No FF Points for Q Club

[JohnK]

edit: for JohnK, on usage. Me, paid QC member, flys < 10 times a year = maybe 15 hours of QC usage. WP flys, what(?), every week say, 100 flights per year = 100+ hours of QC usage. The law of averages says it is the statused that are overcrowding the QC not the paying members. Plus plenty of you complain about crowding at the beginning and end of the business day and week. I rarely use the QC at those peak business times and guess what the QC is not crowded. QED.

Maybe you are right. I don't know the answer. I could not care less about the food in the Qantas lounge I only get upset with overcrowding if I can't use one of the free desktops. There are people sitting at a desktop using their own laptop and you have to ask them kindly to move.

As for who is more important to Qantas, again I do not know the answer but I would feel someone who spends $20,000-$30,000+ a year on flights is little more important than the person who salary sacrificed their $99/year Qantas Club membership. At the moment Qantas feels that Platinums are more important by building separate lounges for them and business class passengers. Let's leave it to Qantas to determine the future of Qantas Club/Business lounges.

 

[NM]

Not to start an old debate again ...

Hmm, that didn't work, now did it

 

[JohnK]

Hmm, that didn't work, now did it

Not quite. :shock: But it is an interesting argument that probably deserves it's own long running thread similar to the Off-topic thread.

 

[AnonymousCoward]

You ask for evidence

You made a claim. I am merely pointing out that the evidence presented does not support the conclusion you come to.

but then use more likely. On using statistics, I was only using your own made up statistics.

When I asked the three questions, I am merely suggesting that here are some *other* factors that might influence the number of people in the club at any given point in time. Because yu haven't addressed/controlled these factors, you can't come to the conclusion that you have.

FWIW, I was in the J lounge this morning at peak time (7:00am). It was about 1/4 full. if that's the extent of the travelling J and Plats, then most of the people using the club before must be QC members or Gold status.

["As for salary scarifice, I only hope the ATO doesn't audit anyone doing that."]

Isn't lounge membership on the FBT exempt list? IF so, then salary sacrifice is legitimate. It's certainly on our last of allowed items last time I checked what was offered.

 

[oz_mark]

All I pointed out is that there are *always* suggestions on reducing overcrowding. And the suggestions always seem to have the proposer retaining access, and other don't. Status flyers say "get rid of paid membership" and visa versa.

QF themselves seem to take another approach of making the lounges bigger, where possible. Problem is that this takes time to do, and the split of lounges domestically that is starting to happen does make an overall bigger space as far as I know.

I don't think QF is seriously considering the options of dropping status or paid entry.

 

[Alanslegal]

The brains in the backroom within the Qantas headquarters have factored all the above posts and every other known reasonable variable before coming to the conclusion that both elite flyers and paid QC flyers are important, if not equally important to their business. So there really isn't much we can do other voice our opinions and direct it towards QF's direction.

I participated in the inaugural AFF corp QC membership 12 months ago and worked out that it's been costing me on average $12 to get into the lounge each time (cost of joining fee & 12 month membership / total visits)..... without this paid QC membership, I would have easily flown on other airlines (SQ,TG,CX,JQ,DJ) and send revenue to other airlines. As I fly mainly on discounted economy, I guess whatever airline is cheaper on the day would've gotten my $$$$ but given my QC membership I directed all my $$$$ to QF for the past 12 months (abliet a CX SYDHKGSYD trip). In addition, I usually fly with someone, and that persons $$$ also gets directed to QF so we can both go to the lounge.

So Qantas must have taken into consideration flyers such as myself who do pay for the QC and realise they do generate some revenue by creating some loyalty.

As for my QC membership is due for renewal now, I'm not likely to renew this given I have calculated I'll be SG by the end of this membership year abliet a lowly PS for the remainder of '08.

 

[medhead]

Maybe you are right. I don't know the answer. I could not care less about the food in the Qantas lounge I only get upset with overcrowding if I can't use one of the free desktops.

As for who is more important to Qantas, again I do not know the answer but I would feel someone who spends $20,000-$30,000+ a year on flights is little more important than the person who salary sacrificed their $99/year Qantas Club membership. At the moment Qantas feels that Platinums are more important by building separate lounges for them and business class passengers. Let's leave it to Qantas to determine the future of Qantas Club/Business lounges.

I guess that is the point I missed completely, the value to me is not the lounge itself but the priority check in as others have mentioned here. the free computers are also very useful.

As for the value of pax. I can't totally agree (despite the plat and J lounges). Someone who spends $20k to $30k is spending that money to buy flights. At the point where the number of flights equates to profit from those pax that covers the cost of QC, then QC access is granted. Yes, total profit from that person is high. But QF must still be recovering the cost of the lounge from paid QC members. (edit: They probably even factor in the extra QC cost (staff and hospitiality) for a more FF than NB paid QC member.) (Salary scarifice is irrelevant as QF still get the same cash in their hand.)

anyway, lets leave it to QF, I'm sure they'll kill paid QC members (no use denying the inevitable) and then I'll be happy to hear "I told you so".

BTW: is corporate membership really $99. I'm with one of the best corporate plans and my last 5 year renewal worked out at about $150 from memory, (5 years before was about $80, and lets not forget the $50 per year, arhhhh). I thought all the corporate rates had been aligned to be the same.

