Double SC Promo [December 2010]

[JohnK]

My concern is that I’m cutting the positioning flights a bit fine. I have 2 hours before the BNE-MEL leg, but only 45 minutes before the BNE-ADL leg on the way back. This is the last Qantas flight of the day so if I miss the connection I’m screwed. At least as a JASA I’d get the points back, rather than losing a sale fare.

I assume Qantas won’t look after me if I miss the connection because it’s on different PNRs. Is that right, or will they apologise profusely for making me miss the connection and put me in a 5* hotel in Brisbane for the night? I am WP after all!

Why not call and link the 2 PNRs? With your status I think you will find that QF will more than likely look after even if you miss the connection on 2 separate PNRs.

Worse case scenario if you miss the connection is you will pay a change fee (not sure if the change fee is even required for a Business Any Seat Award) and get accommodation close to the airport that night if QF do not put you up in a hotel for the night.

Sounds like a good trip. Enjoy!

 

[kpc]

This post of mine seems to have disappeared but there is a link to a Nan run trip report that alot of us are doing so I have reposted it here:
http://www.australianfrequentflyer....on-configuration-help-25680-2.html#post384730

Here is a recent trip report from someone who has done the Bne-Mel-Syd-Nan-Syd-Mel-Bne J run:

Bula – Fiji With Air Pacific & Qantas (+ Pics) - FlyerTalk Forums

There is a seat map of the FJ 744 a/c in the report. Currently, I'm in 1B to Nan, and 2J from Nan.

 

[Verde]

I've been sucked in by the double SC promo.

I'm doing ADL-BNE-MEL-NAN-SYD-MEL-BNE-ADL in J between 21/1/11 and 24/1/11.

I've booked the positioning flights ADL-BNE and BNE-ADL as separate JASAs for 30100 points each. I’ll only have carry-on luggage.

The other flights cost $1350 thanks to this thread.

I don’t “need” the SCs as I already have 2000 this year and by March 31st I would get to 2400 without this trip anyway. So that’s a very handy 50,000 points.

The real benefits of this trip to me are:

• I get to sit in business class on a 747 for the first time in my life (I know the hard product is very dated).
• I get to spend a couple of days sitting in J with free booze all the way (I spend my real life in Y). I like flying.
• I get to spend about 8 hours in the MEL F Lounge for lunch & dinner. I’ve been to the SYD F Lounge 3 times since February (when I first hit WP), but never MEL.
• I earn about 20,000 points including loyalty bonus.
• I get to spend 2 days in Nadi and I won’t be contactable. And the exchange rate is really good.
• I get cheap smokes and scotch on the way back.
• I get 500+ lifetime SCs. I'm closing in on LTS and hoping to get to LTG.
• As I will earn 3000 SCs this year including this trip, I figure I’m more likely to be comp’d WP the next year if I don’t requalify. I expect to do less work travel next year but more international to take full advantage of WP while I have it, with my QFF points.

So that seems to be pretty good value to me. Especially as it is all J and I can cancel whenever I like at no cost in either points or cash.

I’m not all that happy at burning 60,000 points on the positioning flights though. If I can get return flights for a reasonable price I’d rather pay the cash and keep the points. I’m saving points for 2*Y RTWs and one J RTW which I want to do in 2011/2012. Those 60,000 points will let me book it a few months earlier.

My concern is that I’m cutting the positioning flights a bit fine. I have 2 hours before the BNE-MEL leg, but only 45 minutes before the BNE-ADL leg on the way back. This is the last Qantas flight of the day so if I miss the connection I’m screwed. At least as a JASA I’d get the points back, rather than losing a sale fare.

I assume Qantas won’t look after me if I miss the connection because it’s on different PNRs. Is that right, or will they apologise profusely for making me miss the connection and put me in a 5* hotel in Brisbane for the night? I am WP after all!

At least if the outbound positioning flight has a problem I can cancel the trip, go home, and get my points and cash back. I would lose money on the hotel booking though.

The alternative is to buy cheap Virgin Blue or Qantas positioning flights. If I go with VB I’ve got no chance of any favours if something goes wrong even though I’m Velocity Gold. I’d lose the fare as well, although the Qantas flights would be refundable.

I wonder how helpful Qantas would be if I had non-refundable Qantas positioning flights? I might ring and ask them.

I think my current plan with the JASAs is the safest and most enjoyable. If some good paid flight deals come up I’ll have to reconsider.

If anyone has any advice or experience of missed connections on different PNRs I’d really appreciate it.

