Positive changes to Ascent

[simongr]

Sadly I saw a dinner set in the catalogue that mrssimongr had had her eye on previously. RRP $800 for 33,600 points or 20,000 + $122. That seemed reasonable value compared to me getting upgrades to F on QF

Definitely time to reassess that Platinum Charge card...

 

[beardoc]

Definitely time to reassess that Platinum Charge card...

You should be able to get Ascent Rewards on the Platinum Credit Card as well, which is much cheaper at $395 per annum (or $295 if you get it through your professional organisation).

 

[simongr]

I am not inclined towards the Platinum Credit Card - I am not sure why - I think I like the concept of the limitless credit limit on the charge card. I am also trying to get Corporate Charge cards aboloished in my business (we have a lot of Amex cards) so I would then get a tax break on my Amex platinum as my business expenses would flow through it

 

[kamchatsky]

I just tried to book SYD-HK with reward points. QF requires 140,000 pts & SQ 90,000 & Virgin 80,000. QF points cannot be used to get ticket for someone else; has limit on transfer to another who has to be a paid member of QF AND they have no seats until July/August. QF is the only one that charges for membership too. Are we being conned or what ? With this new Amex ratio, I'll have to plan my credit cards / fflyer memberships again. Perhaps we should all take a good look at the value of QF's program. Does anyone know any way of ridding of QF points ? Can they be sold or something ?

I thought QF SYD-HK on J is 120000 ..... Or in redeem in CX for 140000 points.

For QF, you can actually get a ticket for your "relatives" ...You just need to state the name and your

At least QF allows transfer of points to other members, most other programs won't allow this (SQ, CX, VS plus many others)

Try to get rid of your points? Just transfer them into me

The best thing to do now is to leave all the points in Membership Rewards and transfer them to airline for redemption as needed.

 

[thomastse]

Points requirements probably changes with seasons but seats are hard to come by in QFF. Yeah, giving them away is an option but we'll have to get related . I somehow saved up over 300,000 points over the years, ended up not using because of silly rules of not being able to confirm upgrades before hand & unavailability of seats at relatively short notice. VS & SQ have no problems on these two points though. You can get tickets for relatives but not friends ( liek you can with VS, etc ) & with other programs overseas the travel agents will offer you 4 cents cash per point. Anyway, we'll just have to try to get the best value whenever possible. In this game of rewards, it's not "you get what you paid for". Hence, we can maximise the advantages & minimise expense for members by sharing our experience. I am only new to this site & have already found it great to chat with people who have similar interest. QFF will certainly suit some people more. Just to me it's not good value.

 

[kamchatsky]

Well I will ceratainly be boming up on KrisFlyer now...



Though I note the comment on maybe not getting 5 award tickets......is this hard to do on *A and or SQ?

With QF I had been getting 5 awards ata time....and back when I was with ansett (and hence *A) I obatained 5 Cairo return.

Admitedlly I normally book early...and in economy.



Thogh see the burn rate for Business Class with Krisflyer...might be time for two long haul business redemptions (though again how easy is it to get 2?)



However as mention by others...time to reassess AA as well.

Not sure if you can get 5 reward seats in *A or SQ, but for *A the best thing to check *A awards availability is to actually get a free membership of ANA Mileage Club (www.anaskyweb.com). They have an online *A booking system where you can check availability of *A seats, and you don't need to have any points in the program to use this engine. This saves you from talking to customer service staff for hours to find availability.

I booked 2 return tickets SYD-AKL-CHC on AirNZ for Xmas/New Year this year using this engine earlier last month, and using SQ and VS points by calling them with exact flight numbers, saves me lots of time.

I hope that Qantas will notice this and actually improve their QFF program. But I pretty much doubt it.

 

[auriga]

Just crunching the numbers, with *A/Krisflyer.

Australia to LHR Economy for 100000 points = $66,667 spend on Amex.


!

These numbers don't look right to me.
East Coast Australia to LHR economy ( zone 9 to zone 12) on SQ is 95000. Since that is SQ and can be done online, you can get 15% off, 80750 KF miles, making it about $53833 of Amex spend.

 

[kamchatsky]

Points requirements probably changes with seasons but seats are hard to come by in QFF. Yeah, giving them away is an option but we'll have to get related . I somehow saved up over 300,000 points over the years, ended up not using because of silly rules of not being able to confirm upgrades before hand & unavailability of seats at relatively short notice. VS & SQ have no problems on these two points though. You can get tickets for relatives but not friends ( liek you can with VS, etc ) & with other programs overseas the travel agents will offer you 4 cents cash per point. Anyway, we'll just have to try to get the best value whenever possible. In this game of rewards, it's not "you get what you paid for". Hence, we can maximise the advantages & minimise expense for members by sharing our experience. I am only new to this site & have already found it great to chat with people who have similar interest. QFF will certainly suit some people more. Just to me it's not good value.

