flagship Lounge facility (where available) on the day of their departure. oneworld passengers qualify based on ... frequent flyer status as shown below: ...

Access Based on Frequent    Number of   Admirals Club    Flagship Lounge 
     Flyer Status            Guests        Lounge           Facility

Emerald* (see exception)       1            Yes                Yes
Sapphire* (see exception)      1            Yes                No
Ruby                          N/A           No                 No

*AAdvantage Executive Platinum® and AAdvantage Platinum® members must be departing on a oneworld operated/marketed flight that day. Excludes AAdvantage members traveling on solely North American itineraries. North America is defined as U.S. (including Hawaii and Alaska), Canada, Mexico (except Mexico City), Bermuda, The Bahamas, and the Caribbean

As a QF SG, you fall under the "Sapphire* (see exception)" category and as a Gold Qantas Frequent Flyer Status overrides your AA Plat status in this case you will have access.

Not only that; you get complimentary drink chits as well ...

 

[bighdad]

Thanks once again for all your help. Have now got 1st class HNL-WAS return, economy loop WAS-NYC-MIA-WAS, all on great dates. BTW, seems that YUPPs available HNL-WAS all year round for 1333 USD tax incl., and Jet* specials might keep the SYD-HNL run attractive. Have just got over the reflux of finding out that Jet* were having upgrade specials for 200 AUD per one way leg to HNL, but fortunately I can't find out how much the original economy tix were .

Reading this, and other threads, its quite clear that the majority of flyers that post advice have AA and QF, and are high up in both.

I have a few domestic flights coming up courtesy of the organisation I lecture for, which I hope to upgrade to Business with my hard-earned, thinking of status credits for QF SG eventually (will make silver with domestic and SYD-HNL on Jet* *class in March). Status credits are only recognised by QF, whereas the miles would be recognised by AA. Given that most flights from BNE to east coast are short haul, my intention is to use AA no., with V or YUPPs tix where I can, on international flights, and use QFF no. for domestic travel, booking mostly J class where I can, on QF flights.

Is this the strategy others have used? Seems having an SG as a backup for domestic US ACs is worthwhile, as per above posts. Might take time, but I may have QF SG by the time my AA Plat is up in Feb 08.

Think I just might be hooked on FF status ....

Andrew

 

[Dave Noble]

I have a few domestic flights coming up courtesy of the organisation I lecture for, which I hope to upgrade to Business with my hard-earned, thinking of status credits for QF SG eventually (will make silver with domestic and SYD-HNL on Jet* *class in March). Status credits are only recognised by QF, whereas the miles would be recognised by AA. Given that most flights from BNE to east coast are short haul, my intention is to use AA no., with V or YUPPs tix where I can, on international flights, and use QFF no. for domestic travel, booking mostly J class where I can, on QF flights.

I would suggest that you would be better off crediting the QF domestic flights to AA since you would earn the same number of points but they would have a higher value

e.g. BNE-SYD earns 1000 miles to QF scheme in economy / 1250 in business and as a Platinum AA member , you would earn the same

Comparing the values however... to book an award within Australia or between Australia and New Zealand costs 20k in economy and 35k in business using AA (with no fuel fines ) ,

Taking a SYD-AKl as an example

QF points r/t is 36,000 economy , 72,000 business. Just to upgrade would be 32,000 points. Compare that with AAs 20k economy/35k business

It can get worse for QF. If doing ( like NM wanted to book recently ) BNE-AKL , yet having to go via MEL due to availability , then the QF points jumped to 50k economy and 100k business ( and additional fuel fines for the extra segments) whilst AA requirements remained unchanged

On long haul flights, again AA has better value... SYD-LHR using AA points is 90/120/160k for Y/J/F vs 128/256/384k

Dave

 

[simongr]

D'oh - sorry guys - I keep mis-reading that section of the policies. This is great news for my AA flights in March - I have a bunch of domestic flights

Now does this mean that once I get EXP status I need to dump a few points into QF to retain gold.....

