Qantas Frequent Flyer changes coming in early 2024

[Jean Prouvaire]

I actually don't mind the idea @Dane Charles postulated above - ie to pay for better access to reward seats (which, let's face it, is essentially what one does by attaining status). I'm not suggesting to bring a no status member up to the levels of P1 for reward access or anything, but that's an idea that the bean counters probably would like - increased revenue for them for the CHANCE of better access to reward seats. Of course, it then devalues, a bit, the status benefit of say a Gold member if they're competing against the "paid access" tier but ANY scheme to provide for more seat access to lower or no status flyers will have that effect - and QF won't want to be seen to be providing less incentive to attaining status - and that's where this idea probably hits a roadblock.

This would be similar to the Club Jetstar program Qantas Group runs, where an annual subscription gets you access to club-only sale prices and some other perks. Of course Jetstar doesn't have a frequent flyer program in its own right (but interfaces with QFF) whereas Qantas does.

As RichardMEL points out, the more you unbundle various Frequent Flyer program benefits and make these available separately, the more you devalue the FF program. We can start to see this happen in other areas already - eg you can now get the "Platinum shadow seat" perk (which, granted, is not formally recognised as a perk) by paying for neighbour free seating. I can imagine a customer who really values this shadow seat perk (but not other WP perks like the even bigger baggage allowance or First Lounge access) thinking to themselves "Why pay thousands of dollars every year going for Platinum when I can just pay just hundreds of dollars every years to get the only perk I care about - an empty seat next to me - on a flight-by-flight basis?" And the same reasoning can be applied to better access to reward seats, which is one of the more attractive perks of being higher status, in my opinion.

One of the interesting things about Points Club is that the best perk (well, best before I hit Lifetime Gold) - reward flights granting status credits, albeit at a lower rate - is something that's not attainable through any other means. I'd say that's good program design because it provides an incentive for the Points Club program without devaluing the QFF program. In fact, the two programs complement each other in this respect.

I would say the way around that is to provide for the two tiers of rewards - as many other airlines offer a "standard" reward, at say 2x the point cost, and a "saver" at the current redemption cost - with a reasonably higher amount of availability. That gives some choice to the points rich folks and churners. The pricing needs to be reasonable though (ie not like the current "points plus pay" levels that many people confuse with CR's).

My first reaction is that people are already confused by the difference between Points Plus Pay and Classic Rewards, so would a third tier of points pricing in between these two make things even more confusing to the average customer? But maybe that doesn't matter if it means significantly more flights payable by points.

I reckon the big takeaway from this thread is the issue of LTP. The level is so out of whack with the rest of the program it is wishful thinking for the vast majority of long term "loyal" flyers that it isn't even aspirational to attain.

When they first announced Lifetime Platinum at 75,000 SCs my first reaction (well, my second reaction after laughing hysterically for about 15 minutes) was that they deliberately set it so high so that they have room to lower the bar at some point in the future. (The other theory of course, which I saw expressed on AFF, was that they introduced it at such an impossible level just so that they could tell people who had been clamouring for a LTP status to shut up.) Personally, I think 28,000 SCs - twice LTG - is a reasonable target, given that the target for yearly Wanker Platinum is twice Scum Gold.

It took me about 12-13 years to hit LTG. I could maybe, just about, justify another 12-13 years of paying the Qantas premium (running to thousands of dollars pa) if the reward at the end of the very distant finishing line was Lifetime Platinum for my twilight years. But if the target was set at 50,000 SCs (as some have suggested) or even 35,000 SCs, I wouldn't bother, as I'd most likely be in the grave for the former and in a nursing home for the later.

Of course, the equation might be different for those who fly more often, or who are younger. The other factor is that there's undoubtedly already more people with 28,000+ status credits than Qantas would like. So maybe they could make 75,000 SCs a "Lifetime Platinum One" tier instead?