Hey aren't you my long lost brother!? Hey QF never checked the validity of my wife whenever I redeemed a ticket for her, and we have different surnames ....

Well you can burn your QFF points by getting 2 RTW tickets on Y for 140000 points each, with 5 stops (can someone confirm this?!), which I actually think it is good value and is actually better than SQ. That would burn most of your points already .....

 

[kamchatsky]

These numbers don't look right to me.
East Coast Australia to LHR economy ( zone 9 to zone 12) on SQ is 95000. Since that is SQ and can be done online, you can get 15% off, 80750 KF miles, making it about $53833 of Amex spend.

For *A (eg Thai/Asiana etc) it is 100000 points with no discount. For SQ yes it would be 95000 points with 15% discount.

 

[lovetravellingoz]

Well you can burn your QFF points by getting 2 RTW tickets on Y for 140000 points each, with 5 stops (can someone confirm this?!), .....

Yes as a Oneworld Award...and this represents for economy about the best value redemption you can get via QFF.


However I thought some said you could gertat Business RTW with *A with 7 stops for 250,000 and if this is right what would the economy rate be??

 

[simongr]

You should be able to get Ascent Rewards on the Platinum Credit Card as well, which is much cheaper at $395 per annum (or $295 if you get it through your professional organisation).

Hmm - just comparing the Current card structure I have being:

Amex Gold Charge - $130
Supplementary card - $65
AScent Membership fee - $80

Total cost - $275

This would be up against the Platinum fee of $900. So for $625 I get an extra 50% points (say an extra 10K) plus some soft benefits (the key one being restaurants - if I could get a table at Tetsuya's for my anniversary it would be worth the $600 fee alone). If I manage to abolish Corp Amex cards and push my business expenses through this that would be another extra 10K points and a saving of $80 plus I would allocate about 60% of the annual fee to business expenses to get a tax break (that would make this a simple choice).

Hmm decisions decisions - wonder if I could get them to waive the first year's fee...

 

[thomastse]

Hey aren't you my long lost brother!? Hey QF never checked the validity of my wife whenever I redeemed a ticket for her, and we have different surnames ....

Well you can burn your QFF points by getting 2 RTW tickets on Y for 140000 points each, with 5 stops (can someone confirm this?!), which I actually think it is good value and is actually better than SQ. That would burn most of your points already .....

Yeah ! Interesting that they don't check; may be we can start some sort of point bartering club.

Anyway, jusy read the latest Ascent issue, good summary of points for comparison. That means even with their 50% bonus, Velocity is out of the race really for me.

Sorry about the confusion, the girl at Velocity gave me the wrong ratio on the phone. It's actually 1:1 for Amex MR : Velocity. So with the extra 50% off for transfers before May 08, it's very good value.

 

[beardoc]

However I thought some said you could gertat Business RTW with *A with 7 stops for 250,000 and if this is right what would the economy rate be??

It's 240,000 Krisflyer miles and this would be $160,000 Amex spend.

However, I think the better deal is a OneWorld Award through AAdvantage which is 190,000 AA miles, which would be $168,889 spend on Amex. The advantage of AA is that with the right QANTAS fares, you can also get your domestic QANTAS flights credited to your AA account, which would make it even less of a spend. If you do the AA platinum challenge, then these flights will be 1000 AA points minimum for domestic flights (usually 500 AA points), providing you avoided N class fares.

Oh, decisions, decisions - which airline to start aiming for and which to accrue. I'm about 80% sure I'm going to accrue to AA now via SPG and start accruing my domestic flights with AA - with the other thought that I'll send my points through Krisflyer (the advantage being that internationally I tend to take the Star Lite RTW fares). The downside with Krisflyer is the 3 year expiry (doesn't happen with AA with account activity every 18 months, which is easy if you fly QANTAS).

The only disadvantage is that this is a long term thing. My spend on Amex is about $35-40,000 a year - so it's not going to be a reward immediately. But given I'm fee free, there's no harm in doing it. I'm not wasting any money accruing to AA.

 

[thomastse]

Hmm - just comparing the Current card structure I have being:

Amex Gold Charge - $130
Supplementary card - $65
AScent Membership fee - $80

Total cost - $275

This would be up against the Platinum fee of $900. So for $625 I get an extra 50% points (say an extra 10K) plus some soft benefits (the key one being restaurants - if I could get a table at Tetsuya's for my anniversary it would be worth the $600 fee alone). If I manage to abolish Corp Amex cards and push my business expenses through this that would be another extra 10K points and a saving of $80 plus I would allocate about 60% of the annual fee to business expenses to get a tax break (that would make this a simple choice).

Hmm decisions decisions - wonder if I could get them to waive the first year's fee...

My experience is that they'll reduce ( only on request ) if your spending is above certain level but not sure how much. Added advantage is extra warranty. Otherwise, the platium credit card is good value particularly if you can use the free inter-capital tickets & interest free period much longer.

 

[mick]

Does anyone know any way of ridding of QF points ? Can they be sold or something ?

