Is Qantas diluting the benefits of status?

[JohnK]

That's because Platinum members have no special benefit in getting an exit seat

Actually that is wrong. Qantas does acknowledge Platinums are/were able to pre-allocate exit rows and have a prepared statement that customer service staff are reading out to Platinums who call with a complaint about the new arrangements.

If it looks and feels like a privilege then it is a privilege and it has wrongly been removed....

 

[Fishhead]

You're right, this tantrum was a result of the final straw in a list of frustrations not the least of which is late flights (3 hours late out of LAX recently) and all the stupid rules that seem designed to keep one out of lounges when all the advertising is about lounge access. For example, Qantas has pulled out of many routes into Asia, substituting Jetstar. That's all fine but Jetstar does not recognise Platinum members in terms of lounge access. How very exclusive! From my perspective there should be some seamlessness (if that is such a word) and for those who have a mailing address as a seat number there should be some decent treatment.

Anyway, my point about a glass of wine was not about expectations it was about the variability in treatment.

In terms of changing my allegiance to Star Alliance what program does not have a sunset period on the points (Singapore has 3 years)? One of the compensations for the kids of me being away is a trip overseas every so often and with the ever increasing number of points it takes to save for a treat then being locked into a 3 (or any) year cutoff is a pain.

 

[Dave Noble]

Actually that is wrong. Qantas does acknowledge Platinums are/were able to pre-allocate exit rows and have a prepared statement that customer service staff are reading out to Platinums who call with a complaint about the new arrangements.

If it looks and feels like a privilege then it is a privilege and it has wrongly been removed....

My statement is correct. The reason why there is no mention of platinum members is that they HAVE no special benefit; what they may have HAD in the past is irrelevent

That you do not like something , does not make it wrong

Dave

 

[JohnK]

My statement is correct. The reason why there is no mention of platinum members is that they HAVE no special benefit; what they may have HAD in the past is irrelevent

You are unbelievable. Why would Qantas go to the lengths of preparing a statement if this was not a recognised privilege of Platinum status?

That you do not like something , does not make it wrong

Yes it does thank you very much....

 

[anat0l]

In terms of changing my allegiance to Star Alliance what program does not have a sunset period on the points (Singapore has 3 years)? One of the compensations for the kids of me being away is a trip overseas every so often and with the ever increasing number of points it takes to save for a treat then being locked into a 3 (or any) year cutoff is a pain.

I'm not experienced with *A, but from a very quick source scouting exercise AC, BD and NH have no mileage expiry, OZ has seven years. BD also offers 1.5k points now if you sign up. A decent handful of *A FFPs suppress mileage expiry if you hold status with them (for example LH M+M you only need any status (FTL, SEN or HON) to suppress the 3 year expiry timer; NZ you need to be NZ G or NZ GE to suppress the 4-5 year expiry timer).

[/off topic]

My statement is correct. The reason why there is no mention of platinum members is that they HAVE no special benefit; what they may have HAD in the past is irrelevent

That you do not like something , does not make it wrong

I think the point at hand was that WPs have been able to do this for quite a while, it became a perceived benefit and perhaps this was not helped by QF somewhat validating this perception. It is as much a perceived WP benefit as periodically allowing extra guests into some lounges (if they are kids or family) or last-resort-requesting award seats over the phone that are not otherwise accessible via the internet. There were no rules or documentation (and I'll bet my bottom dollar that this isn't in any staff training manual either) about some or any of these perceived benefits, but they are there and they pop up in varying degrees of frequency.

It's like the old argument "if it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it's a duck, even if there isn't a label on it saying 'this is a duck!'". But in saying that since it none of these "benefits" were ever documented (especially to the public), there is less tenuous ground per se to argue the move as a removal of benefits.

Now it seems quite clear that WPs aren't entitled to the privilege of requesting exit rows any more (well, at least not for free anyway and thus with no special exclusivity compared to other passengers).

 

[Dave Noble]

You are unbelievable. Why would Qantas go to the lengths of preparing a statement if this was not a recognised privilege of Platinum status?

Huh?

The information simply states that Chairman's Lounge members still have the ability to pre-select seats; no mention of any other members.. how does that imply anything to do with any other members?

If it was a recognised and official benefit of platinum membership, then QF would have been required to give 6 months notice of its removal iirc

Dave

 

[JohnK]

The information simply states that Chairman's Lounge members still have the ability to pre-select seats; no mention of any other members.. how does that imply anything to do with any other members?

If it was a recognised and official benefit of platinum membership, then QF would have been required to give 6 months notice of its removal iirc

I called Qantas premium desk the other day and expressed my disappointment on not being able to pre-allocate exit rows. The customer service agent read out Qantas' official statement (yes he did use the word official and no I do not have a recording of the conversation) on the matter acknowledging that Platinums did have this privilege but do not have it anymore.

