Qantas frequent flyers unleash over ‘almost worthless points’ in submissions to Senate

[levelnine]

I hope we are not all going to suffer because Ma and Pa Kettle can't get their family of six onto flights to America during the school holidays.

There is a fairly large gulf between you, a single traveller seemingly able to travel outside of peak periods, and a family of six trying to fly at peak times.

There are plenty of intermediate cases where it is also pretty much impossible to find award flights.

For example, there are many Qantas routes where there is not a single business or first class award in either direction across the entire calendar.

 

[Lynda2475]

For gods sake give it a break. It's actually quite irrelevant to this discussion. Alright then, flights from Australia that take less than 8 hours. Are we done now?

You are the one that took it off topic.

Again failing to understand that there are many non stop flights greater than 8hrs, off the top of head:

PER to LHR, FCO, JNB
BNE to LAX, HNL
MEL to LAX, SFO, DFW, HNL, YVR
SYD to LAX, SFO, DFW, IAH, YVR, HNL, SCL

Just because you fly via Asia or ME many don't need to.

 

[Lynda2475]

For example, there are many Qantas routes where there is not a single business or first class award in either direction across the entire calendar.

But this doesn't breach terms is hardly unique to QF. Also unrelated to bilateral agreements or slots.

Even those airlines who guarantee set number of seats per class per flight won't have 6 J , and if a solo traveller or a a couple beats you booking 1 or 2 seats you still may not get the number you want.

It's a game or gamble, if you want certainty you need a cash ticket.

When I see traveller letters whinging about lost points it's usually a tiny amount like 5k, if you don't transact to keep them active given the plethora of non flight, no cost options then this isn't the program for you.

 

[Pushka]

You are the one that took it off topic.

Again failing to understand that there are many non stop flights greater than 8hrs, off the top of head:

PER to LHR, FCO, JNB
BNE to LAX, HNL
MEL to LAX, SFO, DFW, HNL, YVR
SYD to LAX, SFO, DFW, IAH, YVR, HNL, SCL

Just because you fly via Asia or ME many don't need to.

Yes we’ve already dealt with those by the ALMOST edit. I’d hoped we were done but here we are.

 

[RooFlyer]

Moral of the story: Qantas can do no wrong Hear no evil.

 

[offshore171]

There are plenty of intermediate cases where it is also pretty much impossible to find award flights.

Exactly this.

Many people cannot do nuance any more, expressing that the only possibilities are:

A) Solo traveller with highly flexible dates

or

B) Ma+Pa Kettle with family of 6 with highly fixed school holiday dates.


As you rightly point out - the vast majority are nuanced cases in between, and it's these people that have immense problems finding award tickets.

 

[levelnine]

But this doesn't breach terms is hardly unique to QF. Also unrelated to bilateral agreements or slots.

Who is arguing that this breaches terms? You're boxing at shadows.

Also, you are incorrect on the second point. The Senate Select Committee's terms of reference extend to 'all Federal Government decisions relating to any proposals since 2016 for additional services to Australia’s airports' and include 'any other related matters'.

It's not difficult to see how the provision of additional services (or lack thereof) affects the availability of award flights. Indeed, the former causes the latter. The more services there are, the more award seats there will be.

In Qantas Loyalty's own submission to the Senate Inquiry, Olivia Wirth discusses the availability of classic rewards at great length. Even Wirth notes the link between capacity and award seat availability:

Our continued investment in Classic Flight Reward seat availability has meant more of these seats were flown in thelast 12 months than the calendar year 2019 (pre-COVID), despite the Qantas Group and our partner airlines not yetreturning to 100 per cent of pre-COVID capacity.

 

[Lynda2475]

Yes we’ve already dealt with those by the ALMOST edit. I’d hoped we were done but here we are.

Bur you added a new 8 hour qualifier which so best to correct such blatant misinformation sit there.

Kind of illustrates my point that too many QFF don't read terms or do any goggling or research before making complaints.

If QFF program promised specific redemption and didn't provide complain away.

But because many can't get their first or second preference on demand, or may need to fly separately to their partner and meet up at destination that somehow makes QFf point worthless.

If terms don't suit you don't play the QFf game.

Made funnier as some complaining here seem to redeem QFF premium flights quite regualrly.

