Gold, Gold, Gone.

[RedSMS]

Well, it was a good ride while it lasted, however, sadly, today is my last day of QFF Gold. I was travelling (relatively) frequently from 2018 - March 2020, then shot off as soon as all the politicians decided that we could open up. So, I guess you could say I flew whilst 80pc of folks were still a bit panicked and traumatised. Got upgraded from PE to J from LAX-MEL last year, which was a first for me (and enormously exciting). GOLD made the trip so much easier due to the AA flagship access and such...So I guess, in deciding how to spend my last few hours as Gold, I thought I would book one leg of a SYD-LAX/LAX-SYD trip planned for mid june/early jul next year.I spent hours and hours last night checking if there was any J award availability arriving into DFW or JFK via AKL or vice versa ex MEL.And to my utter disbelief, the ONLY award flights between AU and USA is QF 11/12 (A380). Not even able to snag a seat on a bloody 787!Have I gone mad? I've been looking for weeks and weeks. I'm still kinda shocked.Are others experiencing this also? As in, you need to be closer to DFW or JFK but there's just not a single reward flight in J in june/July 24 beyond the city and flight pair of SYD-LAX QF 11/12?I know it's peak, but cmon....... so stingy!Or is there some other reason behind this?Cheers for taking the time to read this rant, and hope to hear from a few of you.

🛩

 

[kangarooflyer88]

Mr Seat 0A and I checked in to a flight to DXB with exactly our combined allowance of 116kg - to the massive approval of the check in operator! Seat Son lives there and we hadn’t visited him for a while due to COVID so we had a LOT of things to take over. For example, a dozen Aussie reds, a Le Creuset Dutch oven, a Thumper 4WD battery charger pack and jumper leads, an air compressor for filling up the tyres after 4WDing in the desert, some 1000 count sheets…. All of which items can certainly be bought there, but with a very hefty “expat tax” payable so we helped him spread his dollar further.

Good to see you got your money's worth on the checked bags. And look, I know a lot of folks carry hand bag only but there are many circumstances where quite frankly this solution won't work. And this is precisely where holding frequent flyer status comes in. I would encourage anyone to look at how much it costs to check in an additional bag (or two) with most airlines these days. Not too long ago (read: pre-COVID) it was customary to receive 2 free checked bags in economy travelling between North America and Australia. Now, we're lucky if it's just one. For instance, if we look at the QF baggage page we see 1 is now the norm for no status passengers flying coach between Australia and the Americas:


Notice that even if you hold stinky Qantas Silver status, you get 3 bags up to 32 kg each. And if you go over the baggage allowance? Prepare for some eye watering fees each way:

So even if you carry two bags for an extended trip to the USA, you are looking at roughly $600 AUD return extra if you hold no status. And that's just one trip folks. So yeah, extra baggage allowance sounds like a very pedestrian perk indeed, but it really can add up if you travel with checked bags often.

-RooFlyer88

 

[MEL_Traveller]

Except for returning from permanent residence overseas, I have never needed more than one bag… even for a month of travelling! Way too much hassle to manage more than one bag and one carryon.

Even when returning from living overseas it was ‘ye olde days’ when all travel to and from USA allowed 2PC in all classes… so easy solve… take a few extra hours and come back to Oz the long way!

 

[JohnK]

You mean the airlines?

No the elite only want the elite to be able to travel.

 

[RichardMEL]

No the elite only want the elite to be able to travel.

I don't really agree with this.

Let's take status and all that out of it, further let's take even premium cabin travel out of this.

While yes, pricing has been insane, even in Y post covid, it has finally *started* to improve in many markets.

but more broadly, consider the MANY LCC and ULCC carriers worldwide - they're hardly for "the elite" - the whole point is providing transport at a cheap(er) price.

In AU, The Rex's, Bonza's, JQ's etc (and VA to an extent) offer fares enabling many to travel. More broadly, easyJet, Ryanair, the US LCC's (Frontier, Spirit, etc), and Asian LCC's of which there are many but say AirAsia, Scoot, VietJet, Bamboo, etc etcv all provide transportation at pretty cheap prices.

Sure, low fare competition is not in all markets, and in the current environment capacity is still effecting availability of cheaper fares, but I wouldn't tie that to some notion of "the elite" (whoever they are) not wanting anyone but themselves to fly.

If the comment is more in relation to FF schemes being more revenue based and all of that, well that's a totally different argument - specially when tied to the notion of loyalty status. I'd say that QFF had been playing this game for a LONG LONG time before many others caught up - after all the notion of tier points/Status Credits since the launch of the QFF program have been more or less aligned to fare type paid.

I would say that compared to say 20-30 years ago, the explosion of lower fare options have made travel more accessable to far more people than just "the elite."