"The official stance is that we cannot request an exit row seat unless you want to pay for it. And it is first in first served with no priority for status. And yes Qantas acknowledges that it was a privilege offered to Platinums but they are now removing that benefit although we still have priority check-in and preferred seating although that is available to Silver members as well."

So I ask again. Why would Qantas go to the lengths of preparing an official statement if this was not a recognised privilege of Platinum status? It is irrelevant that the privilege was not in writing....

 

[dajop]

So I ask again. Why would Qantas go to the lengths of preparing an official statement if this was not a recognised privilege of Platinum status? It is irrelevant that the privilege was not in writing....

I think you're getting your threads mixed up. All that was said in this thread was the FAQ makes no mention of Platinum because it is not a privilege today, and therefore why should there be mention of Platinums in the document? It makes mention of CL members as it still continues to be a privilege for that group.

The other thread specifically on this topic is where the debate exists about whether it was or was not a privilege (which, by the way I agree with you, it was a privilege, but that's not the point that seems to have been made in this thread).

 

[dajop]

Singapore Airlines? Cathay Pacific? Malaysia Airlines?
The former-most seems to recognise status fairly well and will even grovel at their elites, if you don't mind interacting with robots.

Aaah you might want to check out some of the discussion over at the SQ part of Flyertalk, lot of issues raised by elites around the gradual dilution of benefits .... not surprisingly not too different to many of the issues raised here about QF. I guess they do watch each other quite closely, after all SQ introduced exit row charging, QF did a few months later, and so on.

 

[JohnK]

I think you're getting your threads mixed up. All that was said in this thread was the FAQ makes no mention of Platinum because it is not a privilege today, and therefore why should there be mention of Platinums in the document? It makes mention of CL members as it still continues to be a privilege for that group.

I am not mixing up threads. Someone earlier in this thread mentioned that pre-allocating exit rows was not a privilege of Platinum status. I disagree as the Qantas premium desk read out to me a prepared statement of an existing privilege for Platinums now no longer a privilege.

To me that means Qantas acknowledges they are taking away a privilege but do not need to give 6 months notice as it was not in writing in the first place. Does not in anyway mean that the privilege did not exist....

 

[anat0l]

I called Qantas premium desk the other day and expressed my disappointment on not being able to pre-allocate exit rows. The customer service agent read out Qantas' official statement (yes he did use the word official and no I do not have a recording of the conversation) on the matter acknowledging that Platinums did have this privilege but do not have it anymore.

"The official stance is that we cannot request an exit row seat unless you want to pay for it. And it is first in first served with no priority for status. And yes Qantas acknowledges that it was a privilege offered to Platinums but they are now removing that benefit although we still have priority check-in and preferred seating although that is available to Silver members as well."

So I ask again. Why would Qantas go to the lengths of preparing an official statement if this was not a recognised privilege of Platinum status? It is irrelevant that the privilege was not in writing....

They probably prepared an "official" statement because the so-it-seems de facto benefit needed some explanation so they decided to make a simple one-stop-shop explanation rather than sending it in an email and getting umpteen subtly different explanations through the phone agents pertaining to this matter, particularly since it coincided with the introduction of the "new feature" which conflicts with the original (more exclusive) "benefit".

It could really just be the phone agent's words of which he/she didn't quite digest the semantics of what was to be said before they said it, but then again would it make sense for Qantas to have an "unofficial" stance on this matter after this "new feature" has been released?


Whatever the hell the semantics are, I think we are all in agreement that this isn't great news for WPs.

 

[wijomas]

In the vast majority of cases, WPs are spending much more than CLs on an individual level, and in quite a few cases WPs are also in charge of a significant amount of corporate travel spend that could match or even exceed the level that a CL may be in charge of.

Giving a bunch of well known people a few extended benefits is fine - but taking away benefits from their most frequent travellers is ridiculous.

The ability to pre-allocate exit-row seats was indeed a benefit of Platinum status. This has been confirmed a number of times by the Premium desk, and by supervisors. It has also recently been confirmed to John that it is no longer a benefit of Platinum status.

 

[Commuter]

To me that means Qantas acknowledges they are taking away a privilege but do not need to give 6 months notice as it was not in writing in the first place. Does not in anyway mean that the privilege did not exist....

I'd like to know if the exit row priority reservation was CL's written privilege.

If it was, then fair enough they put it in writing on the FAQ but not mention WP.

However, if it was not a written privilege and they chose to put it there but not mentioned WPs, then QF have skirted the issue by avoiding making any reference to 'taking away one of the WP privileges'.

I still cannot comprehend why QF could not give WPs priority booking (paid, as I have emphasised before) on those exit row seats. They get the best of both outcomes then (keeping WPs not as unhappy, and they still get the money).

