Qantas apologises to frequent flyers with status extensions, lounge passes, points & more reward seats

[mviy]

I've only just opened email. I was offered 15000 QFF points.

Would have been interesting to see the criteria used for the points offered.

Up thread it seems to be:
15,000 points:

• If you have an expiry January to June and thus got the latest extension announced and have not already flown enough to retain WP/P1 without an extension in plenty of time before the emails were sent out

30,000 points:

• If you have an expiry January to June and have already flown enough to retain WP/P1 in plenty of time before the email and thus won't benefit from the extension
• If your status expiry is July to December, so you won't benefit from the latest extension.

 

[JohnK]

I was keen to travel overseas mid-2020, so when the borders opened I was on one of the first QF flights to LHR from MEL via DRW. I've been over a second time since then, shortly after my first visit to NZ. I would travel again soon if I had the time.

Anyone who wants to can travel provided they have the leave etc. so I am surprised that QF is still extending status rather than focusing on motivating people to travel again. I would have thought a DSC promo or maybe a one-off Triple Status Credits Promo with no status extension would have been a better strategy, but QF has obviously decided what they have done is the way to go.

People for whatever reason are not travelling.

QF23 half to 2/3rds full 2 weeks ago.

Thailand has dropped all restrictions. BKK airport on arrival was a breeze to get through which was a total surprise. Went through BKK airport again last week and not many people around.

Pattaya has less tourists than June when I was here last. Everyone was saying August/September were going to be busy as restrictions were lifted. Now they are saying November/December are going to be a bumper high season.

People are still cautious and as @trippin_the_rift mentioned airlines know this is the case. If Qantas let statuses lapse how many of current Platinum are going to go for it again. Many won't. By extending status they're hoping we'll come out stronger the other side and travel will go back to pre 2020 levels.

I'd like to see that happen but part of me thinks this is going to take time. I originally thought 2024 and I could be wrong but I don't see it happening that soon. This is a tough one.

 

[OATEK]

People for whatever reason are not travelling.

QF23 half to 2/3rds full 2 weeks ago.

QF2 packed to the rafters next Friday, so some are travelling to certain places.

 

[SydneySwan]

QF2 packed to the rafters next Friday, so some are travelling to certain places.

Mrs SS departed last night on QF8413 (Emirates EK413) to Dubai - packed.

 

[BD1959]

My QF71 in a couple of weeks is showing about 80% in J and 85% in Y ...

Regards,

BD

 

[Lynda2475]

People for whatever reason are not travelling

Not my recent experience.

J was full on every flight i took in August. In fact one BA domestic flight i took, they expanded club world (J) by 2 rows, as J was sold out and the only 6 free y seats were converted to J = completely full flight. Y and PE certainly looked chockers too.

I would summarise the routes with poor patronage are those going to places which still have restrictions. There doesn't seem to be any issue filling planes on routes where masks etc aren't required. If airlines were struggling for customers we would be seeing more sale fares not the high prices taht we are.

 

[Limewood]

Like many others we stopped long haul flying, going cruising instead. Son as in BKK last few weeks took 3 flights, said baggage handling was quick and through customs too. maybe Qantas should see how it's done properly!.

 

[SydneySwan]

baggage handling was quick and through customer too. maybe Qantas should see how it's done properly!.

Qantas doesn't want to see how it is done properly. That would cost money!

 

[mviy]

Tried upgrading both ways on QF1/2 and failed both ways even though I applied for an upgrade as late as at the gate. If people weren’t traveling I would have expected to get the upgrade.

 

[trippin_the_rift]

People for whatever reason are not travelling.

QF23 half to 2/3rds full 2 weeks ago.

Thailand has dropped all restrictions. BKK airport on arrival was a breeze to get through which was a total surprise. Went through BKK airport again last week and not many people around.

Pattaya has less tourists than June when I was here last. Everyone was saying August/September were going to be busy as restrictions were lifted. Now they are saying November/December are going to be a bumper high season.

People are still cautious and as @trippin_the_rift mentioned airlines know this is the case. If Qantas let statuses lapse how many of current Platinum are going to go for it again. Many won't. By extending status they're hoping we'll come out stronger the other side and travel will go back to pre 2020 levels.

