SCM
Member
- Joined
- Dec 23, 2021
- Posts
- 412
- Virgin
- Platinum
Hello everyone. This is going to be a lengthy post with a lot of questions, I hope some of you can help me!
Bit of context, I love flying & traveling, have generally traveled as budget as I can in the past just because I don't like wasting money (or more so I like getting very good value for my money), but I've also travelled exclusively to Asia, which is a fairly close destination so more manageable in economy - esp flying mostly with premium airlines which give at least some legroom. My best experience to date is flying SQ A380 which at the time probably felt something like business class even though I was in economy.
Recently I've been accumulating various program rewards points since 2020 and find myself with 450K QFF and 250k Velocity. All of this is from "on the ground", and I don't really often fly with Qantas because they tend to be quite expensive on many (but not all) international routes. I also very rarely fly domestic/NZ, but when I do it's always with Rex or Jetstar. I've flown more domestically in the last 2 years than I have in my entire life prior and probably/hopefully the rest of my life, so I'm primarily interested in international travel.
My initial intention was just to use points to save a lot on flights using rewards (for example, flying economy to Japan with JAL seems to be super good value for money, but even business class is not much more expensive), but I'm now also more interested in higher value/money classic reward seats like business, especially on longer haul flights.
I also have a very large amount of leave (months and months) and holiday budget saved due to not traveling for the better part of the last 3 years, and have been planning to go on a longer trip to Europe since 2020. So basically there is a large confluence of factors here:
- Have a lot of points
- Have a lot of leave
- Have an unused 3 years worth of holiday budget
- Need to travel a lot in the next 1-2 years (to take a break from lots of work and because I'm sure my company hates me for all this accrued leave)
I will probably mostly use QFF/O related stuff for flying, and save my velocity for later. I currently have 0 status credits and not in any tier (other than the broze). My rollover date is 30th of April, so I'm aiming to get at least qantas gold status immediately after so I can lock it in for almost 2 years and then use things like the priority check ins and business lounges for a lengthy time period (as I plan to undertake a lot more travel, etc).
Questions
Original plan was to fly to Japan and use that as a local hub for some travel around the immediate area, and then head to Europe through Russia, but it would seem like every asian country I wanted to travel is going to be closed for a long time, so I'm now looking at plan B, flying directly to Europe.
In terms of flying to Europe, I'm aiming for Frankfurt since it's a hub it seems one of the cheaper destinations, and from there I can fly pretty much everywhere else easily, correct me if this is a bad idea. I'm looking at dates around May-June/July for return business, and my idea is to book a return airfare during a qantas double credit promotion which I assume will happen in Feb or March, and get up to gold status. This is just a very rough plan or maybe even theme, and here come a lot of the questions.
1) I see that SG business SYD-FRA is around 6k the cheapest, and Qatar is more expensive but Emirates/QF flightshare is the most expensive at around 7.1k for those dates. However as I understand it, I will get just a very small amount of status credits if I book with a partner airline, and Qantas doesn't even list partner routes, only it's own codeshare with Emirates.
1a) Can anyone specifically confirm my understanding, SYD-FRA with emirates under QF code is 280 SC one way, so 560 SC return and 1120 SC return with a double credit promotion (assuming it will apply to all routes).
1b) Flying with Qatar or SQ it would be something like 140 credits one way 280 both ways, and not eligible for the double credits promotion.
1c) Would it be reasonable to only fly qantas/emirates to get SQs and not for any other reason since they seem way more expensive? Say if you already have whatever tier of status you want, you could just fly SQ or Qatar or Finair or whatever else to get the same or better comfort level at a cheaper cost.
1d) I'm guessing if I do fly Emirates I should definitely aim to fly on a QF codeshare flight rather than EK flight to maximise SCs/points. Does it make any difference for the flight itself - ie. I will still get access to business lounge presumably (for business ticket flight), etc?
1e) If I do earn 1120 SCs with that one return journey, that puts me very close to platinum and I think there will be 2x free 50 SCs in between which means 1220 so only 180 left? With double status thats only 90 SCs I need. Can anyone recommend the most cost-optimal flights for this (even domestic, but not Perth since I assume it will be closed all year).
1f) How long do SCs take to credit and is it different by domestic, international, international codeshare? I'm just thinking if I could line it up and jump the gun, fly a bit earlier than my anniversary date, with the assumption that they will be credit in the next cycle. Or are they credited to the exact date of travel, even if it does take 6 weeks? Any advice on this?
