Disillusionment sets in … is it worth it?

[FenderQF]

I wouldn’t get down on the situation. Yes, it is difficult and takes a lot of research but the longer you have experience with the issues and nuances of QF rewards booking the more it’s like water of a ducks back.

I have a fourth OWA J booking coming up this March and there has been changes and will probably be more before departure but flexibility is your friend if you can afford that luxury. Out of these four round the world trips taken, I have only taken 1 international leg in J on QF metal so my hopes are never high for availability there. It’s a great chance to experience other carriers and most are more than acceptable. For the first three bookings I was oblivious to the dramas possible in the ticketing and never had an issue. People will rarely go online to post a good experience compared to the negative issues.

Other things to look out for are points planes, a major gimmick in QF PR but I landed myself 2 x return flights to London in J on QF1/2 which I never thought would be possible.

Supply and demand at the moment are out of whack but the airline industry is fickle and a little time to adjust may make the world of difference.

 

[Human]

But am I a lost cause????

I agree with @GrahamBRI . Start small. For me, that meant New Zealand: lots of flights, easy availability, friendly, English-speaking people if something goes wrong. I literally took five trips to NZ before I went long-haul. Also the other posters here are correct: it's very rare that something actually does go wrong. I personally would avoid complex Qantas FF bookings at the moment until they get their customer service issues in order. But otherwise, start small and you'll be a seasoned traveller in no time!

 

[Rich]

I have spent the last eight weeks (several hours a day) reading hundreds of threads to try and develop an understanding how the FF program works

As others said, start small. It can really small too. Try going to another capital city return. There are usually plenty of seats as long as you look at least a week out. I have done it many times and never had an issue.
And if you go economy PM me, I may have a lounge pass I don't need.

 

[p--and--t]

YMMV

Qantas had over 21M passengers in the 2022 fin year. A year when every airline in the world experienced problems of one sort or another trying to ramp up from the pandemic when most almost ceased their flying due to restrictions, borders etc. More than a dozen airlines went financially belly up and only some of those resurrected. All have them have lost luggage, cancelled flights unexpectedly, late departures and arrivals and had issues with outsourced call centres and staff shortages (events that occur in non pandemic years). In the last year or so many airlines are flying in and out of airports that couldn't (some still can't) cope - that passengers blame on the airlines.

This site is mainly frequent flyers who have (very) high expectations and trying to milk every drop they can out of every reward program they can using every nuance in the various systems they can.

Regular business travellers (frequent flyers) like I used to be often become jaded with their routine work forced travel and any little hiccup becomes an annoyance to complain online about.

The alleged voted #1 airline in the world (not QF obviously) pissed me around so many many times in my booking for a recent QF awards trip to 4 countries and were the biggest issue with my trip. Delays in QF answering and lack of training of staff was a big frustration, but QF wasn't the root cause of the many issues with my booking.

If you spent your days reading over and over about how many people are killed and maimed on the roads every year and every story about someone who bought a lemon and the dealership gave them the run around, likely you will never want to buy a car or get a drivers licence.

Hundreds of millions of people travel every year without an issue. 99.999% chance you will too!

BTW: Not only airlines with call centre issues - I waited 22hrs in total over 4 attempts to get Commonwealth Bank call centre to answer my call during the pandemic.

 

[RichardMEL]

I also agree with many of the comments above - specially @MEL_Traveller - the complaints and problems you're reading about are, by in large, small in number (but in no way to downplay the issues of severity of the impacts of various problems) but so many go through without issue and if we all posted a "My reward booking was fine" posts it would be thousands imo.

And, the more stories we read about here, there's certain core issues (imo) that come into it. Forewarned is forearmed.. if one doesn't make changes on a partner like QR, for example via the call centre, then probably will not me an issue - conversely, if making changes to a booking via calling then it's a heads up to be vigilant about it.

Now, you've flagged you're a bit of a pessimist / "glass empty" person and there's probably a bit of a fear of the unknown what if's going on, and it is almost certainly very daunting trying to "play the game" - no doubt. knowing one's self is actually a strength in many ways.. so, as others say... start simple and small.. once you book and fly something and it's all fine then confidence will improve I'm sure.

 

[ZenFlyer]

I have spent the last eight weeks (several hours a day) reading hundreds of threads to try and develop an understanding how the FF program works - what I need to do, how to manage the booking and to be aware of the problems facing international travel. I am someone who sweats the small stuff ...