 

[medhead]

When I asked the three questions, I am merely suggesting that here are some *other* factors that might influence the number of people in the club at any given point in time. Because yu haven't addressed/controlled these factors, you can't come to the conclusion that you have.

Well actually, I have address those factors because I have formed the conclusion that they aren't valid. Your big assumption is that all things are equal - I don't agree. So in fact I can come to the conclusion that I did. And certainly, you didn't present anything valid to disprove the factors that I considered in arriving at my conclusion, besides your opinion that my evidence doesn't support my conclusion. (yes, I am saying your opinion is valid, but I'm not going to change my opinion on that basis)

FWIW A more useful test would be a comparison of crowds on friday arvo at about 5:25, in the J and QC lounge. Just because I believe that morning business start times are more variable, whereas everyone finishes work and head to the airport at about the same time.

But in general - meh.

 

[serfty]

... FWIW A more useful test would be a comparison of crowds on friday arvo at about 5:25, in the J and QC lounge. Just because I believe that morning business start times are more variable, whereas everyone finishes work and head to the airport at about the same time. ...

More to the point; I believe the majority of those who travel enough to be WP endeavor to avoid travelling domestically at the OMG hours that 7am implies ...

... I know I do ...

 

[NM]

More to the point; I believe the majority of those who travel enough to be WP endeavor to avoid travelling domestically at the OMG hours that 7am implies ...

... I know I do ...

I try, but don't always succeed.

 

[AnonymousCoward]

BTW: is corporate membership really $99. I'm with one of the best corporate plans and my last 5 year renewal worked out at about $150 from memory, (5 years before was about $80, and lets not forget the $50 per year, arhhhh). I thought all the corporate rates had been aligned to be the same.

I think about $150-180 is the best you can get these days. I think ours is about $170 or similar now. If you can get $150 you're doing well.

 

[JohnK]

BTW: is corporate membership really $99. I'm with one of the best corporate plans and my last 5 year renewal worked out at about $150 from memory, (5 years before was about $80, and lets not forget the $50 per year, arhhhh). I thought all the corporate rates had been aligned to be the same.

I know someone who was on a $99/year QC membership a few years ago working for a government department. I haven't spoken to them recently so don't know what they are paying now.

I feel that $150 is still way too low but obviously QF is making enough of a profit to retain this level of yearly membership fee.

 

[tuapekastar]

BTW: is corporate membership really $99. I'm with one of the best corporate plans and my last 5 year renewal worked out at about $150 from memory, (5 years before was about $80, and lets not forget the $50 per year, arhhhh). I thought all the corporate rates had been aligned to be the same.

I was on $99/year for 6 years up until earlier this year. I no longer have access to that scheme, but believe it is more (maybe ~$160 per year) now. And that change probably occurred a couple of years ago, but my already existing membership simply ran its course at $99.

 

[acampbel]

I worked for a very large telco through the 90's and joined QC in 94. After I left they continued to send me offers to renew at $99/year and I continued to accept. Last year the letter they sent had some fairly unequivocal language about legitimate membership, and also upped the rate to $162.50/yr. I was not going to stand for such usuary, so I decided to join my companies' corporate scheme.

The increase in rate ($325/yr.) did not bother me as the company was now paying ...... until 6 months later when they decided to discontinue the corporate scheme and turf their long-suffering employees out into the concourse. I renewed anyway (and my boss has promised to "look after me") but the backup plan is in full swing and I expect to achieve Gold Status next week.


So ...... all you stinking paid-up members can sod off to a special 2nd-class corner of the QC and leave me and my elite mates to quaff the plonk and leer at the crumpet!


Cheers,


Andrew

 

[MelUser]

The accountants amongst us might know the answer - surely there is some swapping of money between cost centres or is the Q Club supposed to be stand alone profitable?

But this doesn't work if half the people in the Q Club are Gold/Plat members as Q Club hasn't made any money on these people - perhaps QF pays Q Club a notional amount or per trip amount? Does anybody know or can make an acccount's/bean counter's guess?

 

[serfty]

Some years ago I had a client based in ADL. He had a very profitable business and travelled frequently (mainly OZ domestic with one or three O/S trips per year).

He was top level with Qantas; and often was invited to Qantas' Adelaide Functions etc. As his guest at one of these I was involved in a conversation with the then QP manager at ADL.

It came up that there were many (5 figures) QP members, corporate and private, in SA who might only fly 3 or 4 times per year. QP was simply what they were used to when traveling, either as part of their salary package or just something they had because they could afford to do so.

Qantas make much moolah out of QP membership. They did nearly stuff it all up when in the years immediately after the demise of AN, bean counters thought they could simply cut QP catering costs/services. During that period, the catering was only a shadow of what is available now (trust me, I know ) and quite a few of these legacy members dropped off. Said bean counters hey woke up when this trend became apparent as being long term and improved the offerings substantially (sometime 2003).

If I would rate QP catering using 1994 (when I joined) as a baseline (Food and Wine Quality)

• 1994-1997: 100%
• 1998-2001: 90% (Domestic First class disappeared during this period).
• 2002-2003: 40%
• 2003-2008: 80%

(IMHO, YMMV)

 

[straitman]

medhead,

Having just sat and read the whole thread from top to bottom I must make the comment that I don't agree with your logic and from the perspective of one not involved in any of this discussion/argument it really looked like emotion fighting logic and we all know what happens then.

Please don't get me wrong as I'm merely expressing this as I see it and am not having a shot at anyone personally.