Qantas and eBay

[Smasher]

Hi,

I am new to this forum and have conducted a search but couldnt find anything relevant about this topic, so sorry if this has been asked before.

My question is, i recently was surfing eBay and a person was selling a Qantas FF upgrade to Gold. In the add it said he was "selling' a leather jacket and with this he would "give away" gold membership to Qantas for 1 year. Does this happen often and is it dodgy or an acceptable practice? Aparently he was a platinum member and able to upgrade a person of his choice to gold. I thought about buying into it but didnt, i am only a bronze member but i have 90 thousand points and didnt want to loose them.

Thanks.

 

[Mal]

Hi, Smasher. Welcome to AFF.

The ebay sale was possibly for "Partner Gold" membership. This is given to FFers when they earn more than 2100 status credits in a year.

Basically, it is for your spouse/partner. The "official" definition of partner is "Partner means the spouse or domestic partner, who lives at the same address as the primary member."

More details are here
http://www.qantas.com.au/fflyer/dyn/program/terms#jump19

"19.3 Partner Gold

19.3.1 Partner Gold may be awarded to an eligible Partner when a Platinum Member first reaches 2,100 Status Credits within a single Membership Year. Each Member may have only one nominated Partner at any one time. Retention of Partner Gold will require the Platinum Member to accrue another 2,100 Status Credits in each subsequent Membership Year. The Partner Gold Membership Year will be aligned with that of the primary Platinum Member.

19.3.2 Partner Gold Membership will not be offered to any Partner who either already holds Gold or Platinum status level or is a Chairmans Lounge cardholder with Gold or Platinum status level in Qantas Frequent Flyer. An alternative person cannot be nominated.

19.3.3 If the primary Platinum Member fails to accrue sufficient Status Credits in subsequent Membership Years, the Partner Gold Member will be subject to normal Gold status level qualifying criteria.

19.3.4 If the Partner Gold Member ceases to be the Partner of the primary Platinum Member then the Partner Gold card must be surrendered before a replacement card will be issued for any new Partner."

 

[Smasher]

Thanks for the quick reply. So that being the case, is the sale of such parnter upgrades popular? Do Qantas check this kind of thing? Also if your a gold member do you get upgrades to business class?


Thanks

 

[JohnK]

No. Possibly. And join the lottery for upgrade to business.

 

[Smasher]

Thanks for the answers, i mainly thought about getting it because of the access to Qantas club. My sister just put me on her staff travel with Qantas and its great but you dont get into Qantas Club or earn points. I dont think i will be buying one of these leather jackets with extras.

 

[JohnK]

Not sure what the selling price of the "leather jacket" will be but if you travel often enough Qantas club membership is $685 for the first year including joining fee and then around $285/pa. Some companies are able to offer corporate discounts.

Others will disagree but if you don't travel at least once a month then Qantas club membership is not worth it. You might get $20-$25 worth from every visit to the lounge. A couple of beers in the open bar, where you see people walking by, near the Qantas lounge costs around $10. You do the math.

 

[Smasher]

The cost of the "Leather Jacket" was 250.00 FYI.

 

[Mal]

Yeah, if on Staff travel, you aren't supposed to go into the Qantas Club.

Not sure how well it is policed, but your boarding pass would mention something about the staff travel I believe.

 

[Smasher]

Thanks, i never thought about that, there are certainley "rules" regarding staff travel, but its definatley worth it. If i bought Qc membership i guess i could still use it, will have to find out. There isn't anything on the boarding pass that says your staff travel, but the crew all know you are travelling on such a ticket.

Smasher

 

[QF WP]

Smasher, excellent to have a sister with QF!! QEA or QEB fares are the way to go (cost-wise), but there is always a downside (like stand-by, no access to QC, no points etc). I remember those days well (I was married to a QF staffer, so remember the benefits).

Mal, BP won't mention anything about being on staff travel in the General Information area (in fact, it should be blank), but the FA's will know from their manifest that you're on an ID75 or 90 ticket.

Yes, access to the QC is frowned upon by Management (as access is not a right of being a QF staffer or their nominated person).

As for the ebay auction, I'd steer well clear. Both you and the seller are inviting prosecution by QF. I'm sure QF will be aware of the auction by now and their IT people will be trying to track the offending member, who risks losing their QF membership. You just risk "losing" any value of the added-on Partner Gold membership that you might not be able to use - so hope the leather jacket is value for the price paid. As a staff member's nominated person, you may also cause downsteam problems for them, if QF find out your relationship with your sister.