2) I also noticed that for whatever reason, flying business from any AU city is way way way more expensive than most of the rest of the world. For example, Qatar flies Jakarta to Frankfurt return business for a measily 2.5k, which pales in comparison to the cost for even that same airline flying from Sydney. You could fly QF economy return to Jakarta for around $800 and its still way way cheaper. You could give a similar argument for Singapore, Denpasar (1k more expensive than Jakarta for some reason despite being very close), Tokyo and many others. You could even fly classic reward business return to Tokyo for fairly cheap money and points wise and then fly to Europe from there (although not very time efficient unless you want to spend time in the area). Can anyone comment on this? Do you guys suggest any specific departure airports which are optimal in terms of low business return cost per hour flown and fairly close to Sydney (ie. manageable in economy or even discount airlines)?
3) Does anyone have any views on Qantas FF program vs Qatar? Hypothetically if you achieve the OS tier it shouldn't matter too much (especially outside of Australia), so would one be easier to get a good status? I would just assume that Qantas may be easier if you book with a double SC promotion, but I don't know much about Qatar program and how easy it is to get gold at all. Since I travel almost exclusively internationally, I don't really care much about things like domestic upgrade priority and domestic lounges, etc. And Qatar has way more flights around the world whereas Qantas has very very few routes they serve, so it seems quite inferior in terms of earning SCs anyway in terms of going to/from Europe.
4) How do business lounges work on arrival, would you ever be granted access to one? For example, say I fly Emirates to Frankfrurt, would I be allowed into the business lounge ahead of onwards economy flight (from FRA to somewhere else) and assuming no oneworld tier access? Does it matter if the onwards flight is with oneworld or not? I guess it may be possible if the onwards flight is oneworld and I have saphire but otherwise is it a no?
5) Speaking of, I noticed that all the gulf airlines actually charge considerably more to fly into them then in and onwards out. For example, to fly to any major European city, it's actually cheaper to fly two segments (ie. SYD-DXB, DXB-FRA) business than it is to just fly to DXB (and then fly a different airline out, etc). This seems very strange and counter-intuiative - ie. aren't they hurting domestic tourism this way? Is this a normal thing to be happening and what is the reason for it?
The reason I'm asking this was that my original idea was to fly to the gulf in business (most challenging part of the journey), and then from there to Europe in economy, and with a DSC promotion would still be enough for qantas gold. I'm guessing this is not possible due to this oddity of pricing.
6) On that note, are the current business return prices from SYD/AU to EU normal or are they inflated due to covid? I have never checked before, so I have no idea what they were pre-covid.
7a) When booking flights through Amex (I want to use my flight credit), is there any downside compared to booking with Qantas I need to know about? For example, do you get all the same points, SCs, double SC promotion would still apply? What about things like the new qantas flexibly flying for no-fee thing - does it apply when booked through a TPA and I presume Amex would be considered a non-direct booking?
7b) Same question about booking through another airline (eg. Qatar through Qatar) - I assume you would put in your QFF number and would get the appropriate qantas SCs and points according to their partner earning tables?
8) In general, Unless it's a QF coded flight/flightshare, you will always earn a lot less SCs and points (with partner/oneworld airlines), is that right?
9) Context - I have a friend who flew to Europe recently with Qatar and they completely avoided having to do any and all tests at any point, so this is the experience I'm looking for.
9a) Can anyone confirm/clarify - do you need a PCR test to transit through Dubai? I think not based on what I read on their website, but they do not make it clear. And I'm not talking about any destination requirements (ie. say you pick a destination which also does not require it or you're a citizen of a European country which doesn't require it for citizens).
9b) Does anyone know (especially any recent experience) if you need a PCR test to enter the business lounges in DXB? I swear I read somewhere that you do in my research lately, but now I can't find this anywhere.
10) Any idea how long airlines will require masks? I know Emirates said probably 2 years but this seems a bit ridiculous, especially if you are flying business class where you are already fairly isolated, it just makes the experience much worse. Do you think some other airline (maybe Qatar for example) potentially will want to compete by not requiring masks or maybe it can be a new benefit of business class? Has anyone heard anything about this? I assume if any gulf airlines does this, the rest will have to follow pretty quickly or lose customers. Alternatively maybe they can do it 50/50 - that is some flights require it and some don't, so those customers who want it/don't want it can book accordingly - I remember reading something about this at some point as an idea within the industry. Also alternatively, is it something which is actually enforced (in business class or otherwise)?
11) On the topic, does anyone know when/how it will be easier to travel around Europe and attend places without needing any specific vaccination stuff? As far as I understand, it's just not possible now because an Australian cannot get an EU vaccination code/certificate, so I'm just making a huge assumption they will sort it out very soon. I don't understand why countries are moving so slowly on this, they will never get tourism back until a person from outside EU can travel and visit any/most country and definitely any venue they want.
