Changes to partner earns on QF

[dajop]

Seems odd. Surely they'd just send it to the email address on file irrespective of your country of residence??

It is very odd. I stopped getting them when I moved to SG, then about a year ago, I changed my physical address on the account back to Melbourne and started getting them again, and a few months later I moved it back to SG and after a couple of months they stopped again.

 

[RichardMEL]

I think Fred had a good point a few pages back about other programs' moves... just wait till the other shoe drops at AA - and surely it *must* with the way UA and DL have gone. AA has to be crunching the numbers and realise what's going on.

I agree absolutely with the notion that buying a J fare with any carrier and receiving Y SC's is crazy... even if MH(for example) are generally cheaper it's far from "Fairer" let alone simpler.

I'll say this though I bet you guys anything QF is counting on the VAST majority of their FF's to not know, notice or care about such things. Your once a year flyer on a holiday to europe or Malaysia or whatever would never get enough SC's to get to Silver let alone anything else, so the effect on them is minimal. It's the status chasers like us (a small minority, though probably average higher spending crowd) that care enough to look into the details and work out how bad it is.

overall QF is probably thinking they won't see much change in income, and probably a small cost advantage due to slightly lower elite numbers and the like.

 

[eastwest101]

Its just demographics as well when you think about it, as the QFF demography gets older with less "new" members and the increasing liability of the older cohort reaching LTG and crediting to AA or trying out other airlines/alliances.

Seems like the guys at QF have recognized that their QFF is a demographic time bomb and are unwilling to think outside the box to grow their airline loyalty business.

Several things that could have been worth thinking about were a LTP tier, or a sensible re-alignment of SC earn and maximising their OneWorld partnership strengths, or even dedicating their resources to get their products consistent and world leading, as their prices are certainly world leading. This needs to be balanced with the need to direct revenue to QF without taking the short term "stick" to people who need to fly to places that QF doesn't fly to (which is a lot of the world).

I am operating on the basis that QFF points are almost worthless now because of points inflation and difficulty redeeming points back into flights, but QFF SC earn is still the key to obtaining higher tier benefits (such as lounge access, upgrade, increased baggage allowances etc). The fact that the official rep has offered no defence or discussion of the changes and the way they were buried in a fairly innocuous monthly email speaks volumes about Qantas' priorities.

 

[RichardMEL]

Agree re points. I don't even bother with how many I'll earn on flight X or Y. It's about the SC's for me.

I imagine if QF established a LTP tier, even at say 30000 SC's it would still be a heap of instant life plats. No real incentive for QF to do it - after all if you've gotten that many on QF, you're likely loyal for life anyway and high yielding enough that you get all the benefits anyway (since your spend would get you at least WP year after year until you stop flying in which case LT status won't matter much).

I think it's part of the old thinking that it costs a lot less to retain a loyal customer than to get a new one in. There's little gain for QF (I imagine that's how they see it) to have such a thing.

It is interesting to note that UA recently did allow lifetime 1K (roughly equivalent to WP) at I think the 3 million mile mark, or something like that) and there is BA who do it, but other than those guys it's not really an option in most programs that I am aware of.

 

[Princess Fiona]

Agree re points. I don't even bother with how many I'll earn on flight X or Y. It's about the SC's for me.

I imagine if QF established a LTP tier, even at say 30000 SC's it would still be a heap of instant life plats. No real incentive for QF to do it - after all if you've gotten that many on QF, you're likely loyal for life anyway and high yielding enough that you get all the benefits anyway (since your spend would get you at least WP year after year until you stop flying in which case LT status won't matter much).

I think it's part of the old thinking that it costs a lot less to retain a loyal customer than to get a new one in. There's little gain for QF (I imagine that's how they see it) to have such a thing.

It is interesting to note that UA recently did allow lifetime 1K (roughly equivalent to WP) at I think the 3 million mile mark, or something like that) and there is BA who do it, but other than those guys it's not really an option in most programs that I am aware of.

AY also has Lifetime OWE.

 

[RichardMEL]

AY also has Lifetime OWE.

I learn something new most days

 

[Isochronous]

I vaguely recall AY LT OWE being a lot harder to attain thanBA, but I could be wrong on that.

 

[RooFlyer]

AY also has Lifetime OWE.

