No sign of 30 percent increase in Premium Seats Yet

[Beasley]

Following the announcement of the major QFF program overhaul in mid June, I am yet to see any sign of the commitment to provide a 30 percent in increase of reward seats in premium cabins.

We are returning from a holiday in Europe during late September and could only get J class reward seats as far as Singapore when we made the booking many months ago. Accordingly, we made an initial economy award booking for our flight from Singapore to Melbourne (to at least secure flights home) ... with the intention of changing it as soon as J class award seats became available.

I have been checking the Qantas site 2-3 times daily for the past 5 months to grab any J class fare that became available in the last week of September and there has been no change in availability throughout this time. So, when Qantas announced the improvements to their program, including a growing number of premium cabin award avails on the most popular destinations such as Singapore, I thought "bingo", we are in luck. However, my twice daily ritual of checking the award avails has proved fruitless.

I have not see one extra business seat become available throughout the entire month of September. Plus, they mentioned the changes would occur from 18th September ... and we are wanting to travel on the 26th/27th September .... but still nothing which is very disappointing. Maybe I should call QFF but I suspect they wont be able to help though.

 

[RichardMEL]

You can't base your desire to obtain seats on a peak route at a peak time (Sept school hols).

It was absolutely noted post the announcement that there were extra J and F seats(for example) available on numbers of long haul flights.

It's enitrely possible anything that WAS released was grabbed befor eyou are looking now. It doesn't mean that QF hasn't done what they said they would do (though obviously who knows what the breakdown was).

my 3 cents

 

[rock86]

they mentioned the changes would occur from 18th September

They did, that is the day the premium cabin changes are supposed to come into effect - not the date of travel.

You 'should' see changes when you search from Wednesday 18th September, but even so I'm not going to hold my breath.

 

[Mattg]

I suspect most of the extra seats are coming from NZ, KL, AF and PG flights - which also haven't yet been made available for booking.

 

[moa999]

30% increase on next to nothing.. is still pretty close to next to nothing

 

[opusman]

30% extra that'll all still be snapped up 353 days out.

 

[BD1959]

November 2017 I booked flights back from the UK at the end of Sep - end of school holidays. At the time of booking I could only get 2 x J as BHX-DXB-BKK-SYD on EK and SYD-MEL on QF.

August 2018 2 x F SIN-MEL on QF opened up and I was able to snag these and change the DXB-BKK sector to DXB-SIN.

I’m not saying “relax” but miracles occasionally happen!! My major point is: continue looking but don’t restrict yourself to just SIN-MEL if you’re coming back from Europe - a change fee is a change fee across the whole booking (x2) so keep looking for availability opening up via HKG, NRT, PVG, etc ...

Regards,

BD

 

[burmans]

Such cynics!

 

[madrooster]

QF released quite a number of F and J seats on the day of the 'big' announcement - many were during the Dec/Jan holiday period and even more were outside of that holiday period.

 

[downloadingdata]

Instead of making 1 seat available now they will make 1.3 seats available

 

[Pleb Status]

The 'commitment' that QF gave at the time of the devaluation is so rubbery and worthless that they could actually cut the number of premium cabin international award seats overall and 'legally' get away with it.

I think we have all been around long enough to know that 'up to 30%' does not mean an increase of anywhere near 30% overall. Maybe one unpopular route, when comparing one off peak month year on year, may get a 30% increase in premium award availability for one year. The increase on the remaining routes will be far less, if any at all. This scenario would still satisfy their 'commitment' in full.

Also, with the 744 currently being replaced one for one with the 789, an overall reduction in J seats (58 vs 42) will result, at least until more 789 or 778/35K are ordered. Keeping the number of award J seats the same on the 789 (or even slightly reduced) as currently offered on the 744 they are replacing could be argued by QF marketing as an 'effective' increase in premium award availability.

Moving forward (mid 2020 onwards), any apparent increase in premium award availability will most likely be due to a reduction in demand (due to the increased redemption cost) more than any noticeable increase in supply...

 

[Pierre_a]

As others have said given QF make so little inventory available a 30% increase is unlikely to be noticeable.

 

[downgraded]

Instead of making 1 seat available now they will make 1.3 seats available

Well 30% or no seats is still 0 as well. And as you note, 30% of 1 seat is only 1 extra seat every 3-4 days if you're talking some of the daily international flights. Not really going to notice an improvement.

 

[cove]

If you would like to try QR in business or first class there is quite a bit available using Qantas points.

 

[trippin_the_rift]

Well 30% or no seats is still 0 as well. And as you note, 30% of 1 seat is only 1 extra seat every 3-4 days if you're talking some of the daily international flights. Not really going to notice an improvement.

Qantas could increase it by 1000% and the majority of members won't notice a difference.

The "30% increase" is a throwaway comment. The only way the number means anything is if Qantas publishes award seat data.