Qantas Award Charges Outrageous

[esseeeayeenn]

We must be booking with a different Qantas.
I was sure I haven't been able to do that before, but to be certain, I just checked then.
I booked a classic award PER-LHR return.
Went all the way through to the payments page.
AUD $506.60 + 130,000 pts
No option to pay the $506.60 in points.

On the same dates I could book a cash fare for $1670.
So the "fees and charges" are almost a third of the cash fare.

 

[MEL_Traveller]

Award seats are not non-revenue seats.
Points are a liability. Selling an award seat removes that liability from the balance sheet.
If the liability is carried by a separate company even better - money actually flows to the airline.

I don't think anyone is expecting award seats to become cheaper in both points and cash.
They're just asking to be able to book a flight by redeeming points without a significant cash outlay.
I wouldn't mind if QF whacked a few points on to the "cost" to make it worthwhile.
Just as I prefer* to spend 73,000 points and $80 for a seat on CX rather than 58,000 points and $300 for a seat on MH (BKK/HKT-HKG/KUL-PER).

*OK my preference might be swayed by the lounges in HKG.

It might be a way for an airline to reduce FF point liability, but the the point remains that it is still an empty seat - otherwise there wouldn't be a message that 'award availability is limited'.

On peak flights where an airline expects they can sell all the seats at the revenue asking price, there may be no awards available. If an airline can sell the seat for $1000, why would they give it away for less through an award?

I *am* asking for award tickets to be cheaper in price ($ component, with no extra points), in line with the program when it was first introduced.

Fuel surcharges were late in the game, supposedly added because of the high price of fuel. If QF wants to devalue the program (points required) they should follow the proper channels to do that (with notice period).

 

[trixydoza]

the point remains that it is still an empty seat - otherwise there wouldn't be a message that 'award availability is limited'.

The "limited" or "availability" disclaimer really has nothing to do with it. Just like they don't choose to make every single seat available as a Red e-deal.

From their current sale:

[h=1]Qantas international flights from Sydney[/h]
Fares are in Australian dollars and include taxes, fees and carrier charges. Fares are correct as at 17 February 2016 but will fluctuate if carrier charges, fees, taxes or currency change. Fares are subject to availability and is limited over school holidays, public holidays, and peak periods, such as sporting events.

 

[MEL_Traveller]

The "limited" or "availability" disclaimer really has nothing to do with it. Just like they don't choose to make every single seat available as a Red e-deal.

From their current sale:

Qantas international flights from Sydney


Fares are in Australian dollars and include taxes, fees and carrier charges. Fares are correct as at 17 February 2016 but will fluctuate if carrier charges, fees, taxes or currency change. Fares are subject to availability and is limited over school holidays, public holidays, and peak periods, such as sporting events.

Exactly right - because they can sell the seat at a higher price.

 

[trixydoza]

Exactly right - because they can sell the seat at a higher price.

So what makes you think that pricing rationale breaks down at the lower end? There's no reason to view "Awards" as anything other than part of an overall pricing strategy. That should be immediately obvious from the way they recently changed pricing for Y awards only. They knew the pricing wasn't competitive any more, so they changed it. They still have no problem whatsoever selling J and F awards, so they don't change it.

Anyway, like you said, you basically just want Qantas to make more cheap fares available. I can understand why they don't want to do that. Surely the "every seat needs to be filled" argument has been put to bed by now. Willingness to leave seats unfilled obviously affects overall pricing strategy and revenue, not just the lower end.

 

[MEL_Traveller]

So what makes you think that pricing rationale breaks down at the lower end? There's no reason to view "Awards" as anything other than part of an overall pricing strategy. That should be immediately obvious from the way they recently changed pricing for Y awards only. They knew the pricing wasn't competitive any more, so they changed it. They still have no problem whatsoever selling J and F awards, so they don't change it.

Anyway, like you said, you basically just want Qantas to make more cheap fares available. I can understand why they don't want to do that. Surely the "every seat needs to be filled" argument has been put to bed by now. Willingness to leave seats unfilled obviously affects overall pricing strategy and revenue, not just the lower end.