 

[Kiwi Flyer]

D'oh - sorry guys - I keep mis-reading that section of the policies. This is great news for my AA flights in March - I have a bunch of domestic flights

Now does this mean that once I get EXP status I need to dump a few points into QF to retain gold.....

Depends on if you want lounge access for wholly US itineraries on AA (and if working to QF lifetime status).

 

[serfty]

I would suggest that you would be better off crediting the domestic flights to QF since you would earn the same number of points but they would have a higher value ...

Methinks Dave Noble actually meant "you would be better off crediting the domestic flights to AA...", not QF.

 

[Shano]

D'oh - sorry guys - I keep mis-reading that section of the policies. This is great news for my AA flights in March - I have a bunch of domestic flights

Now does this mean that once I get EXP status I need to dump a few points into QF to retain gold.....

I have considered switching to AA for all of the reason's that have been posted on this forum, however my biggest quandary is that I doubt I would be able to accrue sufficient miles across AA and QF to maintain at least SG and AA Plat (hard to do on Y travel). As I work for a US organisation and have trips to the US, the loss of AC lounge access if only AA Plat would be a pain in the *rse.

 

[serfty]

D'oh - sorry guys - I keep mis-reading that section of the policies. This is great news for my AA flights in March - I have a bunch of domestic flights

Now does this mean that once I get EXP status I need to dump a few points into QF to retain gold.....

To add to Kiwi Flyer's comment, if you will be travelling AA frequently on Domestic US Flights it may be worthwhile to strategically credit a few to QF. For a guy with your travel patterns, it would not take much pointy end travel to retain QF SG.

Strategic crediting? e.g. In F class compare DFW-LAX (1231 miles, 120SC's or 1847 Qpoints) with DFW-YVR (1754 miles, 120SC's or 2631 Qpoints); in this case there may be more value in crediting the former to QF and the latter to AA.

FWIW, 120SC is 20% of that required to requalify QF SG. 1847 is 3.7% and 2631 is 5.3% of AA Plat requal.

There are other options you could consider, eg. Buying QP membership (not really cost effective unless you start living in the US) or QF LTG.

 

[serfty]

I have considered switching to AA for all of the reason's that have been posted on this forum, however my biggest quandary is that I doubt I would be able to accrue sufficient miles across AA and QF to maintain at least SG and AA Plat (hard to do on Y travel). As I work for a US organisation and have trips to the US, the loss of AC lounge access if only AA Plat would be a pain in the *rse.

Oz based QF WP's are in the situation that it is generally better to credit and maintain status with QF rather than AA.

This is solely due to the 100% status bonus which when combined with Oz CC point earnings, N/Q class not earning on AA, upgrades on QF flights etc, make overall earn and burn Point ratios come out with QF being better. One caveat here is that those QF WP who have attained QF LTG are possibly better off with AA.

For QF SG it's borderline with AA winning by a small amount; PS/NB should go with AA (unless almost all travel is on Qantas N or Q classes).

As with all such analysis', results can differ with individual circumstance so it really is a case here of YMMV.

 

[Shano]

Oz based QF WP's are in the situation that it is generally better to credit and maintain status with QF rather than AA.

This is solely due to the 100% status bonus which when combined with Oz CC point earnings, N/Q class not earning on AA, upgrades on QF flights etc, make overall earn and burn Point ratios come out with QF being better. One caveat here is that those QF WP who have attained QF LTG are possibly better off with AA.

For QF SG it's borderline with AA winning by a small amount; PS/NB should go with AA (unless almost all travel is on Qantas N or Q classes).

As with all such analysis', results can differ with individual circumstance so it really is a case here of YMMV.

At present earning rates it will take me another 6 years to attain LTG (less if my employer ever introduces a J class poicy for long haul ). As I am currently 37 then achieving LTG in my mid 40's is perhaps not so bad. By then the QFF program will no doubt have been subjected to further "enhancements" that makes it even less attractive.

