Qantas Platinum One experiences?

[juddles]

I am of the firm belief that "half" of P1's attain this through travel booked/organized/paid for by others. The other half choose QF themselves. And QF has not realized this difference.

That email is ludicrous for an already existing P1.

 

[juddles]

Dammit, am tired and need to sleep, but feel the need for a "rant" after reading the last few posts - just so I can rest feeling I have expressed myself - so here goes....

 

[juddles]

As a P1 I travel. A lot. Yet I get the clear feeling that the people within QF who are responsible for "us frequent flyers" have no true idea of who they are dealing with. I cannot begrudge that, as so much travel is not a thing most people would do, let alone an employee in the "loyalty" or whatever section of a company.

As exhibit (a) I would put forward those dreadful quarterly P1 briefs. I am sure the people that write them think they are really good. And worse, I am sure their superiors lap them up too. But which P1's actually find them great?? At a recent P1 function in BNE it was revealed that AJ himself did far less travel than most P1's. How in this company do they actually research and learn the needs and desires of us?

As exhibit (b) I could proffer any of my recent emails from QF. Stuff for the masses. Can QF not realise that if someone is P1 they would maybe have a very decent experience level in travel?? That trivialities, basic nonsense, would probably hurt/offend more P1's than actually entice them?

Exhibit (c) would be the yearly end-of-year gifts. A nice touch, but trivial unless someone else paid for your travel. I ingest 100's of equivalent champas in a year. A 50 or 200 dollar bottle of bubbly is nice, but when I spend 20 or 50 or 100k with a company, it is still a trivial thing. I have said many times that a Christmas card actually signed by AJ would be far more valuable.

Exhibit (d) would be such frivolities as sending me an email saying I had travelelled X km's in a year. That would be OK if "they" recognized that those X km were with QF. For many years QF was my third most traveled airline. But still they sent me that. Another trivial thing, but the lack of recognition that a member may be also using other airlines is staggering. Unless you understand that the staff doing these things haven't a clue.

Just to destroy completely my association with QF, I raise my recent experience at that P1 meet in BNE. AJ is a great guy. I have a good feel for people and trust that. But I also met Olivia, the darling of the Loyalty thing. In those scant minutes I formed a very strong opinion of QF overall. It is a big company. I think AJ is doing well. But I felt that Olivia is a darling that keeps the above staff happy. And I get that. But oif management thinks everything is great, then why would they change? Has anyone here got an idea how we can get past the filters so that QF upper management actually feel our sentiments?

It seems to me a simple thing - in a company you should understand your best/most profitable clients. QF does not seem to me to be achieving this. There are simply too many layers of people in between.

FFS, there are not too many P1's, yet they send out stuff that is nonsensical. In an early P1 briefing they gave the hot tip to take your passport overseas!!!

I rest my tired and jaded case.

 

[calmelb]

As a P1 I travel. A lot. Yet I get the clear feeling that the people within QF who are responsible for "us frequent flyers" have no true idea of who they are dealing with. I cannot begrudge that, as so much travel is not a thing most people would do, let alone an employee in the "loyalty" or whatever section of a company.

As exhibit (a) I would put forward those dreadful quarterly P1 briefs. I am sure the people that write them think they are really good. And worse, I am sure their superiors lap them up too. But which P1's actually find them great?? At a recent P1 function in BNE it was revealed that AJ himself did far less travel than most P1's. How in this company do they actually research and learn the needs and desires of us?

As exhibit (b) I could proffer any of my recent emails from QF. Stuff for the masses. Can QF not realise that if someone is P1 they would maybe have a very decent experience level in travel?? That trivialities, basic nonsense, would probably hurt/offend more P1's than actually entice them?

Exhibit (c) would be the yearly end-of-year gifts. A nice touch, but trivial unless someone else paid for your travel. I ingest 100's of equivalent champas in a year. A 50 or 200 dollar bottle of bubbly is nice, but when I spend 20 or 50 or 100k with a company, it is still a trivial thing. I have said many times that a Christmas card actually signed by AJ would be far more valuable.

Exhibit (d) would be such frivolities as sending me an email saying I had travelelled X km's in a year. That would be OK if "they" recognized that those X km were with QF. For many years QF was my third most traveled airline. But still they sent me that. Another trivial thing, but the lack of recognition that a member may be also using other airlines is staggering. Unless you understand that the staff doing these things haven't a clue.