:-|

 

[Commuter]

I have to admit only being acknowledged only 3 times as a WP on board, but in all cases the loads were quite light, so I believe that had something to do with it (not that that should be translated as "light loads = WP welcome aboard").

My experience has been a bit different. It didn't seem to have any relationship to the load, but the ability of CSM to run the cabin well. I do not think my perception of service level was affected by their greetings - perhaps more experienced crew = having more capacity to offer greetings etc.

Having said that, I seem to get more on board 'greetings' from BA for being QFWP/OWE than I do on QF.

 

[DJ737]

Hi there

As an infrequent QF passenger, I only do a couple of MEL-ADL returns each year, when the timings suit me better than DJ.

I always seem to get allocated 4C on the 737 with kiosk check-in at between 60-75 mins before departure.

Reading some of the posts above, maybe QF actually wants to annoy some of those WP's who think that is their god given right to a seat at the front of the economy cabin

Cheers
DJ737

 

[wijomas]

maybe QF actually wants to annoy some of those WP's who think that is their god given right to a seat at the front of the economy cabin

Obviously they do want to annoy WPs, which seems silly since they're some of their best customers, and should rightly be treated as such. Since it is a written benefit of WP, I certainly feel entitled to preferential seating... :shock:

 

[serfty]

Yep, some changes are annoying - this be one of them; I'm checking out the dark side for a bit to see if anything better may be experienced ...

 

[JohnK]

It could really just be the phone agent's words of which he/she didn't quite digest the semantics of what was to be said before they said it, but then again would it make sense for Qantas to have an "unofficial" stance on this matter after this "new feature" has been released?

They were definitely not the agent's words. I work for an insurance company and listen to prepared scripts read out on a daily basis. The agent acted and read out a prepared script/statement. There is no doubt.

Giving a bunch of well known people a few extended benefits is fine - but taking away benefits from their most frequent travellers is ridiculous.

I think we agree that frequent flyers, regardless of how much they spend, deserve to be treated well.

Who cares what seat is allocated to the personal assistant, travelling once a year on a K class airfare SYD-MEL, of a Chairman's Lounge member? Does Qantas really care to disappoint frequent flyers? I can tell you now that the companies I have worked for do not care what seat I get on an aircraft and most of them do not care for the preference of carrier I have either.

I can just imagine my boss telling Qantas "Now listen here, our company is going to spend millions on airfares this year and I want you to give all employees the best possible seats in WHY". Like that is written into any contract.

I'd like to know if the exit row priority reservation was CL's written privilege.

Assuming that these privileges were on the Qantas website then I have not seen them.

I hope Qantas suffers a loss of business out of this silly decision.

Reading some of the posts above, maybe QF actually wants to annoy some of those WP's who think that is their god given right to a seat at the front of the economy cabin

They have certainly done a good job of annoying Platinums. And yes a Platinum travelling ~80 times deserves to be in a seat in front of WHY much more than a person travelling once a year. And a Silver travelling ~10 times a year deserves to be in a seat further forward than a person travelling once a year.

In fact I would go further and change ALTEA so that a person not travelling so frequently gets the middle seats, and they cannot change this pre-allocation, at the back of WHY and work up the list from there. And if a seat further forward in WHY becomes available closer to the flight then move all people forward a seat based on status....

 

[cwhite18au]

Some years ago when travelling frequently my husband paid a very substantial amount for 'life time' membership of the frequent flyer program. It's now worth almost nothing - the only benefit he receives is access to the lounge. Start getting accustomed to Qantas quietly eroding your benefits - it's nothing new.

 

[NM]

Some years ago when travelling frequently my husband paid a very substantial amount for 'life time' membership of the frequent flyer program. It's now worth almost nothing - the only benefit he receives is access to the lounge. Start getting accustomed to Qantas quietly eroding your benefits - it's nothing new.

I assume he actually paid for lifetime membership to the Qantas Club. All Qantas Frequent Flyer memberships are lifetime memberships, whether purchased of $82.50 or complimentary as part of a credit card program, overseas membership or joining now through things like Everyday Rewards.

Note that while Qantas Club membership includes membership of the Qantas Frequent Flyer program, and Gold and Platinum status Frequent Flyer members are granted complimentary Qantas Club membership, the two programs are independent.

I am confused about your comment that "the only benefit he receives is access to the lounge".??? Qantas Club membership also provides:

• Qantas Club Lounge Access
• Lounge Access to BA and AA lounges when flying with those airlines
• Qantas Frequent Flyer membership
• Access to On Departure Upgrades
• Priority Reservations and Waitlising
• Dedicated Check-in queue/desk
• Priority baggage handling
• Increased checked baggage allowance

As far as I can recall, this list of benefits of Qantas Club membership has not really changed much over the years. Which benefits does your husband no longer receive making it worth almost nothing? I am a little confused by your comments.