I'd like to see that happen but part of me thinks this is going to take time. I originally thought 2024 and I could be wrong but I don't see it happening that soon. This is a tough one.

Dec 31 is the 'Elite Cliff' we've been waiting for, where most of the elites of the world will have not requalify as per program criteria and are pending downgrade.

Qantas have painted itself into a dark corner with recent status extensions.
Sadly, those who haven't been able to requalify on merit are no longer frequent flyers in this new world.

Airlines are not losing potentially downgraded members because those members are unable to requalify on merit.
These 'elites of 2019' are already gone. They're unable to display a willingness to fly or spend or engage in the ways of the program. Extending status for these people now do airlines more damage than any perceived goodwill (this is where Qantas has royally messed up -- by using status extensions as a way to smooth over operational issues).

The best thing Velocity could do right now is to tell the market they won't be extending anyone status for free. In the interim, make it easy for people to retain status on merit (but not too easy). Charge a fee to retain, offer status credits on transfer bonuses, offer triple or quad status credits to the entire market, prepay credits and earn SC, sell extensions directly.... there's no shortage of levers to pull. Extending for free is probably the worst thing Velocity could do...rip the band-aid off now and go after the active flyers instead of trying to hold on to some pipe dream that elites of 2019 are magically going to start flying again. But hey, what do I know?

A handful of airlines (US) did not provide free status extensions in 2021, and all of those airlines now have greater number of active elites today than in 2019. Weird hey?

Randy Peterson (founder of flyertalk) recently said it's going to take most airlines 5 years to get back to the '2019 elite levels'. This is entirely due to free status extensions and lack of activity in trying to capture the market who is actively spending, flying and engaging today. The fact is that there is no excuse for a smart loyalty program to not be performing better today than in 2019 on all metrics. It all comes down to who is *really* running these programs - is it short-term-focused shareholders and bureaucratic management or customer-obsessed visionaries?

 

[Vic]

After lightly reading the question about getting points, I finally went back and checked my thank you email. There I see I was offered 30000 points as well as the $50. That's the downside of not reading the email originally and just using the info in thread to get my voucher via the app.

Having now followed the in email link, I've activated the 30000 points offer.

Up thread it seems to be:
15,000 points:

• If you have an expiry January to June and thus got the latest extension announced and have not already flown enough to retain WP/P1 without an extension in plenty of time before the emails were sent out

30,000 points:

• If you have an expiry January to June and have already flown enough to retain WP/P1 in plenty of time before the email and thus won't benefit from the extension
• If your status expiry is July to December, so you won't benefit from the latest extension.

Now I don't know how I fit into the tiers you've listed.

• Expiry is July to December,
• Haven't flown enough to requalify
• But have 1030 SC towards platinum and
• 3 flights eligible for the "book and take 1 flight" requalification.

I resolved to just take the "take 1 flight" extension. I got the status extension at the time of the thank you email.
The other half, also got a status extension at the time of the thank you email and had taken no flights at all. I was actually looking into using the $50 voucher to qualify them for the "1 flight" extension.

Anyway, I guess consistently inconsistent.

 

[mviy]

@Vic Your expiry is July to December so there’s no new extension for you so you get 30,000 points.

Only those with July to December expiries that haven’t booked any flying to extend their status benefit from now not needing to book a single flight to extend are benefiting from the new changes and I think those probably still get 30,000 points.

 

[Dr4manyspecies]

As a newbie searching the old skool way (via logging into Qantas) I find NO award seats in Economy nor PE for next June/July/Aug (and I have booked a year out in the past)... where are these added award seats? It also wouldn't give me the option for points seats on a multi-city (again, have done so in the past).
I just got my blanket $50 QF voucher (like everyone else) but, interestingly (not surprisingly) they offered me no apology nor recompence for the collective 11 rescheduled/cancelled flights on my trip to the US in July-August... I suppose at least I won't have to spend days on the phone trying to use a voucher... oh, wait... will be interesting to see if the $50 one can be used for international without calling them.