 

[djtech]

What improvements would I like to see?
Probably most of the important ones have been covered but I'll put my 2 cents in and agree that all members reasonably expect to have access to book ANY unsold seats on ALL flights, especially for the OW Classic 'RTW' Reward. No limitations on the 'release' of 'extra' seats. And this is a very affordable, immediate improvement that can be done today.

An unsold seat is an available reward seat, there is no negotiation on this. Members with status above Bronze get fairly (and on many cases exceedingly) rewarded for their status, well beyond the 'perk' of preferential access to reward seats.

The other is for Qantas (all airlines too, really) to comply with their ACL obligations and issue immediate refunds for cancelled flights and/or rebook to ANY available scheduled mode of transport/on-demand transport. No more flight credits nonsense, no more defrauding Australians.

Qantas' abhorrent conduct during Alan Joyce's tyranny have destroyed trust but his legacy still keeps this airline in the prehistoric era until this reasonable expectation is catered for, which is why I direct all my points earn to Virgin and Star Alliance via Krisflyer, since the pandemic.
I won't hold my breath for qantas to suitably demonstrate that it is serious about becoming fit for purpose and an airline of choice, it'll take decades to repair the damage, but these improvements are an instant fix.

How do you define unsold though and what's the cut off? Usually unsold seat goes to staff travel/standby travel. Don't think they'd shoot themselves in the foot like that!

 

[djtech]

I wonder why they don't give incentives between LTG and LTP. Surely that level of disengagement is hurting the business. LTGs want to fly Qantas/OW partners to enjoy the benefits, but if they don't spend on the airline, they're just a cost centre. Why not put some intermediate mile stones? Like if you are a LTG, every time you qualify for SG the "normal" way gets you upgrade vouchers or something like Virgin has done. Or maybe "gift" a silver membership to someone, etc. There's so many opportunities to offer incremental benefits after you hit LTG I'm not sure why they haven't done it yet. Looking at other lifetime status programs around the world, it's either there is a single holy grail tier where you get all the benefits after a super lofty goal, or you have multiple tiers of lifetime status like the US programs with 1million to 4 million milers and so on.

 

[Jean Prouvaire]

all members reasonably expect to have access to book ANY unsold seats on ALL flights, especially for the OW Classic 'RTW' Reward. No limitations on the 'release' of 'extra' seats. And this is a very affordable, immediate improvement that can be done today.

An unsold seat is an available reward seat, there is no negotiation on this.

Interestingly, Rex's upcoming loyalty program will offer this:

Last Minute Flight Rewards
Rex Flyer’s Last Minute Flight Rewards will mean that you’ll never miss out on being able to use your points. With our Last Minute Flight Rewards we will make unsold seats available at our Ultimate Reward rate within the last 48 hours before departure

The "Ultimate Reward" rate is the best value rate, ie similar to Classic Reward flights. But I'd argue that Rex needs something appealing like this to make up for its significantly smaller network, market share and lower quality lounges. If Qantas were to offer a "any unsold seat available as a reward" deal to its 14 million members I imagine there'd be much, much gaming of the system.

 

[muppet]

This will be a tough one for QF to balance. On the one hand, QFF is such a hugely profitable part of Qantas at 20% margin, QF has to feed the beast. On the other hand, flying passengers generates 6/7 of every profitable dollar.

Churners and points earners generate great profits for QF, but status holders must be generating heaps more.

In my situation, as a WP who gets most** of their award seat release requests granted, I really don’t want to see better availability that increases the cost of award flights. The current program really works for me, I’d prefer QF improved its onboard and lounge offering before reforming QFF.

** EDIT: I know I’ve had the odd sook when it doesn’t go my way

 

[muppet]

….

…what's the point of saying x thousands of seats are released if the majority are on unpopular routes at unpopular times? If you want to get that seat to LAX you could care less that there's 10 available to Mount Gambier (just pulled at random, no offence to our friends in SA intended) on the same day.
…

Completely agree, however savvy QFF points users will often redeem an 8,000 point award to Mt Gambier that saves them $400-500 in cash as a much better use than 289,000 and $1300 to LHR and back in J that saves them $8k. (On a cents per point basis)

 

[PineappleSkip]

Churners and points earners generate great profits for QF, but status holders must be generating heaps more.