 

[Lynda2475]

the former causes the latter

Except that QR withhold awards from QFF so giving them more access doesn't change that because the reason is QFs partnership with EK which isn't going away.

Ms Wirths comment re more redemptions didnt include more QR ones. She has been unable to get QR to release advance J awards to QFF (even though they do on same routes for BA and AA customers), and in QR statement their chief talked about paid seats and made no commitment or mention of adding QR award seats for QFF.

QR aren't going to release heaps of new QFF award seats if they get extra flights, since they prefer to give them to other OW partners or charge premium fares.

 

[RooFlyer]

Except that QR withhold awards from QFF so giving them more access doesn't change that because the reason is QFs partnership with EK which isn't going away.

How come QR gets such a big go in your comments - you've sworn never to use them. Now the expert?

And its incorrect, anyway. QR does release seats to QF. Maybe you don't understand how it works ... maybe need to Google?

Back to Qantas. its seat releasing to its own FF members for international is pathetic, patchy, hard to follow (unless you are in the know) and expensive. One of the worst programs out there. Use other programs to realise how bad they are.

 

[Pushka]

 

[jase05]

Definitely plenty of options to use the points on premium flights but the QF website makes it a nightmare to redeem at time.
Booking some flights currently and plenty of J & F availability on BA KWI-LHR but obviously the website won’t accept KWI so it necessitates a call to QF to book. Now on my 3rd attempt and 4hrs on the phone already and still not booked

 

[Pushka]

Definitely plenty of options to use the points on premium flights but the QF website makes it a nightmare to redeem at time.
Booking some flights currently and plenty of J & F availability on BA KWI-LHR but obviously the website won’t accept KWI so it necessitates a call to QF to book. Now on my 3rd attempt and 4hrs on the phone already and still not booked

Some would say you are doing this wrong.

 

[jase05]

Some would say you are doing this wrong.

All jokes aside if QF fixed their website I reckon half their problems would disappear and it has a two fold effect by unclogging calls to the call centres

 

[Long Frequent Traveler]

What has the FFP got to do with bilateral agreements? Whether Australia has bilateral agreements with other nations for airport access has zero relationship to Qantas' nor any other airlines FF scheme.

If it is anything like the letters to the SMH travel section, I'm betting most of the complaints are from people who are looking at "anytime" rather than "classic" awards and not understanding the difference (and the masthead too uneducated themselves to correct the inaccurate claims re award seat cost).

Are these same people complaining about Flybuys or some of the actual junk health insurance being sold?

Do they think earning some points at Woolworths when they dont fly means QF owes them something? Earning points is NOT a guarantee, its an opportunity. You can choose to play the game or not. I bet they never even read the T&Cs when they joined.

Classic awards can be difficult to get but I dispute that QFF points are junk, I've done 2 * J 318K OWAs in the last 2 years, if id purchased those flights Id have needed to fund an extra $11-12k on top of the taxes paid on the award flights for each one. If one is after domestic awards to/from the capital cities these are plentiful. International and regional flights are harder to find, but certainly not impossible.

In 2019 Qantas introduced a new tier of points redemption which effectively reduced the value of points by up to 80-90%. At the same time they spun this by saying they'd listened to customer "feedback" and were releasing more FF seats however they did not say people would need 8 or 9 times as many points to use them.

They also said at the time they were "sacrificing revenue in its airline business by making more points seats available". Let's not forget Qantas have already been paid for these points by selling them to companies like banks, hotel chains, petrol stations etc that buy them to entice customers in to their business. So Qantas has banked hundreds of millions of dollars from the sale of these points and then devalued them to their most loyal customers. Customers effectively buy these points by choosing to go to businesses that offer them, so they should have an expectation they are worth something.

Also, the value of the number of points now required to book flights on this new tier (based on what Qantas sells the points for) far exceeds what it costs to pay cash for a seat. eg. the value of points for a return trip to Bali is up to $4,300+ whereas cash sale fares are between $600 and $900. So Qantas are hardly sacrificing revenue. They're actually making more margin and they've already got that money in the bank.

Obtaining Classic Rewards seats is near on impossible on most occasions now so while Qantas and you may say they're available, in reality the only relatively easy way to redeem points is by booking flights using the heavily inflated new tier of points.

