Not quite.
All jokes aside. Platinum One costs Qantas money to provide and when the person earning it spends a quarter of the expected cost to earn it then Qantas is losing money?
I think QF would be absolutely delighted if they could "sell" a toaster for 3,000,0000 points. I suspect that would generate a tidy profit in QFF.
I agree that P1 does have a cost and for the life of me I don't understand why MASA's lasted as long as they did. I think serfty suggested they were an unintended consequence of other actions, and that seems as logical a reason as any other I have heard. I'm sad they have gone but to be honest it is probably the right business decision for QF.
The one thing I do wonder about, when I hear about people reaching P1 with 25% of the expected cost is whether the points cost is taken into consideration. Surely DSC's are a greater cost than MASA's. There seems to be a financial benefit form MASA's that isn't there for DSC's. (Which I presume are used as a stimulus to generate cash.) I'm not defending MASA's but I think it is a legitimate question.
As for DSC's with MASA's, that has to be the most ludicrous combination QF could have. I suspect it is from here that it was, still is, possible to get high status very, very, very cheaply.
I have burnt points on MASA's since they went offline as if my life depended upon it. The action of removing them from the website signalled their certain demise in my book and was the driver for me to use points to book them at a rate I probably would not have done otherwise.
In 2011/12 I earned over 4000 SC's from paid travel, that dropped to 2500 in 2012/13 and in 2013/14 that number will be 1500. (I have been P1 throughout and will aim to qualify again in 2014/15) The latter drop in part due to the recent enhancements and my desire to keep a strong foothold in the VA camp as a platinum and now likely partner platinum.
The changes, other than being far from simple, do seem logical, and I'm certainly not going to jump ship without fully investigating the impact, many SC earn changes are quite positive for me. By doing this QF may well take me back to being P1 through fully paid travel. (I would say this though because my international travel is primarily to one country which QF services with two flights a day and A380's!!) I hope QF will review feedback on OW partner SC earn too.
As for my job, well a bit of ducking and diving, import/export, and of course a bit of this and that.
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