Nice link to Wikipedia - always wondered what the origin of this acronym was

 

[simongr]

To add to Kiwi Flyer's comment, if you will be travelling AA frequently on Domestic US Flights it may be worthwhile to strategically credit a few to QF. For a guy with your travel patterns, it would not take much pointy end travel to retain QF SG.

And now that my boss has asked if I wouldn't mind helping out on a couple of jobs in Europe this year - if I have 4 DONE4s planned then I think QF QP and AA EXP might be likely. I think I willw wait until I get close to AA EXP before confusing things further - trips can be cancelled at the last minute...

 

[Kiwi Flyer]

I have considered switching to AA for all of the reason's that have been posted on this forum, however my biggest quandary is that I doubt I would be able to accrue sufficient miles across AA and QF to maintain at least SG and AA Plat (hard to do on Y travel). As I work for a US organisation and have trips to the US, the loss of AC lounge access if only AA Plat would be a pain in the *rse.

Don't forget you still have access when it is part of international itinerary.

 

[Kiwi Flyer]

And now that my boss has asked if I wouldn't mind helping out on a couple of jobs in Europe this year - if I have 4 DONE4s planned then I think QF QP and AA EXP might be likely. I think I willw wait until I get close to AA EXP before confusing things further - trips can be cancelled at the last minute...

With 4 business class RTWs in a year I would be at least considering status in a different alliance.

 

[serfty]

Don't forget you still have access when it is part of international itinerary.

Same day travel qualifies:

*AAdvantage Executive Platinum® and AAdvantage Platinum® members must be departing on a oneworld operated/marketed flight that day. Excludes AAdvantage members traveling on solely North American itineraries. North America is defined as U.S. (including Hawaii and Alaska), Canada, Mexico (except Mexico City), Bermuda, The Bahamas, and the Caribbean

 

[simongr]

With 4 business class RTWs in a year I would be at least considering status in a different alliance.

I am thinking that as well based on other comments you have made here. My concern with that sis that this year will be very strange (didnt I say that last year?) and I dont expect to have so many trips next year (repeating myself a second time...) so the value of status on other airlines isnt as great for me. Now if Emirtaes (EK?) were star alliance I would seiously consider it due to the opportunity to fly direct from LCA to DXB to SYD.

Still very much a holding patter here for me. Major meeting for my boss on 5 Feb means that all those decisions cant be made until then. ALso need to agree my Asia travel plans as well. By mid-late Febv I should have a reasonable plan in place to schedule flights etc.

 

[Shano]

Same day travel qualifies:

So that means as AA Plat I would have lounge access on a MEL-LAX-ORD-PIT flight, as long as it was ORD and PIT flights were connections to the MEL-LAX flight, and vice versa?

 

[Dave Noble]

And now that my boss has asked if I wouldn't mind helping out on a couple of jobs in Europe this year - if I have 4 DONE4s planned then I think QF QP and AA EXP might be likely. I think I willw wait until I get close to AA EXP before confusing things further - trips can be cancelled at the last minute...

I would personally look at sticking to the one programme and if you are going to find that u will be doing enough domestic US travel to desire AC access, then perhaps just trade an eVIP or 2 for a QP membership

I suggest that the miles will be better served in AA

Dave

 

[Dave Noble]

So that means as AA Plat I would have lounge access on a MEL-LAX-ORD-PIT flight, as long as it was ORD and PIT flights were connections to the MEL-LAX flight, and vice versa?

Yup

Dave

 

[NM]

D'oh - sorry guys - I keep mis-reading that section of the policies. This is great news for my AA flights in March - I have a bunch of domestic flights

Now does this mean that once I get EXP status I need to dump a few points into QF to retain gold.....

That is where the benefit of QF Lifetime Gold comes in really handy!

 

[Kiwi Flyer]

That is where the benefit of QF Lifetime Gold comes in really handy!

Nice fallback for some. Others are still working towards it.