Re: MASA post June 2013
Okkkk, Double status credits have led me to this
.
Rang up Qantas on the 1300 number, got through straight away to platinum desk, lady on phone knew exactly what I was talking when I used the term "Marginal Any Seat Award" we went through an intial option I was looking at BNE-MEL-PER-KTA, KTA-PER-SYD-HBA. Unfortunately the Mel leg had an overnight stopover and thus she started to attempt to book those as two separate legs as the system wouldn't allow her to book it together so I instead costed the BNE-SYD-PER-KTA, KTA-PER-SYD-HBA with 05:00 BNE departure. After some fiddling, she had some trouble finding the flights I wanted as it kept trying to suggest the more direct flights first. Eventually got through to pricing and it came to 135110 points I asked her if she could move it down to 72,000 points and came back with and $590.43.
I then asked her if it was possible to find out what each leg costed but she said this wasn't possible so I asked if she was able to save that and try another routing, she came back with she couldn't and had to erase the current, but she was happy to look at as many options as I wanted provided I had the time to do so. So we erased that and tried the second routing I had prepared earlier which was HBA-MEL-PER-KTA, KTA-PER-SYD-HBA. This one came out to 135082 points or 72,000 and $590. I'd saved my self 28 points! Anyway I ummed and ahhhed about it for a bit thinking which route I would prefer and ended up coming back for HBA return mainly because of two A330 services instead of the 767.
Then came the last question do I want to use all points or use cash. This was difficult cause I also expected the cash to bit lower I was thinking around the $450 mark. I ended up deciding the hassle of the booking and still getting roughly $1 to 1000 points I'll just book all points. plus I have another 150,000 points in the bank.
Anyway so with double status credit should get 760 status credits 16,062 points due to platinum and cabin bonus. all being one and a half loyalty bonuses get at least 8,000 on top of that back also.
Overall the experience was a little painful, I didn't like the idea of having to go through every option with the person and if I was available online I would of checked a lot more options. Found it quite frustrating not know what the points were going to be till the end also and not being able to compare the different flight options.
Also she did state at a couple of points the classic is generally much cheaper but didn't really push it, for what I ended up with the Classic was a total of 126,000 all inclusive or 100,000 and $213.88. So 135082 - 16062 points - 8000 loyalty bonus = 111020 points net. Way I look at it, I've spent 15,000 less points and received 760 status credits.