I want them to honour the intent of the program as it was sold to us before the high price of fuel and added fuel surcharges.

We already pay once for the points through our fares, and already pay the fuel surcharge when we book those revenue fares. The resulting award seat should be exaclty that, a free seat (for points) and we pay the applicable taxes.

Fuel surcharges were added as a temporary measure - if they didn't state that explicitly that was certainly the way it was marketed. QF has now gone back on their word.

 

[ComeFlyWithMe]

Considering the award seat is a seat QF wholly believes it cannot sell anyway, the 120K points and $620 is a hefty profit for them.

Point taken, however this wasn't from general availability, I had to request it.

I bought my J fare for just under $3k so they did alright out of the deal.

 

[ComeFlyWithMe]

The discussion around points seats being an empty seat doesn't really hold water. This is especially so when you take into account WP's (and perhaps SG's) can request seats be released.
On any one flight there will be profitable fares and loss leaders, they are looking at the overall yield of that flight. Some flights have much lower yield, and some get so low that they cancel the route entirely.
In Y cabins, it is easy to see that award fares do not represent great value. In premium cabins, award fares are a significant discount on a cash fare and are in most cases more flexible. Award fares and upgrade availability are closely linked. That's why you can often get that hard to find award close to the date of departure as they come from the same booking class.
QF's YQ is really an embarrassment, especially when you consider the current price of oil. It should fluctuate more than it does, however QF may have hedged at a higher price than the spot price and may have 12 months locked in at that price.
They have used the co-pay taxes to increase the cost of awards by stealth, while keeping the award tables static.
Now that earning is becoming harder and effectively the cost of points is getting progressively higher, if they don't tweak the system they're going to find a big hole in the QFF balance sheet soon, as the points being sold will start to dry up, as credit card companies (their biggest revenue source) start to buy less points due to new terms and conditions.

 

[Limewood]

Say what you will trixy, its an exorbitant cash grab, its wrong and should be changed.

 

[MEL_Traveller]

The discussion around points seats being an empty seat doesn't really hold water. This is especially so when you take into account WP's (and perhaps SG's) can request seats be released.

The release of the seat is not guaranteed. It's a call to yield management who has a look at the flight and decides whether or not to release the [unlikely to be sold] seat. If they don't think they can sell it, they'll release it for award inventory.

Airlines tell us they have complex systems to tell them the expected load on any given flight, including the number of no-shows (that's how they try and justify overbooking).

 

[trixydoza]

Say what you will trixy, its an exorbitant cash grab, its wrong and should be changed.

As long as you're not naive enough to expect that nothing else would be changed, fine by me.

Better the devil you know, in my opinion. It is not realistic to expect that someone should be able to fly multiple times in business class for "free" just for opening a credit card.

 

[ComeFlyWithMe]

The release of the seat is not guaranteed. It's a call to yield management who has a look at the flight and decides whether or not to release the [unlikely to be sold] seat. If they don't think they can sell it, they'll release it for award inventory.

Airlines tell us they have complex systems to tell them the expected load on any given flight, including the number of no-shows (that's how they try and justify overbooking).

I think you will find it is the yield system that responds most of the time, it is computerised, not any real person, unless it is rejected and goes for manual review. There is no phone call in my experience and in fact I don't think I have been even placed on hold the last few times.

As for the unlikely to be sold line, that may be true, but as another poster said upthread, a points redemption is a 'sold' seat which generates revenue for the airline division of the business. Even upgrades generate revenue, and the incremental cost of the J amenities would be covered. Most importantly, in an upgrade situation it gives them another Y seat to sell, perhaps at the last minute, in a higher fare class.

It's no coincidence that seat release often correlates with discount J booked in I class, as they would map the revenue from the points flight to be similar, albeit lower revenue on the points flight. The YQ is padding this revenue somewhat also.

 

[MEL_Traveller]

As long as you're not naive enough to expect that nothing else would be changed, fine by me.

Better the devil you know, in my opinion. It is not realistic to expect that someone should be able to fly multiple times in business class for "free" just for opening a credit card.

Fuel surcharges were introduced in response to the extraordinary high cost of fuel. The surcharges were never marketed as a permanent change to the program.