No doubt I will have more questions, but I feel like I'm at an impass to my planning and research until I learn more about the topics above, thank you so much for anyone who reads all this mumbo jumbo!
Bit of context, I love flying & traveling, have generally traveled as budget as I can in the past just because I don't like wasting money (or more so I like getting very good value for my money), but I've also travelled exclusively to Asia, which is a fairly close destination so more manageable in economy - esp flying mostly with premium airlines which give at least some legroom. My best experience to date is flying SQ A380 which at the time probably felt something like business class even though I was in economy.
Recently I've been accumulating various program rewards points since 2020 and find myself with 450K QFF and 250k Velocity. All of this is from "on the ground", and I don't really often fly with Qantas because they tend to be quite expensive on many (but not all) international routes. I also very rarely fly domestic/NZ, but when I do it's always with Rex or Jetstar. I've flown more domestically in the last 2 years than I have in my entire life prior and probably/hopefully the rest of my life, so I'm primarily interested in international travel.
My initial intention was just to use points to save a lot on flights using rewards (for example, flying economy to Japan with JAL seems to be super good value for money, but even business class is not much more expensive), but I'm now also more interested in higher value/money classic reward seats like business, especially on longer haul flights.
I also have a very large amount of leave (months and months) and holiday budget saved due to not traveling for the better part of the last 3 years, and have been planning to go on a longer trip to Europe since 2020. So basically there is a large confluence of factors here:
- Have a lot of points
- Have a lot of leave
- Have an unused 3 years worth of holiday budget
- Need to travel a lot in the next 1-2 years (to take a break from lots of work and because I'm sure my company hates me for all this accrued leave)
I will probably mostly use QFF/O related stuff for flying, and save my velocity for later. I currently have 0 status credits and not in any tier (other than the broze). My rollover date is 30th of April, so I'm aiming to get at least qantas gold status immediately after so I can lock it in for almost 2 years and then use things like the priority check ins and business lounges for a lengthy time period (as I plan to undertake a lot more travel, etc).
Questions
Original plan was to fly to Japan and use that as a local hub for some travel around the immediate area, and then head to Europe through Russia, but it would seem like every asian country I wanted to travel is going to be closed for a long time, so I'm now looking at plan B, flying directly to Europe.
In terms of flying to Europe, I'm aiming for Frankfurt since it's a hub it seems one of the cheaper destinations, and from there I can fly pretty much everywhere else easily, correct me if this is a bad idea. I'm looking at dates around May-June/July for return business, and my idea is to book a return airfare during a qantas double credit promotion which I assume will happen in Feb or March, and get up to gold status. This is just a very rough plan or maybe even theme, and here come a lot of the questions.
1) I see that SG business SYD-FRA is around 6k the cheapest, and Qatar is more expensive but Emirates/QF flightshare is the most expensive at around 7.1k for those dates. However as I understand it, I will get just a very small amount of status credits if I book with a partner airline, and Qantas doesn't even list partner routes, only it's own codeshare with Emirates.
1a) Can anyone specifically confirm my understanding, SYD-FRA with emirates under QF code is 280 SC one way, so 560 SC return and 1120 SC return with a double credit promotion (assuming it will apply to all routes).
1b) Flying with Qatar or SQ it would be something like 140 credits one way 280 both ways, and not eligible for the double credits promotion.
1c) Would it be reasonable to only fly qantas/emirates to get SQs and not for any other reason since they seem way more expensive? Say if you already have whatever tier of status you want, you could just fly SQ or Qatar or Finair or whatever else to get the same or better comfort level at a cheaper cost.
1d) I'm guessing if I do fly Emirates I should definitely aim to fly on a QF codeshare flight rather than EK flight to maximise SCs/points. Does it make any difference for the flight itself - ie. I will still get access to business lounge presumably (for business ticket flight), etc?
1e) If I do earn 1120 SCs with that one return journey, that puts me very close to platinum and I think there will be 2x free 50 SCs in between which means 1220 so only 180 left? With double status thats only 90 SCs I need. Can anyone recommend the most cost-optimal flights for this (even domestic, but not Perth since I assume it will be closed all year).
1f) How long do SCs take to credit and is it different by domestic, international, international codeshare? I'm just thinking if I could line it up and jump the gun, fly a bit earlier than my anniversary date, with the assumption that they will be credit in the next cycle. Or are they credited to the exact date of travel, even if it does take 6 weeks? Any advice on this?