I’m not sure about that. I made most of the last 2/3 of the way to LTG flying MH, CX, BA, AY. Sure the SCs were lower but I saved a fortune along the way. I had nothing against QF, indeed would have been happy to fly them, but it was almost never the value option.

 

[RichardMEL]

How do you define unsold though and what's the cut off? Usually unsold seat goes to staff travel/standby travel. Don't think they'd shoot themselves in the foot like that!

This. unsold when? 3 months out? 3 weeks? 3 days? 3 hours?

Airlines often hold inventory (if they can) for last minute/walk up sales (specially in key business routes). That's not going to happen, and if you offer it too far out, why would they do this when there's a fair chance they could sell the seats.

Some, but not many have the flexibility to grab award seats close in (say a day or two prior)... you'd have to have the ability (and desire) to go at a moment's notice which probably isn't going to work for the vast majority of people.

I recently read one of the bloggers write about LH releasing F inventory usually within four days (I think) of flying - it was definitely under a week out. Now that's great if you're happy to drop everything and fly say FRA-ORD (and can do so) in a few days. Ripper.

That's not going to help people who want to book space for school holidays is it?

It's a nice idea - sort of like the idea of last minute hotel rooms at discount rates for the night in question - that sort of thing can work better because say you land in a city and want accom (or plans change, or whatever) there are often many option and say a discount room at a nicer property can be a nice treat in that respect. Air travel - specially international (which is what most want) is most likely only suitable for a relatively small group of people. Maybe a weekend in NZ might be one of those reasonable last minute notions from the east coast that I could understand, but for many other destinations it doesn't seem very realistic imo.

 

[1022]

Interestingly, Rex's upcoming loyalty program will offer this:



The "Ultimate Reward" rate is the best value rate, ie similar to Classic Reward flights. But I'd argue that Rex needs something appealing like this to make up for its significantly smaller network, market share and lower quality lounges. If Qantas were to offer a "any unsold seat available as a reward" deal to its 14 million members I imagine there'd be much, much gaming of the system.

QF could really only do this after processing upgrades on points and cash bids. When is the last time anyone saw an empty seat in J on a QF international flight? Their yield management systems are working well from a company perspective in filling vacant seats with varying degrees of cash and points. Only the beancounters know on any route what proportion of passengers paid with cash vs P+P vs CR vs upgrades of various stripes.

It's all good and well that we all (me included) want 4 J CR seats guaranteed on every flight, including school holidays. But any additional - or guaranteed - J classic rewards seats offered are going to be at the expense of upgrades, which favour higher status pax, as they should. As others have said, maybe they could be a bit more assertive in offering points upgrades a few days out as a bit of a half way sweetener. And then, if there genuinely are seats otherwise going out empty, pop last minute awards online like EK and EY tend to do. (Or offer discounted points upgrades to status pax maybe)

Demanding extra CR seats at the expense of the allure of upgrades is cutting off one's nose to spite one's face.

 

[RichardMEL]

I wonder why they don't give incentives between LTG and LTP. Surely that level of disengagement is hurting the business. LTGs want to fly Qantas/OW partners to enjoy the benefits, but if they don't spend on the airline, they're just a cost centre. Why not put some intermediate mile stones? Like if you are a LTG, every time you qualify for SG the "normal" way gets you upgrade vouchers or something like Virgin has done. Or maybe "gift" a silver membership to someone, etc. There's so many opportunities to offer incremental benefits after you hit LTG I'm not sure why they haven't done it yet. Looking at other lifetime status programs around the world, it's either there is a single holy grail tier where you get all the benefits after a super lofty goal, or you have multiple tiers of lifetime status like the US programs with 1million to 4 million milers and so on.