Now fuel has dropped to the lowest we've seen in a long time, the program should reflect that - or Qantas should bite the bullet and permanently change the program with the appropriate advertising and notice.

Qantas may choose to alter demand in the program by allowing points for credit card openings, but they are still getting their 1c per point or whatever they sell them for. That however is separate to the program as sold to many of us at the beginning, and which hasn't been through the formal change mechanism.

 

[casanovawa]

They probably won't do anything unless the government threatens to look at fuel surcharges just like credit card surcharges...

When these guys are making big money, everyone else can get screwed....

 

[medhead]

We must be booking with a different Qantas.
I was sure I haven't been able to do that before, but to be certain, I just checked then.
I booked a classic award PER-LHR return.
Went all the way through to the payments page.
AUD $506.60 + 130,000 pts
No option to pay the $506.60 in points.

On the same dates I could book a cash fare for $1670.
So the "fees and charges" are almost a third of the cash fare.

Search for a cash fare, pick the award option and you will see the following payment option.




Not sure about PER-LHR, Presumably there is an issue with those involving other airlines. But it is certainly possible to pay the taxes using points on Qantas awards. Books as X [-]I haven't gone through to the end with that booking but I'd be prepared to say 87% they will be X fares.[/-]

 

[CaptJCool]

JohnK.

Love that you're taking the longer scenic route to take advantage of more hours in the air for the same points.

some other fantastic responses in this thread too.

There's a number of destinations where because the points calculation is based on the "distance the crow flies" but the routes are circuitious so you get a lot more flying hours or dog legs for your points conversion.

The point of offers and acceptance are I thought to give someone something of little value to you (eg an empty seat which otherwise would not be sold) that they value more highly and are willing to pay for ? And in a high wage economy such as here in Australia, this means we will pay more. (the international PAX movement volumes in the USA are 213 million v population of 320 million 0.66 per capita compared to Australia. From memory, here its 36 million per annum vs 23 million population which is 1.5 per capita.)

I would have thought this meant both the cents per point and the hours flown per point might be a better package on which to assess value ?? Thoughts of others

 

[trixydoza]

No wonder Sean got annoyed.

 

[esseeeayeenn]

Search for a cash fare, pick the award option and you will see the following payment option.

View attachment 65857
View attachment 65858

Not sure about PER-LHR, Presumably there is an issue with those involving other airlines. But it is certainly possible to pay the taxes using points on Qantas awards. Books as X [-]I haven't gone through to the end with that booking but I'd be prepared to say 87% they will be X fares.[/-]

First, I'm confused. Why would I search for a classic award seat by searching for points plus pay?
Second, the slider in your screenshot is at the "pay" end.
I tried this for my booking. I can't slide the slider down to pay zero. It stops at a payment of $80.42.
Now that doesn't appear so unreasonable. But the points required for that have gone up from 130,000 to 208,104.
So the value of points required to reduce the copayment this way is ridiculously low.

 

[Flying mermaid]

First, I'm confused. Why would I search for a classic award seat by searching for points plus pay?
Second, the slider in your screenshot is at the "pay" end.
I tried this for my booking. I can't slide the slider down to pay zero. It stops at a payment of $80.42.
Now that doesn't appear so unreasonable. But the points required for that have gone up from 130,000 to 208,104.
So the value of points required to reduce the copayment this way is ridiculously low.

I think it is a "feature" otherwise known as a bug.... I do this all the time for domestic flights. If you search for classic awards you are not given the option to reduce the copayment with points. If you search for a normal revenue fare then next to the normal fare is an icon as to whether award seats exist or not. If you then click on the icon for the award seats, you then get the classic award seat but you get the points plus pay slider to reduce the copayment. I always get mine down to zero. It isn't a good use of points, but as I view my points as free and only use them for domestic flights or upgrades for the ankle biters, I am happy to save real money by using points.

 

[Awesom Andy]

It isn't a good use of points, but as I view my points as free and only use them for domestic flights or upgrades for the ankle biters, I am happy to save real money by using points.

We all value our points differently, and if that floats your boat, then it is a good use of points. Others can disagree but that's not your problem.