2) I also noticed that for whatever reason, flying business from any AU city is way way way more expensive than most of the rest of the world. For example, Qatar flies Jakarta to Frankfurt return business for a measily 2.5k, which pales in comparison to the cost for even that same airline flying from Sydney. You could fly QF economy return to Jakarta for around $800 and its still way way cheaper. You could give a similar argument for Singapore, Denpasar (1k more expensive than Jakarta for some reason despite being very close), Tokyo and many others. You could even fly classic reward business return to Tokyo for fairly cheap money and points wise and then fly to Europe from there (although not very time efficient unless you want to spend time in the area). Can anyone comment on this? Do you guys suggest any specific departure airports which are optimal in terms of low business return cost per hour flown and fairly close to Sydney (ie. manageable in economy or even discount airlines)?
3) Does anyone have any views on Qantas FF program vs Qatar? Hypothetically if you achieve the OS tier it shouldn't matter too much (especially outside of Australia), so would one be easier to get a good status? I would just assume that Qantas may be easier if you book with a double SC promotion, but I don't know much about Qatar program and how easy it is to get gold at all. Since I travel almost exclusively internationally, I don't really care much about things like domestic upgrade priority and domestic lounges, etc. And Qatar has way more flights around the world whereas Qantas has very very few routes they serve, so it seems quite inferior in terms of earning SCs anyway in terms of going to/from Europe.
4) How do business lounges work on arrival, would you ever be granted access to one? For example, say I fly Emirates to Frankfrurt, would I be allowed into the business lounge ahead of onwards economy flight (from FRA to somewhere else) and assuming no oneworld tier access? Does it matter if the onwards flight is with oneworld or not? I guess it may be possible if the onwards flight is oneworld and I have saphire but otherwise is it a no?
5) Speaking of, I noticed that all the gulf airlines actually charge considerably more to fly into them then in and onwards out. For example, to fly to any major European city, it's actually cheaper to fly two segments (ie. SYD-DXB, DXB-FRA) business than it is to just fly to DXB (and then fly a different airline out, etc). This seems very strange and counter-intuiative - ie. aren't they hurting domestic tourism this way? Is this a normal thing to be happening and what is the reason for it?
The reason I'm asking this was that my original idea was to fly to the gulf in business (most challenging part of the journey), and then from there to Europe in economy, and with a DSC promotion would still be enough for qantas gold. I'm guessing this is not possible due to this oddity of pricing.
6) On that note, are the current business return prices from SYD/AU to EU normal or are they inflated due to covid? I have never checked before, so I have no idea what they were pre-covid.
7a) When booking flights through Amex (I want to use my flight credit), is there any downside compared to booking with Qantas I need to know about? For example, do you get all the same points, SCs, double SC promotion would still apply? What about things like the new qantas flexibly flying for no-fee thing - does it apply when booked through a TPA and I presume Amex would be considered a non-direct booking?
7b) Same question about booking through another airline (eg. Qatar through Qatar) - I assume you would put in your QFF number and would get the appropriate qantas SCs and points according to their partner earning tables?
8) In general, Unless it's a QF coded flight/flightshare, you will always earn a lot less SCs and points (with partner/oneworld airlines), is that right?
9) Context - I have a friend who flew to Europe recently with Qatar and they completely avoided having to do any and all tests at any point, so this is the experience I'm looking for.
9a) Can anyone confirm/clarify - do you need a PCR test to transit through Dubai? I think not based on what I read on their website, but they do not make it clear. And I'm not talking about any destination requirements (ie. say you pick a destination which also does not require it or you're a citizen of a European country which doesn't require it for citizens).
9b) Does anyone know (especially any recent experience) if you need a PCR test to enter the business lounges in DXB? I swear I read somewhere that you do in my research lately, but now I can't find this anywhere.
10) Any idea how long airlines will require masks? I know Emirates said probably 2 years but this seems a bit ridiculous, especially if you are flying business class where you are already fairly isolated, it just makes the experience much worse. Do you think some other airline (maybe Qatar for example) potentially will want to compete by not requiring masks or maybe it can be a new benefit of business class? Has anyone heard anything about this? I assume if any gulf airlines does this, the rest will have to follow pretty quickly or lose customers. Alternatively maybe they can do it 50/50 - that is some flights require it and some don't, so those customers who want it/don't want it can book accordingly - I remember reading something about this at some point as an idea within the industry. Also alternatively, is it something which is actually enforced (in business class or otherwise)?
11) On the topic, does anyone know when/how it will be easier to travel around Europe and attend places without needing any specific vaccination stuff? As far as I understand, it's just not possible now because an Australian cannot get an EU vaccination code/certificate, so I'm just making a huge assumption they will sort it out very soon. I don't understand why countries are moving so slowly on this, they will never get tourism back until a person from outside EU can travel and visit any/most country and definitely any venue they want.
No doubt I will have more questions, but I feel like I'm at an impass to my planning and research until I learn more about the topics above, thank you so much for anyone who reads all this mumbo jumbo!
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