Fair point and I agree. I think that QF sees high LT SC earners as petty much "rusted on" that QF probably considers more or less not worth throwing too much to - if they've been handcuffed this long, then chances are they'll probably stay. I mean those with >20k LTSC (and yes, I am one of those lol). If you get to 14k, get LTG and then go elsewhere well that's QF's loss, but you'll still probably come back from time to time at the very least to make use of that status so they probably see a little bit of revenue even there (unless one goes and only flies OW and uses the status there.

The other thing is that, unlike the US, there's little competition in this space. VA offers zero LT status so QF see this as being all to themselves - probably another reason why LTP is so high to attain. In the US, you have the three major legacy carriers who cmpete heavily - even in the space of high time flyers.

 

[RichardMEL]

Just on "guaranteed reward seats per flight" - OK let's say they announce this. Several thoughts come to mind:

1. How is this monitored or enforced?
2. Let's say the 2xJ or 4xJ or whatever it is are released per flight - ie as soon as they come into the GDS for sale - you'll just have the situation as it is now - those hanging out at 353 days at 0000 GMT to grab the seats. OK sure it's "easier" if you know to expect seats, but that was a reasonable expectation prior to the recent changes on many routes (but not all). What if you're a few seconds later and I grab those seats and you don't see them? Does that mean QF didn't keep the promise, or you were just late to the party. How would you know?
3. How does a guarantee help the non status folks find better access? Assuming the current access timeframes hold such that status pax have first dibs, you'll still likely end up in a situation with near zero choice for low/non status customers when it comes to their turn on high demand routes. Probably not much benefit for the majority of members there.

I tend to see this kind of thing as more of a headline but in a practical sense may not actually mean a big difference in what we see from day to day - at least in terms of popular high demand routes - specially international.

I can definitely see this as being far more impactful for domestic - specially transcons - demand can be high, but probably not in the range of say LAX, LHR, SIN, TYO and so on.

Having said that, even so, reward availability on domestic is generally pretty reasonable. However, I can see some sort of guarantee would be an improvement.

 

[Tigers1965]

Qantas CEO Vanessa Hudson flagged "permanent improvements" to the Qantas Frequent Flyer program, to be announced early next year, at today's AGM.

Details here:

https://www.australianfrequentflyer.com.au/qantas-changes-coming-early-2024/

What Frequent Flyer changes would you like Qantas to announce in early 2024?

I hope they lower the number of credits needed for life time Platinum. Once obtaining life time gold, there is little incentive to reach Platinum, given it is so high, and thus better to use another carrier.

 

[Silvia]

Clearly they need to do something about LTP… it’s been loud and clear that people disengage after LTG. With the inflated fares and ageing fleet, there is not a lot of incentive to travel past LTG

 

[encryptededdy]

I guess I might as well provide my two cents on some hypothetical changes to the way Qantas does CR that I think will be overall an improvement, along with the other airlines/FFPs they're inspired by.

• Introduce a flex/advantage type of Classic Reward for 2x the cost
  • Let's call this "Flex CR" and call the current rewards "Saver CR"
  • Restrict the ability to upgrade International Classic Rewards to Flex CR only, but reduce the cost of upgrades to be in-line with a cash ticket
  • Similar to what's done by Singapore, Qatar etc.
• All QF flights are guaranteed a X amount of flex award seats when they are created (e.g. 8Y/4W/2J/2F)
  • Similar to what's done by BA, AY etc.
  • People are welcome to nab them as soon as they're released, but they must pay the higher cost
  • Remove the limitation of premium seats to status members only on release
• Further Saver/Flex award seats are added as determined by yield management as they do now
• Gold+ members receive a xx% discount on Flex CR and Points + Pay
  • e.g. 15% Gold, 30% Platinum
  • Similar to what's done by CX
  • I'm sure Points + Pay is sufficiently profitable that they can offer this discount
• Platinum members can already request award seat releases. Maybe expand the fare classes that can be released, but only allow these higher fare classes to be released as Flex CR pricing
• Add a "companion fare" type award system. If a Gold+ member holds a cash Saver Econ or above ticket, the member can receive a guaranteed award seat for their companion on the same flight in the same class at Flex CR pricing assuming Saver Y/W/J/F fare classes are still available
  • Similar to what's done by NZ