Just to destroy completely my association with QF, I raise my recent experience at that P1 meet in BNE. AJ is a great guy. I have a good feel for people and trust that. But I also met Olivia, the darling of the Loyalty thing. In those scant minutes I formed a very strong opinion of QF overall. It is a big company. I think AJ is doing well. But I felt that Olivia is a darling that keeps the above staff happy. And I get that. But oif management thinks everything is great, then why would they change? Has anyone here got an idea how we can get past the filters so that QF upper management actually feel our sentiments?

It seems to me a simple thing - in a company you should understand your best/most profitable clients. QF does not seem to me to be achieving this. There are simply too many layers of people in between.

FFS, there are not too many P1's, yet they send out stuff that is nonsensical. In an early P1 briefing they gave the hot tip to take your passport overseas!!!

I rest my tired and jaded case.

I may have only had one year of P1 but it was mostly underwhelming. I agree with all of your points mostly.

The gift I think should be something other than Champers. There aren’t that many P1s, and surely they have data on what people would like (like on this person likes aviation so get them something aviation related, someone likes formula one so f1 tickets, etc. and if they don’t have data then go back to the champers or headphones or whatever.

The events and invites aren’t done well from what I’ve seen. I got 0 invites in a year for something that is marketed as a benefit. I was hoping that in my one year of being P1 I would get a proper invite to an event. It was a bit of a let down

 

[Brettmcg]

Enhancements™. Coming soon to an FF program near you.

 

[RichardMEL]

The "Retain P1" email has been consistent 4 months out for me for the past 4 years (now in my 5th as P1). It's automatic and zero thought goes into it ie there's no analysis if you're on 3599 SC or 10SC (or 0). Things like that are maddening imo but that's just how QF operate.

I'd much rather they did something like target juddles who clearly has dropped off and said "hey, we see you've stopped flying QF.. maybe we can offer you [ inducement ] to get back on board?" (like a SC promo, double points, discount, whatever).. doesn't seem like it would be too card to code up and send and be intelligent rather than me, who is on 3400 SC for forward bookings and will requalify - I don't need the reminder email.

Plenty of other loyalty programs do it - eg hotels but QF just seem bind to this, or they really are that arrogant that they just do not care.

IIRC there's some sort of axiom in marketing that usually it's far more difficult to gain a customer than it is to retain them - and that's probably what is going on here.. oh if they're P1 they're bolted on to QF and we don't need to do much while trying to get the 18-35 y.o's in with the lounge passes and all that - even though your millenials probably contribute a fraction of the revenue your average P1 would, but I suppose there are thousands more of them out there to target. I guess QF does the sums.

Now juddles may NOT respond to some sort of "hey we miss you" type contact as he's decided to go elsewhere, but it sure as shyte wouldn't HURT and maybe for every X customers they make an effort to retain some might actually return.

 

[RichardMEL]

The other day I had a random thought about a way QF might offer P1's another benefit....

What would yiou think if QF offered P1s chauffeur drive for P1's flying W as well as J/F on existing routes (given that there's likely very few, and of those many would probably get upgraded into J anyway) and/or offer CD at offer it on sectors like SIN-oz and v/v. (whereas currently you need to be flying to LHR to get it)? They already offer CD in these cities so it's not adding any extra infrastructure to support this, but saying hey if you're a P1 going MEL-SIN only we'll throw it in (like they used to, I might add)...

or even what about offering it if a P1 is flying J/F on a QF flight over say 7 hours ex-Oz, in Australia so eg HKG/BKK/MNL/LAX/SFO etc... the only problem being of course that if you didn't offer it at the other end that wouldn't make a lot of sense.

 

[calmelb]

oh if they're P1 they're bolted on to QF and we don't need to do much while trying to get the 18-35 y.o's in with the lounge passes and all that

You would think then as a 21 year old P1 they would be desperately trying to keep me up there given it’s loyalty guaranteed

 

[Kiwi_Flyer]

I get the admonitory email every year around the ninth month, even when I already have sufficient bookings to retain.
And one year, at least, it was the only P1 'experience' I had.

Same for me, except no such email the times I requalified early in the year.

 

[defurax]

Is it possible as a P1 to get Classic award seats released on flights to Lord Howe Island? I looked at Expert Flyer and most flights don't even have seats in the cheaper fare buckets (N,O,Q), let alone X.

 

[calmelb]

Is it possible as a P1 to get Classic award seats released on flights to Lord Howe Island? I looked at Expert Flyer and most flights don't even have seats in the cheaper fare buckets (N,O,Q), let alone X.