Thank you to all the contributors on this thread, I couldn't do it without you.

I'm off on a similar trip. I'd been having a hard time justifying the cost, but ended up deciding to trade in 4 days in Adelaide for the four days in Fiji instead.

I've got the BNE-MEL-SYD-NAN trip booked for the 21st of Jan and the return trip booked for the 25th of Jan.

Not only should it be a nice holiday (though relaxing rather than exploring Adelaide and its surrounds), but hopefully I can combine it with a trip to the USA in July and some cheap SC there to get me to WP (about the only time I'm ever likely to make it).

I did find it quite interesting that when booking the seats, the best I could get as a SG was row three out of three in the domestic business class cabins. My YUP time in the USA earlier this year gave me access to pretty much any row I wanted (and I had no status at the time) and the AirPacific leg let me pick a seat anywhere too.

Plus I figure if I like Fiji I can go to the USA with a few day stop over in July (and the business return NAN-LAX is reasonable value and might help with getting WP too).

I was a bit disappointed that the Priority Privilege offer in January of 2-for-1 and keeping your cert at the Fiji IC was useless (I checked dates across a couple of weeks and couldn't use the BOGO at anytime), though my Ambassador cert was accepted so I'll use it for my first two nights and then have the other two in NAN - now just have to decide if I want to do a mattress run to get 2 x 1000 points or just stick to the one place for the two nights, which I expect I'll do. The only benefit to a mattress run (apart from the points) is I could use my late checkout from the IC to only have a brief stay somewhere cheap and then have my last night somewhere nicer (which would probably be a bit useless given the 9am departure flight).

The current sale starting today pretty much got me over the line, it makes an Albury-Brisbane positioning flight that bit much more reasonable (I'll probably stay at a hotel before flying out given the 5:55am departure, but upon getting back to BNE at a reasonable hour I'll visit relatives which will be nice and save getting a hotel room).

I'm aware it is a bit insane to do this, but I don't have any other expensive hobbies so figure I can pull this one off once and it'll make a good leap towards LTS (hopefully I move back to Newcastle in 2012 or 2013 and then I'll have very little reason to fly more than a few times a year, so just about any status will be hard to keep). If I pull it all off I'll call 2011 the year of platinum (hopefully making platinum with qantas, plat with priority club and I'm pretty tempted to go for a plat edge card with Amex too so it can replace my earth gold card).

 

[KitKat]

I'm aware it is a bit insane to do this, but I don't have any other expensive hobbies so figure I can pull this one off once and it'll make a good leap towards LTS (hopefully I move back to Newcastle in 2012 or 2013 and then I'll have very little reason to fly more than a few times a year, so just about any status will be hard to keep). If I pull it all off I'll call 2011 the year of platinum (hopefully making platinum with qantas, plat with priority club and I'm pretty tempted to go for a plat edge card with Amex too so it can replace my earth gold card).

Not insane on AFF
But I think you may find it hard to resist requalification again
Anyway good luck with your platinum year, and enjoy your trips

 

[Oneworldplus2]

I have elected not to do any Double Promo SC Runs for a number of reasons. Financially, it's not a problem for me to do a SC Run, but l see a few holes in QF's program as a WP and don't feel it's really worth it (1400/1200 is a fair amount of SC's to get each year, especially if your in Y) -

• Have moved and my field of work has changed dramatically where WP wouldn't really make a difference now. Transcon really helped me on the points side of things, but East Coast flying, it's not a huge difference. Did get more kg's when relocating from PER which was handy (3kg), but that's the only time l've ever been over weight, or close to it, in my life.

• Since reaching WP some 6 months ago, haven't really seen any improvements (face to face) with QF. Seat selection is good, but to me isn't that big a deal. On my last SYD-BNE vv flight, l noticed a few QF Golds in my row after glancing at their BP's.

• WP is DOUBLE the required SC's, but there is no way in hell l can see twice the benefits of SG, let alone x1.5 more than QF Gold. (aka, "QF enhancements")

• If l see an improvement in the QFF Program, l can do a AA SC Run later on in my year while on my RTW, if need be.

• I have a sneaky feeling that DJ will be revamping their Velocity Program when they roll out their new configured planes and it will be interesting to see QF's response.

• Could be worth jumping across to DJ, we'll just have to wait and see what happens.

 

[markis10]

I wonder if anyone has looked at the QF20/81 combo, not a bad way to get 50 SCs for $194 given you get 3 hours of F lounging at SYD. I am betting the transfer point at SYD would not see to many domestic transfers!