Whilst they can't be sold, I "ridded" myself of 168,000 QFF points by having my upgrade requests from discount economy to business clear on my SYD/LAX, LAX/JFK and LAX/SYD sectors a couple of weeks ago. I'm only PS and so I was very surprised to find they were all accepted.

With the new MR Ascent redemption rates, AA is looking awfully good to me now.

 

[JohnK]

QFF will certainly suit some people more. Just to me it's not good value.

I agree that the QFF program may not be good value but I am a firm believer in crediting flights and maintaining status in the airline you fly the most.

I have accumulated well over 210,000 QFF points in just over 1 year. I have also spent 298,000 QFF points on award tickets. I have been a member of QFF for less than 5 years and have accumulated just over 500,000 QFF points whilst I have been in Amex MR for a little over 6 years and have accumulated just over 100,000 MR points with the majority of that spend in the last couple of years.

Some of the advantages of the QFF program and the most important is the first one

• I like the idea that I can earn Platinum status with the minimum amount of spend
• I like the idea that I can purchase the cheapest airfares, without worrying about more expensive airfare classes, and earn QFF points
• I like the idea that I can purchase a $69 airfare sometimes and earn 3,000 QFF points
• I like the idea that I can purchase duty free and receive QFF points
• I like the idea that I can stay at very basic hotels in Australia and accumulate QFF points and sometimes with bonus points through QF Holidays
• I like the idea that I can hire a car and receive 3 QFF points per $ spent
• I like the idea that I can spend on QF services through the Qantas Amex Premium Card and receive an extra QFF point for each $ spent

I cannot get to AA Executive Platinum status and would struggle to reach AA Platinum status unless I did an AA Platinum challenge every 2 years. That does not appeal at all. I couldn't care less about the better burn rates for awards in AA it is the better earn rate for status in QFF that appeals the most.

As for the Amex MR points I have been saving up that could be used next time one of my parents decides they are going back to Greece for a holiday now that SQ is 1:1 transfer.

 

[thomastse]

I agree that the QFF program may not be good value but I am a firm believer in crediting flights and maintaining status in the airline you fly the most.

I have accumulated well over 210,000 QFF points in just over 1 year. I have also spent 298,000 QFF points on award tickets. I have been a member of QFF for less than 5 years and have accumulated just over 500,000 QFF points whilst I have been in Amex MR for a little over 6 years and have accumulated just over 100,000 MR points with the majority of that spend in the last couple of years.

Some of the advantages of the QFF program and the most important is the first one

• I like the idea that I can earn Platinum status with the minimum amount of spend
• I like the idea that I can purchase the cheapest airfares, without worrying about more expensive airfare classes, and earn QFF points
• I like the idea that I can purchase a $69 airfare sometimes and earn 3,000 QFF points
• I like the idea that I can purchase duty free and receive QFF points
• I like the idea that I can stay at very basic hotels in Australia and accumulate QFF points and sometimes with bonus points through QF Holidays
• I like the idea that I can hire a car and receive 3 QFF points per $ spent
• I like the idea that I can spend on QF services through the Qantas Amex Premium Card and receive an extra QFF point for each $ spent

I cannot get to AA Executive Platinum status and would struggle to reach AA Platinum status unless I did an AA Platinum challenge every 2 years. That does not appeal at all. I couldn't care less about the better burn rates for awards in AA it is the better earn rate for status in QFF that appeals the most.

As for the Amex MR points I have been saving up that could be used next time one of my parents decides they are going back to Greece for a holiday now that SQ is 1:1 transfer.

Yes, I agree. They all have different values to different individuals & I guess that's why perhaps we should join more programs to have the flexibility to suit different trips.

 

[JohnK]

Yes, I agree. They all have different values to different individuals & I guess that's why perhaps we should join more programs to have the flexibility to suit different trips.

I can see merit in joining as many FF programs as possible. It does not cost anything and you are kept up to date with all the current offers.

Although I think some people have made a mistake by having small balances in many FF programs. Eventually these points/miles become and orphaned and taken away. I recently lost a small amount of miles in SQ. It was never enough for an award but I could not justify the $ amount needed to purchase the required number of miles.

 

[thomastse]

I can see merit in joining as many FF programs as possible. It does not cost anything and you are kept up to date with all the current offers.

Although I think some people have made a mistake by having small balances in many FF programs. Eventually these points/miles become and orphaned and taken away. I recently lost a small amount of miles in SQ. It was never enough for an award but I could not justify the $ amount needed to purchase the required number of miles.

True, I have small # of points in some hotel programs which are even below minimum transfer, so they'll go to waste. I figure now I'll just join a program for each group & keep saving Amex MR until I need to transfer to which ever airline I need to travel with at the time before transferring.

 

[simongr]

That might be a risky strategy. It takes a little time to transfer points from MR to an airline (QF is incredibly quick though) so you might be planning to book that award but find that by the time the points have clearedthe availability might have gone - just a warning