Be still, my beating heart .

I vaguely recall AY LT OWE being a lot harder to attain thanBA, but I could be wrong on that.

OK, that did it.

 

[JohnK]

I learn something new most days

To get Oneworld Emerald on Finnair was a struggle. Harder than CX from memory. Not for the faint hearted.

Lifetime Platinum would be suicide for Qantas.

 

[katiebell]

AY also has Lifetime OWE.

AY allow membership in Aus (unlike BA) so worth considering a swap

 

[katiebell]

I vaguely recall AY LT OWE being a lot harder to attain thanBA, but I could be wrong on that.

Would that be before or after the recent BA exec club 'enhancements'?

 

[Alanslegal]

Lifetime Platinum would be suicide for Qantas.

Why would it be? A Lifetime Platinum, best long haul economy cabins, and fares that are better than Low Cost Carriers - sounds familiar? I am sure you would be gunning for that status in no time

That said, I still disagree to some of your points previously but we'll debate that at another place, another time

 

[medhead]

Elites (Oneworld Emerald too) get first choice of meal, cappuccino, cheese, champagne.. practically anything but it's all on demand just like biz/first.

Precisely my experience on my first CX flight a couple of days ago. &:30am departure - Me: would it be possible to have a champagne with breakfast. FA: Hang on a tick. 3 minutes later Purser/CSM/whatever the title of the person who greeted me (as in actually came to me and actually welcomed me on board using actual words, actually) returns with a beaker of the good bubbly stuff from the front of the plane.

Not to mention that check in involved - "We would like to upgrade you? Is that ok?" That is service to actually consider whether I would like to be upgraded!

For those following at home the upgrade was to Y+.

So.. finally getting around to reading the latest Dyslexic Enhancements (apologies to any dyslexics who take offence) - but that is the only logical way to explain how QF Loyalty has managed to sign off on two consecutive years worth of Simpler and Fairer'ing that was obviously written by a 12 year old work experience kid with ADHD after consuming 3 kg of sugar......

anyway - some initial observations... I'll add to them as I go through my notes:

- Route Definitions....
Finally, some common sense has prevailed. Since WTF someone would describe DFW or IAH as West Coast USA has all the logical sense of a Japanese tourist forgetting his camera at a dwarf-throwing competition. I mean just try telling someone from Orange County that they're from LA!! No wonder the Texans revolted.

Anywho - some common sense region definitions have finally found their way to the necessary tables (Of course you need multiple PhDs in Neuroscience and Quantum Physics and a telescope to locate the necessary information on the QF site, let alone understand it). I currently have 6 discrete windows open, god help the average member of the program.

Back on-topic - I hope someone was sacked and that this version of the program has actually been designed by someone at QF with an IQ higher than 3. So far - I'm giving the benefit of the doubt.

- There was an opportunity to get rid of the stupid superfluous Short/Medium/Long haul tables - and QF botched it with the kind of performance usually reserved only for career federal public servants.

PRO TIP for QF - A simple three lines:

"Domestic Short - Under 750 Miles
Domestic Medium - Between 751-1500 Miles
Domestic Long - Over 1500 Miles"

OMG - how simple was that!!??!!?? (PS. Qantas - next time that will be $20,000 for that advice - you can have that one on the house).

WAIT - What's that Skip?? That looks and sounds like the old distance zone earning tables that were uber-super-easy to read..?? Yes Skip, it does!

And YEP - The "Other" table could have simply been:
"Int Zone 1 - up to 750
Int Zone 2 - 751-1500
etc etc".

Yes Skip, I don't know either how they could be so stupid as to overcomplicate the simplest things in life..??

- The "Earn Categories" is not bad... It actually is Simpler to understand and simply allocates a descriptive term to fare classes. This table is an improvement.

- The QF/JQ Earn Table is ... no there are no complimentary words.... sigh.

Okay - So a Discount Economy QF flight has a minimum points guarantee of 800 points. So..... anyone with an IQ over 10 would have put "800^" in the relevant position on the Earning Table for the Domestic Short/Medium sections.

Seriously??? It's not difficult. How stupid can people be??

QF used to list earn (that was affected by minimum points guarantee) exactly as I've described. Why this new approach on the table? I constantly underestimate the ability of people to impress me with new levels of idiocy.