You could always then grab a JASA to TSV for 24000 points + cash and grab another 120 SCs, but it would mean an overnight in TSV, unless that was your intended destination in the first place and you just went the long way

 

[Joshua]

I wonder if anyone has looked at the QF20/81 combo, not a bad way to get 50 SCs for $194 given you get 3 hours of F lounging at SYD. I am betting the transfer point at SYD would not see to many domestic transfers!

You could always then grab a JASA to TSV for 24000 points + cash and grab another 120 SCs, but it would mean an overnight in TSV, unless that was your intended destination in the first place and you just went the long way

I've flown QF20/81 a couple times recently because it was cheaper than the direct BNE-ADL flight I would of otherwise taken. You should get both BP at BNE and avoid the horrid transfer desk. Once BNE check in staff put the orange sticker on both BP's which is apparently not good (says immigration). F shoebox lounge in BNE isn't open first thing in the morning, SYD first lounge is very quiet on Tuesday mornings. Both are now serviced by an A330 so no 24F on QF20. I'm still uncertain that they will qualify under the promotion. Was told not likely over the phone.

 

[oz_mark]

I'm still uncertain that they will qualify under the promotion. Was told not likely over the phone.

While a slightly different situation, in the past I have flown domestic legs of international flights in 'K' class (MEL-SYD), and they have posted correctly as full economy. In that case, the system seemed to have the smarts to know that staring in MEL and ending in SYD made it a domestic flight.

 

[markis10]

If you did not get the double credits I think you would have a good chance to claim, there is nothing to suggest domestic legs of international flights are not eligible.

 

[anat0l]

A little late to the party here, but I dug through my Inbox and found the email.

Originally said 50% extra, but as others have found and done, I completed the survey and upgraded to double SCs.

Don't have much money to spare, but I do have 150k pts. I was saving that for a F award, perhaps I should start blowing it on some JASAs or a short FASA, preferably in March next year (since my membership year starts in March and I only need 30SC by end February to retain WP.

Damn! Time to pull out the stops to get some ideas rolling... and fast (21 Dec is just around the corner)...

I'm glad I joined this convo after the usual "I didn't get picked... this is not fair... wah wah wah wah wah" posts are over...

 

[tuppaware]

No emails for tuppaware..
But then I did the Nadi run last week

 

[oz_mark]

If you did not get the double credits I think you would have a good chance to claim, there is nothing to suggest domestic legs of international flights are not eligible.

Outside of them not being international flights....

 

[markis10]

Outside of them not being international flights....

How so, they are classed as international by customs and QFs numbering scheme, and are operated as international flight under the QFs AOC.

 

[anchew]

Frequent Flyer - Earning Points - Fly - Double Status Credits

I wonder if those who didn't get the email can access and register via the link?

 

[Kendall Roy]

Frequent Flyer - Earning Points - Fly - Double Status Credits

I wonder if those who didn't get the email can access and register via the link?

Nope

Bonus Status credits on Qantas International Flights

Unfortunately you are not eligible to register for this promotion.
For other great offers see our Member Specials page.

 

[oz_mark]

How so, they are classed as international by customs and QFs numbering scheme, and are operated as international flight under the QFs AOC.

...and fly between two domestic ports. My experience from a QFF perspective is that they are treated as domestic flights. You can also request ODU's on such legs.

 

[froggerADL]

How so, they are classed as international by customs and QFs numbering scheme, and are operated as international flight under the QFs AOC.

As there is zero GST on the domestic legs, the ATO obviously considers them to be International flights.

However, I don't expect to get the double SCs for them. Would be nice though.

 

[markis10]

...and fly between two domestic ports. My experience from a QFF perspective is that they are treated as domestic flights. You can also request ODU's on such legs.

Should be interesting to see how things pan out then, ODUs on domestic legs of international services are part of the program after all:

On domestic legs of international services, On Departure Upgrades may be requested from Economy to Premium Economy class, Economy to Business class, or Premium Economy to Business Class where Premium Economy and Business class service is available

I will let you know how the flights post!

 

[oz_mark]

Should be interesting to see how things pan out then, ODUs on domestic legs of international services are part of the program after all:

My experience is that from the program point of view, they are treated as domestic. (K credits as full economy etc)

I will let you know how the flights post!

I'm guessing there will be what happens automatically, and what happens after a chat with FF central at QF

 

[simongr]

Just noticed that there is a flash promo for this on my status page and I was able to register for this. Sadly my next int'l flight in Mar is on BA (booked and paid already). I have a BKK trip on QF but we wont be paying for that until the new year