As for the Lifetime Gold and Platinum gap issue... this is quite hard. Obviously starting all LTGs at 600 SCs probably isn't practical as it'd generate too many WPs, however I have some thoughts on some halfway solutions that could at least encourage some people to fly with QF

• Introduce a 600SC WP renewal for LTG holders, but all SCs must be earned by QF-marketed flying (same limitation as P1 attain/retain)
• Allow LTG holders to rollover any unused SCs into the next status year
  • e.g. If you're LTG WP and earn 1500 SCs, you start next year with 300 SCs
  • This means LTG holders who are still travelling a lot (but not enough for WP1 / LTP) will still get extended status of some sort
  • This is similar to the NZ elite rollover / NZ elite banked year
• If you retain Gold anyway whilst holding LTG, you can gift that Gold to someone (or keep for yourself to go for WP)
  • Similar to the existing 2400 SC thing, but modified for LTGs

Of course, these are all random thoughts of someone who doesn't actually work in this space, so it's more or less just random dreaming. I have tried to keep most of it at least somewhat feasible though.

 

[Mattg]

One urgent change required to improve customer experience is a change of their call centres in the Philippines and Kenya, although seemingly proficient in English the Filipino call centre staff are I'll equipped and not properly trained to deal with Australian customers, they act like robots, a conversation with them leads to no resolution and are often rude and when one asks for the call to be escalated to a senior team leader or supervisor they simply refuse (something not allowed) and as for the Kenyan staff they say they call from Quntas not Qantas and when you can't even pronounce the name of the company you are working for correctly that already says a lot, I was called back 6 times by the most unintelligible Kenyan staff including a so called supervisor and again only to lead to more frustration. As a platinum frequent flyer downgraded post Covid to lifetime gold I really have no interest in supporting an airline with no customer service.

Qantas does not have a call centre in Kenya. I believe you may be referring to the one in South Africa.

 

[trippin_the_rift]

I think Qantas should enhance the program by adding a new benefit everyone is asking for: Lifetime Platinum One at 8.5M status credits.

 

[PumaPilot]

Classic rewards.....a joke. I can see seats from Sydney to Taiwan with Classic Rewards but when I go to book, NO SEATS available. Is this a case of Q advertising seats that aren't for sale? I even looked at CR to Singapore in Business then buying my own flights to Taiwan but there are no seats returning back to Oz. I have six weeks leave and can't fly anywhere in CR seats with my wife. Utter joke

 

[encryptededdy]

Classic rewards.....a joke. I can see seats from Sydney to Taiwan with Classic Rewards but when I go to book, NO SEATS available. Is this a case of Q advertising seats that aren't for sale?

Did you click the Classic Rewards filter in the search? Most of those flights will be with partner China Airlines, so may not show on the main list of cash fares. With that said, Qantas' IT is often janky and will show the Classic Rewards icon in the calendar when there isn't actually space.

As a Platinum, you can also see if you can get rewards seats released on the way back from Singapore if the appropriate cash fare classes are available ("I" for business). more info in this thread: QFF Platinum requesting release of extra Classic award seats?

 

[Himeno]

I think Qantas should enhance the program by adding a new benefit everyone is asking for: Lifetime Platinum One at 8.5M status credits.

Don't set it at x SC. Set it as millions of woolworths points.

 

[CaptJCool]

Again has nothing to do with QFF.

and domestic hasn't had a "F" service for 30 odd years. You want proper champagne and S&P squid on your red-e-deal to SYD?

Definitely unrealistic

Well it was realistic when QF81 was still runnin
I did that many times !