I find it repulsive how Qantas has presented this apology as though ALL frequent flyers are going to benefit, (and the media fell for it and swallowed their lies.)
Firstly, the $50 voucher has too many strings attached, is jam-packed full of prohibitive t's & c's, and besides, they are increasing their fares by 10% due to high fuel costs anyway.
Secondly,
Correct me if I'm wrong, but as a Gold FF with an end date of 31JUL 2023, what am I actually getting out of this? After all, I chose Qantas, and paid them an eye-watering sum of cash for it too, retaining Gold by flying 21 sectors between 03 January - July 31 2022 (Could not do any flying between 01 AUG 2021 and Jan 2022, as most states had their borders shut to Victoria.) I did most of my domestic traveling in summer, and to be honest, I thought that Qantas was pretty good over the mid-late summer period up until about easter when everyone seemed to return to the skies en masse.
It wasn't until I flew to the USA & Canada in June/July that Qantas made traveling absolutely intolerable. Firstly, they made it nearly impossible for me to redeem my flight credit from a canceled USA booking in 2020, and then jacked up the prices and made the ticket over $2100 dearer than my original booking.
Then, when it came time to head off, not only were the delays ridiculous, (QF93 arrived at LAX so late that I missed my red eye to BOS), and had to wait around terminal 4 at LAX until 330am to catch a jet blue flight to BOS via JFK (where there were more delays), but, on arrival at check-in for QF93, I got bumped from my bulkhead PE seat to a middle seat, which made me absolutely livid. They did this despite the fact that I had arranged extra legroom with Special Handling due to my painful skin condition (I had even followed up with SH 72 hours prior to ensure that it was still in the system.) The so-called "national carrier" treated me with utter disdain. The only element of that $6000 PE MEL-LAX-BOS-JFK-LAX-MEL booking that was positive, was the fact that I was upgraded to Business on QF94, which was amazing, as I had never flown J long haul before.
Thus, I was somewhat pleased last Sunday when I heard that Qantas would be granting a further 12-month across-the-board status extension. I thought that the following 12 months would be a good opportunity to take advantage of the 50% extra reward availability and head off back to the US, or perhaps even Japan, and have been really excited about this over the last few days, (Despite the fact that there is close to zero J reward availability during 2023 northern summer.)
Although I came close to retaining Gold with the many sectors I completed, I wouldn't have gotten over the line without the March DSC promo. Now I hear that it is highly unlikely for Qantas to offer another one of these anytime soon, I honestly don't believe that I'll make it to Gold for another year. This is a real bummer, because I do the bulk of my traveling (to the USA) every even year, as that's when I have my international conferences & industry exhibitions etc.
From the dozens of travel sites, media outlets, and even Qantas themselves - they have all made the status extensions out to be for "all" elite Frequent Flyers, when in fact this is pure misinformation, (I didn't realise this until about an hour ago.)
A few examples of erroneous information below.
From Qantas newsroom:
"12 months status extension across tiered members Silver and above to continue to enjoy the benefits associated with their tier for another year."
From pointhacks - tiered frequent flyers will ‘enjoy the benefits associated with their tier for another year.’
Boss Hunting - "With another year added to the Qantas status extension program, frequent flyers should be able to keep their status through till December 2024. "
Executive Traveller - "The airline’s ‘apology package’ offers a fistful of benefits including a 12-month status extension for all frequent flyers at Silver or above,"
I gather from this, and from the updated status support page on Qantas.com, that if your anniversary is from July to December, you will not receive a status extension, but if your anniversary is from January to June, your status will be extended all the way through (potentially) mid-2024. How is this in any way fair to those (July to December) who gave Qantas a tonne of cash and got spat on, as in my case? Those who have the later anniversaries (January - June 2023) had even longer lead times to begin traveling than those in my boat (or thereabouts), but they get theirs extended for even longer? Essentially, they get an extra 12-month extension.
Lastly, why do only platinum one and Platinum QFFs get 30,000 & 15,000 points respectively, when Gold and Silver get absolutely nothing? Isn't this just a case of Qantas looking after their upper-crust customers? I mean, why not give Gold 7,500 points, and Silver about half that? Why do they get absolutely nothing for being slapped in the face for choosing to stick with Qantas as flight operations have resumed post covid?
It's one giant scam, and all Qantas is essentially doing here is offering up yet another insult to their mid-tier customers. It's perverse.