Hi there: I've found AFF to be a goldmine of information, and the posters here very generous with their time and expertise. That said, I'm not sure that reading hundreds of AFF threads (or individual threads on any other airline forum) is the best way to learn how a frequent flyer program works. I would suggest that you try stepping away from the details and focus first on the big picture, namely what are your travel goals and in what ways can you use the FF program to support them. While geared toward an American audience, I think this article provides a good structure for thinking about some of those questions: How to Get Started With Frequent Flyer Programs - NerdWallet And this AFF guide, which you've probably already seen, gives a more QF-focused on take on earnings and redemptions: The Ultimate Beginner's Guide to Qantas Frequent Flyer

It's good that you recognize your own tendencies to "sweat the small stuff." Be wary of getting caught up in the idea of achieving status (or the best upgrades, or whatever) for its own sake. FF programs are designed in part to get you to spend your money in ways that you might not otherwise, so you need to be careful that you are doing it in a way that supports your personal travel goals, whether that's the ability to travel more places (due to miles accumulation), the ability to travel in greater comfort (via rewards and upgrades to higher classes), or just to ensure that you are obtaining maximim rewards value for flying you are already having to do (for work, etc.) Good luck!

 

[jakeseven7]

This too shall pass....

It's a bad time for travel, demand exceeds supply, pent up demand from covid, people with bulk points they haven't been using etc etc

If you can use your points, even for economy, great. But otherwise your stockpile will be much more useful in the years to come.

The times I've managed to find international J seats, I've planned my trip around the flights I could get. If you're trying to find seats to match your specific dates, it's almost impossible. Y is a bit easier to get and is still great value with cash fares so high.

100%, i'm struggling to burn KrisFlyer points and on Cathay as well.

Nightmare times for all airlines and frequent flyers.

I think it will all even out in about 2 years.

 

[auriga]

Once upon a time, many years ago, my concept of frequent flyer points was basically I can earn points from a return trip to Europe, and the points get me a free ticket from Sydney to Melb.
That was easy.
The issues started when one gets greedy, reading about people redeeming fancy trips "worth" 20K, people wanting to "maximise" everything,

 

[SeatBackForward]

Once upon a time, many years ago, my concept of frequent flyer points was basically I can earn points from a return trip to Europe, and the points get me a free ticket from Sydney to Melb.
That was easy.
The issues started when one gets greedy, reading about people redeeming fancy trips "worth" 20K, people wanting to "maximise" everything,

Or when Airlines decide that running as financial institutions using their own made up quasi-currencies is far more profitable, than..err..flying planes.

 

[Zanzara]

The problem is that QF over-promise in their marketing and spin & then significantly under-deliver when someone actually tries to redeem points for what they have been sold and promised.

 

[robolb]

Something that caught me out recently...........

I was checking my wife's account. To make sure she had enough points for a requested upgrade.

She had zero points in the account!

Not sure if this is new, but if the account is not 'used' in 18 months, they delete all your points!
200,000 gone just like that............ bummer

There are certain conditions that do and do not qualify as 'usage'.
Suggest you check........

Probably old News for most here. But we have not travelled in 2 1/2 years.

 

[mrsterryn]

Something that caught me out recently...........

I was checking my wife's account. To make sure she had enough points for a requested upgrade.

She had zero points in the account!

Not sure if this is new, but if the account is not 'used' in 18 months, they delete all your points!
200,000 gone just like that............ bummer

There are certain conditions that do and do not qualify as 'usage'.
Suggest you check........

Probably old News for most here. But we have not travelled in 2 1/2 years.

This particular issue/result has come up often in AFF.
Interesting though when I just checked mine this was the banner
Don't remember having seen this before. Mind you I have spent points on non flights and a couple of other things to keep the account going

 

[robolb]

This particular issue/result has come up often in AFF.
Interesting though when I just checked mine this was the banner
Don't remember having seen this before. Mind you I have spent points on non flights and a couple of other things to keep the account going

Yes, that's the banner we saw........
I'll now make a point to 'spend' points every few months.

 

[Amanad78]

Yes, that's the banner we saw........
I'll now make a point to 'spend' points every few months.

You just need to earn 1 point every 18 months which you can do by using the Wellbeing App and earning 0.5 points every night for sleeping

 

[MEL_Traveller]

Something that caught me out recently...........

I was checking my wife's account. To make sure she had enough points for a requested upgrade.

She had zero points in the account!

Not sure if this is new, but if the account is not 'used' in 18 months, they delete all your points!
200,000 gone just like that............ bummer

There are certain conditions that do and do not qualify as 'usage'.
Suggest you check........

Probably old News for most here. But we have not travelled in 2 1/2 years.

You can call qantas to ask for the points to be reinstated. They will likely offer you a ‘challenge’ to earn 2000 points or whatever in the next three months, to get your points back. This could be through buying a case of wine, etc.

 

[robolb]

You can call qantas to ask for the points to be reinstated. They will likely offer you a ‘challenge’ to earn 2000 points or whatever in the next three months, to get your points back. This could be through buying a case of wine, etc.

Really? I might try that.

