It's been posted before, but if at the Gate when boarding commences for a QF flight (unless it's for those with Kids and people needing assistance etc.) I board! (As a WP, I have never been stopped from doing so.)
My issue with this is that Australian passengers seem to be going further and further down the line of US passengers whereby there's increasingly a reasonable queue at the gate before any boarding is announced. Therefore, even if you waltz right up when the very first boarding announcement is made, you're still faced with a lengthy queue. This, I believe is where priority boarding needs to be implemented, either something like AA's system with dual lanes or a specific call made. The problem with the latter, in my experience, is that boarding is not always called at the stated time on the board, meaning you could get to the gate right on the T-20 minutes (dom flights) and boarding may have already commenced, rendering this method useless.
medhead highlights this:
Qantas have screwed me over boarding this week. I usually get to the gate early, 10 minutes before listed boarding time. Both flights this week boarding has been well advanced when I've got to the gate.
While waiting for a flight to arrive the other day I heard those in J, WP or SG can board at their leisure, but didn't bother to look if there was a separate lane. Also something about OW elites but can't quite recall wording.
To me "board at their leisure" is not priority boarding. This means there is no priority, you can board whenever you like, along with everyone else on the plane who is lining up.
In my experience, they say that but there is no actual priority. I've walked to the front of the line and been told to head to the back.
As someone else has posted, I'd find it very difficult to walk to the front of the line, even though I think it's a perfectly valid thing to do when QF is publishing a benefit that's not being realised (more below).
You're right - even the website now says priority boarding for selected international flights only, no mention of domestic.
something a bit funny - does it show up with a question mark at the end of the statement for anyone else on the website? haha. maybe they're asking us something? like where's the priority?
It WAS there. :shock: Way to go Red Roo. Fix the complaints by your FFers about no priority boarding on QF domestic flights by removing the right from the QF web site.
We have been "Enhanced" again. :evil: Any wonder why QF has not been able to pay any dividends since AJ took over????
In of itself, no of course not. Instead of reacting in a positive way to QF FFers, who have been asking for the domestic Priority Boarding they were told they will get, they have instead just removed the benefit. This shows the culture of the organization . . . Anyway, as there is no domestic priority boarding mentioned on the QF web site anymore, maybe it is time for a wake for something that never was, time to close this thread and move on?
It is still there but, as I've posted previously, priority boarding's listing on the website is just a part of the plethora of QF inconsistency. (I see
samiam has posted on this while I was preparing this post.)
On the Platinum benefits page
here it states priority boarding is for international only. Yet here, on the comparison page
here, it's listed as both international
and domestic. What's worse, as I've also noted previously, it doesn't even come with one of the perennial footnotes (#, @, %, ~ . . .), suggesting that, far and away from the great majority of other QFF benefits, this was is a given, with no caveats, no buts, no exceptions. Sadly, we know that's far from reality.
It's been this way (on the website) for as long as I can remember, although the "?" is relatively new.
At the end of the day, at its best, priority boarding is inconsistent and hap-hazard; at its worst, not just non-existent but sometimes even met with a puzzled look by FAs and lounge staff who've no idea what you're talking about when you enquire.