- HOLY **** BATMAN!!

Yes Boy Wonder - We can travel to other planets, we can harness the power of the atom - but WOULD SOMEONE PLEASE EXPLAIN HOW ON GOD'S EARTH a simple "QF Marketed International Flight Earning Table with 7 simple mileage zones" requires 8 SEPARATE CONFUSING TABLES to say THE SAME THING!!! (Well close enough to the same thing, yes there are slight differences, but I personally would have simply rounded them all down to the earnings in the 7 zone table - yes I know this would be an enhancement in QF's favour - but it makes more sense).

Seriously - was there a competition for who can take a simple 7-zone table and turn it into the most complicatedly possible set of tables known to man??

I am totally lost for words (despite the evidence to contrary) as to how unbelievable moronic this is..?? Was this actually approved for publication?? Was it actually signed off on by a Group Executive???

How much MONEY was wasted with this???????

How much was spent on updating ALTEA to accommodate this..??..??

- Easy answer - you'll earn significantly less points on the AA code to the USA vs the QF code.


SUMMARY:
- Look - QF are the best in the industry at RM, and I promise you that their pivot-tables say that the individual route tweaking represents the optimum allocation of points/SCs for various partner agreements, interlining and marketing codes. (As opposed to a simple zone based table).

BUT - those models are all based on assumptions of behaviour that are flawed.

QF can easily move to a zonal-based earning table (as per the final table) instead of the old point-per-mile basis, and still come out ahead whilst keeping things simple.

It shouldn't be this way - but any fool can make something complex but making something simple is difficult.

And QF clearly has no shortage of fools

Come on now, QFF management told us, at lunch, that the simple mileage zone table was too hard for people to understand. 7 tables must be so much more easy to read that having to actually look up the distance on a route to compare to one table. You don't buy that Equine Excrement?

I wonder how the team working on aligning the redemption table to simpler and fairer earning is going. If we're too dumb to read a mileage based earning table how are we able to read the redemption table?

Too much sarcasm

 

[trippin_the_rift]

Lifetime Platinum would be suicide for Qantas.

100% agree it would be a fantastic way for QF to shoot themselves in the foot.
In a new format I think LTP could be advantageous, but I will not list those publicly.

 

[trippin_the_rift]

Precisely my experience on my first CX flight a couple of days ago. &:30am departure - Me: would it be possible to have a champagne with breakfast. FA: Hang on a tick. 3 minutes later Purser/CSM/whatever the title of the person who greeted me (as it actually came to me and actually welcomed me on board using actual words, actually) returns with a beaker of the good bubbly stuff from the front of the plane.

Not to mention that check in involved - "We would like to upgrade you? Is that ok?" That is service to actually consider whether I would like to be upgraded!

I'm all smiles reading this.

Although CX Qantasized the MPO program last month - CX crew attitude is nothing short of spectacular with consistency in my ~40 CX flights this year.

 

[RooFlyer]

Just seen that my 3 recent QR flights in economy have earned a glorious total of 0 points and 0 SCs (not that I was expecting much).

I've gone to the earning points calculator to check and it refuses to give me ANY cities to choose from (I'm logged on, etc). Am I doing something wrong? Or are the work experience kids doing overtime?

Edit - and my QF flight (Y, points upgrade to J) MEL-HBA last Friday apparently earned zero points and SCs as well :shock: :evil: . Feeling much simplified and fairer.

 

[RichardMEL]

Lifetime Platinum would be suicide for Qantas.

Don't you mean Lifetime "Plold" John?

 

[david1]

Feeling much simplified and fairer.

If every flight is 0 SCs and 0 pts, you can't say it isn't simple!

 

[RooFlyer]

Now I can't get the calculator to appear at all, and links on the 'earning points' page won't open.

Surely you don't go tinkering with this stuff during the day/evening (at least where most of your customers are) ??

 

[andye]

Would that be before or after the recent BA exec club 'enhancements'?

The BAEC enhancements weren't too bad for earn except for discount economy (which is less relevant to the LTOWE).
Importantly, they still treat other OW the same for Tier Points; this was one of the reasons I started crediting to them so I have a variety of OW airlines to choose for the kangaroo route and still reach OWS.
The sting was in the redemptions