 

[AustraliaPoochie]

For Stargazer, the main point, is your QFF status.
As has been mentioned, unless you are at least QFF SG, its a lost cause, as the return of what you will give QFF, they consider what we offer them a pittance, as a lower status member.
You have to spend practically a lot of money flying, to get to QFF SG, or higher, lots of QF/QFlink/JQ dom flights, and quite a number of trans Tassie flights, in J.
If your main aim is to succeed in upgrades on int flights, with QFF or their partners.
You are fighting an uphill battle so to speak, in regards to award/reward seats, unless QFF releases a lot of seats on their own planes to where you want to go, or their partner airlines release lots of seats to QF.
(OffT) Take it this way, I have an aim of one day taking a flight as a dom pax on an int flight, ie, QF 10 from PER - MEL.
But QF has been stopping its 787 in PER, and putting the 332/333 instead onto that route, which I have tried before, PER - MEL and PER - SYD with QF and VA.
If QF won't or can't put the 787 onto the end flight on LHR to MEL, I won't get to succeed in my aim.(OnT).
***
Edit: to join replies.

Something that caught me out recently...........

I was checking my wife's account. To make sure she had enough points for a requested upgrade.

She had zero points in the account!

Not sure if this is new, but if the account is not 'used' in 18 months, they delete all your points!
200,000 gone just like that............ bummer

There are certain conditions that do and do not qualify as 'usage'.
Suggest you check........

Probably old News for most here. But we have not travelled in 2 1/2 years.

Yes, indeed, its old news to us old timers on here, who value our QFF points.
This is the reason I have a QTMC, to keep my QFF points alive, even by spending $10 per month, it only earns me 2.5 QFF points per month for Aust dom spend/spent, but still, no credit interest charges, and no debt on this account.
As above have said, contact QFF and see what you need to do to see if you can get the points back.
For others who value their QFF points, even if QF does not really value us, is to always keep your points moving, points in or points out, no matter what, at least once in 18 months, for QF and 24 months for VA.
Even having an EDR Woolworths account is good, to move 2000 EDR points to 1000 QFF points.
What is the notation?
Sometimes its not unknown for scammers to suck QFF members account dry.

 

[AustraliaPoochie]

Something that caught me out recently...........

I was checking my wife's account. To make sure she had enough points for a requested upgrade.

She had zero points in the account!

Not sure if this is new, but if the account is not 'used' in 18 months, they delete all your points!
200,000 gone just like that............ bummer

There are certain conditions that do and do not qualify as 'usage'.
Suggest you check........

Probably old News for most here. But we have not travelled in 2 1/2 years.

Yes, indeed, its old news to us old timers on here, who value our QFF points.
This is the reason I have a QTMC, to keep my QFF points alive, even by spending $10 per month, it only earns me 2.5 QFF points per month for Aust dom spend/spent, but still, no credit interest charges, and no debt on this account.
As above have said, contact QFF and see what you need to do to see if you can get the points back.
For others who value their QFF points, even if QF does not really value us, is to always keep your points moving, points in or points out, no matter what, at least once in 18 months, for QF and 24 months for VA.
Even having an EDR Woolworths account is good, to move 2000 EDR points to 1000 QFF points.
What is the notation?
Sometimes its not unknown for scammers to suck QFF members account dry.

 

[robolb]

Good advice @AustraliaPoochie , thanks.
It has never really been an issue before, as I used to fly so much on business, and still have heaps of points accumulating via credit cards etc.

It was only that my wife's account is barely used, and so that caught us out. She was a bit pissed to lose 200k points.
We rang qantas and if she reaches certain targets in the next 6 months, she'll get her points back.
She'll reach that target in a week!

I have now also signed her up to a couple of things that will keep some points movement going.

I agree on the chances of upgrades. Snow balls chance really for a Bronze.

I'm a lifetime Gold and only get them on rare occasions..
In fact they are so rare, rather than chance a Qantas upgrade on my next flight to Europe I just paid Business.......on Emirates.

Still if you don't apply, you'll never know. They may get lucky on the day. Or not

 

[Catweazle]

Really sorry to read your story, which is an extremely common one. I doubt there's a FF programme in the world whose points are harder to use than Qantas' at the moment. It's been a perfect storm, some of which is Qantas' fault (eg. they've made Qantas FF points too easy to accumulate, meaning there are too many points out there and not enough supply to meet demand) and some of which isn't (eg. Qatar, Emirates, Cathay etc withholding reward seats from Qantas FFs).

Is there any value in collecting points? Definitely -- but diversify! There are business class seats out there if you know how to look, but the vast majority of them -- currently -- are not bookable with Qantas points (at least if, like me, you're only Qantas FF Bronze). What goes around comes around and your Qantas points will be useful again at some stage (I guess). But just not at the moment. Velocity points, KrisFlyer miles, Avios -- they're not hard to come by and they have the added advantage of actually being useful when it comes to finding and booking seats.

Is it worth opening an Alaska frequent flyer account to earn on QF domestic? What are your thoughts on this, in terms of discount economy of Y fares?