 

[exLXCXFF]

As a newbie searching the old skool way (via logging into Qantas) I find NO award seats in Economy nor PE for next June/July/Aug (and I have booked a year out in the past)... where are these added award seats? It also wouldn't give me the option for points seats on a multi-city (again, have done so in the past).
I just got my blanket $50 QF voucher (like everyone else) but, interestingly (not surprisingly) they offered me no apology nor recompence for the collective 11 rescheduled/cancelled flights on my trip to the US in July-August... I suppose at least I won't have to spend days on the phone trying to use a voucher... oh, wait... will be interesting to see if the $50 one can be used for international without calling them.

Did you use Multi-City / Mutli-Booking and tick the Classic Reward box? We booked Y ZRH-LHR-SIN-SYD for 3 pax in early August - Y rewards were available for any day.

 

[RAM]

As a newbie searching the old skool way (via logging into Qantas) I find NO award seats in Economy nor PE for next June/July/Aug (and I have booked a year out in the past)... where are these added award seats? It also wouldn't give me the option for points seats on a multi-city (again, have done so in the past).
I just got my blanket $50 QF voucher (like everyone else) but, interestingly (not surprisingly) they offered me no apology nor recompence for the collective 11 rescheduled/cancelled flights on my trip to the US in July-August... I suppose at least I won't have to spend days on the phone trying to use a voucher... oh, wait... will be interesting to see if the $50 one can be used for international without calling them.

See post #967.

Short answer the 50% increase had a footnote attached - 'up to 50% increase per flight'. That also covers up to a 100% cut in rewards seats per flight btw.

 

[Vic]

Your expiry is July to December so there’s no new extension for you so you get 30,000 points.

Only those with July to December expiries that haven’t booked any flying to extend their status benefit from now not needing to book a single flight to extend are benefiting from the new changes and I think those probably still get 30,000 points.

I'm not sure I agree there is no new extension, as per my other half being extended with a July to December expiry and absolutely not Qantas flights flown...
Unless the AAdvantage AAward next week with their FF number attached is being counted.

 

[Vic]

As a newbie searching the old skool way (via logging into Qantas) I find NO award seats in Economy nor PE for next June/July/Aug (and I have booked a year out in the past)... where are these added award seats? It also wouldn't give me the option for points seats on a multi-city (again, have done so in the past).
I just got my blanket $50 QF voucher (like everyone else) but, interestingly (not surprisingly) they offered me no apology nor recompence for the collective 11 rescheduled/cancelled flights on my trip to the US in July-August... I suppose at least I won't have to spend days on the phone trying to use a voucher... oh, wait... will be interesting to see if the $50 one can be used for international without calling them.

In terms of using the voucher, I think it is only usable for return bookings, and cash fares. So I suspect you'll have no problem using it for a simple return booking.
Anything more complex, I expect using the voucher will be difficult.

 

[dairyfloss]

I'm not sure I agree there is no new extension, as per my other half being extended with a July to December expiry and absolutely not Qantas flights flown...
Unless the AAdvantage AAward next week with their FF number attached is being counted.

Prior to 'the apology', folks in the Jul-Dec renewal period needed to have booked an eligible flight to retain/extend their status by another 12 months. With the apology came confirmation that these folks' status would simply be extended by a year, whether they had done that booking or not. The furthest out they will be extended is Dec 2023 (membership year ending).

Folks in the Jan-Jun camp are being given an additional year over the current extension period they are in, taking the status of some out to as far as Jun 2024 (membership year ending).

Cheers,
Matt.

 

[trippin_the_rift]

Prior to 'the apology', folks in the Jul-Dec renewal period needed to have booked an eligible flight to retain/extend their status by another 12 months. With the apology came confirmation that these folks' status would simply be extended by a year, whether they had done that booking or not. The furthest out they will be extended is Dec 2023 (membership year ending).

Folks in the Jan-Jun camp are being given an additional year over the current extension period they are in, taking the status of some out to as far as Jun 2024 (membership year ending).

Cheers,
Matt.

Bait & Switch?

Tell members they need to spend money to retain their status, and then give it for free anyway.

 

[exceladdict]

Bait & Switch?

Tell members they need to spend money to retain their status, and then give it for free anyway.

Interesting to see it described that way. While I flew for business reasons this year, so didn't book extra flying behaviour intentionally to retain, someone who did (solely for that) could be very frustrated.

If I make a push for normal requal next year, then get comped, I'll be salty though.

Alan, if you are reading, I'd like an additional rollover into my year starting Jul-Dec 2023!