As to your point on the relevance of this topic in the Senate Inquiry into Qatar, I believe it is relevant because it goes to demonstrating how Qantas uses its enormous market power and influence to its advantage and their customers' disadvantage.

 

[Bayside Flyer]

I guess that over the years we have seen many novices expecting a great deal more from their infrequent flying and accumulation of points than the reality dictates. and I guess this will continue on into the future.

 

[Must...Fly!]

I guess that over the years we have seen many novices expecting a great deal more from their infrequent flying and accumulation of points than the reality dictates. and I guess this will continue on into the future.

But which reality.

The one you and I live in or the alternate one Qantas markets and wants you to believe

 

[drron]

Well I am not the most frequent flyer here but I do enough flying to scrape into the definition. I have 25 flights between Sept 23 this year and august 24. Nearly all in J apart from 4 in F.
We have one QF domestic J award but using AA points as fees less than QF and although it is true that AA awards have become more expensive in awards I really can't complain about the cost going up from 25000 points + $US5.60 to 40000 points plus increased fees as standard for Oceania. Note AA puts Pacific Islands in the same points range as domestic Australia.

However off peak the points now can be lower. So I just did a quick comparison between AA and QF for the same flights on 23/8/24. A tuesday which in days of yore was quieter ususually
So for AA.
BNE - CNS. 20000 points + $US20. $A31.10.
BNE -NAN. 30000 + $US85.10. $A123
BNE - AKL. 25000 + $US119.50. $A174.

Now for QF.
CNS. 27600 + $55. Went straight to classic award plus a box if you wanted points + pay.
NAN. 49400 + $153. But this time went to points + pay at 339400. No tick box for CR you have to tick rewards in the filter to get CR.
AKL. 43800 + $180. Again hasd to use the rewards filter. Initial pricing 125284 points.

So QF remains consistently inconsistent on what type of award comes up. Yet consistently dearer than AA in points and fees.

So I repeat we have found it impossible to use QFF points for premium cabin international flights that we want even with mrsdrron being WP so able to access early.
As well she has never been successful at getting an extra J award released. Our classic example from pre 2011 she was able to get a J award BKK -SYD but when rang for an extra award seat for me was denied. So I went to AA and was able to get one for myself.

So remind me why QFF is superior to Aadvantage?

 

[Mr H]

So remind me why QFF is superior to Aadvantage?

For most of us Australians, the superiority is that it is much easier to generate a lot of QFF points whereas it would be difficult to generate a lot of AAdvantage points. So for good or for bad, most of us are tied to QFF (and perhaps VA and/or SQ) for our awards - and our focus has to be on getting those schemes to work for us.

 

[Pushka]

Well I am not the most frequent flyer here but I do enough flying to scrape into the definition. I have 25 flights between Sept 23 this year and august 24. Nearly all in J apart from 4 in F.
We have one QF domestic J award but using AA points as fees less than QF and although it is true that AA awards have become more expensive in awards I really can't complain about the cost going up from 25000 points + $US5.60 to 40000 points plus increased fees as standard for Oceania. Note AA puts Pacific Islands in the same points range as domestic Australia.

However off peak the points now can be lower. So I just did a quick comparison between AA and QF for the same flights on 23/8/24. A tuesday which in days of yore was quieter ususually
So for AA.
BNE - CNS. 20000 points + $US20. $A31.10.
BNE -NAN. 30000 + $US85.10. $A123
BNE - AKL. 25000 + $US119.50. $A174.

Now for QF.
CNS. 27600 + $55. Went straight to classic award plus a box if you wanted points + pay.
NAN. 49400 + $153. But this time went to points + pay at 339400. No tick box for CR you have to tick rewards in the filter to get CR.
AKL. 43800 + $180. Again hasd to use the rewards filter. Initial pricing 125284 points.

So QF remains consistently inconsistent on what type of award comes up. Yet consistently dearer than AA in points and fees.

So I repeat we have found it impossible to use QFF points for premium cabin international flights that we want even with mrsdrron being WP so able to access early.
As well she has never been successful at getting an extra J award released. Our classic example from pre 2011 she was able to get a J award BKK -SYD but when rang for an extra award seat for me was denied. So I went to AA and was able to get one for myself.

So remind me why QFF is superior to Aadvantage?

I've never had success in getting a seat released as WP. One of the operators acted like I was asking for the unicorn.