How far in advance do you look? Though it could be worth trying anyway

 

[defurax]

Is it possible as a P1 to get Classic award seats released on flights to Lord Howe Island? I looked at Expert Flyer and most flights don't even have seats in the cheaper fare buckets (N,O,Q), let alone X.

How far in advance do you look? Though it could be worth trying anyway

I looked at random dates from now up to May 2020 and saw nothing. Going to LDH is on my bucket list, but flights tend to be very expensive. I'll become P1 in October and I was just curious if any P1 here ever got award seats to LDH.

 

[Kangol]

I recall one or two people mentioning they have. How much are revenue tickets for the dates you are after?

 

[defurax]

I recall one or two people mentioning they have. How much are revenue tickets for the dates you are after?

I'm very flexible date wise. It seems that minimum fare from MEL during sale is $900 return and standard fare is $1200-1500. I will most likely be P1 for only 1 year, so I'll give it a shot.

 

[RichardMEL]

I don't see why not. Remember P1 has more allowance inventory wise to open up space. Specialy far in advance I don't see why not.

 

[amaroo]

3 now needs to be four, so I tried my luck with another release... HKG-BNE was released on the spot, but no joy for BNE/SYD-HKG on the date we want.

Decided to buy #1 son the cheapest upgradable Y BNE-HKG ticket and have submitted a J upgrade request using my P1 account.... more than one way to skin a cat.

I am right to think that the request will be treated as a P1.

I remember that in a previous thread (I can't find right now) it was mentioned that the upgrade would be processed not at the same time as P1 passenger, but with the "P1 priority" at the time upgrade is processed. Meaning that a QF SG for which a P1 member is requesting the upgrade would have the top priority over other SG (apart maybe from a CL-P1 request...).
Never have experienced that, so don't know in practice.

The upgrade request for your son is treated with P1 priority, but will only be assessed within the timeline of his own FF status.

That is to say, if he is Gold, the upgrade request will be at the top of the pile when assessed 24hrs out.

This is both the way the process has been explained to me by the SST, and also how I have observed it in practice.

FWIW - the upgrade came through the other day. Smack on T minus 7 days. His status cohort would have been upgraded starting at the 24hr mark.

P1 is far better than I thought it would be. We're currently sitting at 6 x F and 16 x J long haul seats being released at short notice over the past couple of months. When you add other members of my family being upgraded at the P1 mark .... what else do you need!

Starting to think I need to keep this secret Santa. With all these QF awards flights and SQ suites, it will be tough, but doable. We still have a truckload of points to burn.... PI is the best flammable material I've come across

 

[danielt25]

Has anyone had much success getting domestic Y reward fares released at short notice?

Although red e-deals are still being sold on CNS/BNE for next Thursday 13/6 QF1757, and J reward flights are still openly available, system reporting no more reward seats being released!

Anyway, I ended up just booking J reward. But would have preferred to save the 12,000 points and sit in row 4.

I have tried asking for release of Y reward flights when only Flexi fares are being sold … but never had any success. I guess the last minute seat release might be more an international perk rather than a domestic perk of P1.

 

[Kangol]

Was anyone here the lucky winner of the P1 wine and dine competition?

Platinum One Wine and dine Competition | Qantas Frequent Flyer

Platinum One Wine and dine Competition

www.qantas.com

Guessing it was targeted.

 

[RichardMEL]

So last night's QF36 SIN-MEL pushed me over the line to requalify for my 5th year of P1.

As some may know, the fight itself was a bit of an adventure with an engine ignition issue causing a return to gate and ultimately the pax deboarded while they replaced engine parts - all in all a six hour delay . QF on board and ground staff in SIN were fantastic and it was handled as well as can be (there's more on this elsehwere, and several other P1's from here were on it). Anyway this post is not really about tha experience (though when I first entered the SIN lounge I was absolutely recognised as P1 by the staff and escorted to the reserved area etc and given champ - so that worked fine ).

So today (Monday) I received an email from the SST to congraulate me on retaining P1 (and 90% the usual guff about benefits and all that). The thing that struck me most about the email, and which underlined the seeming disconnect that can exist at times between the SST and operations was that the team member who sent the email made this note: "As it is a public holiday, I didn’t want to disturb you by calling so if you have any questions or feedback about the program, please contact us at your earliest convenience."

Now I am all for the consideration of it being a public holiday and all and that's great (and I really don't need a phone call to note I requalified again)...

but hwere's the thing... the email was sent at 2:15pm AEST, around 3 hours after QF36 landed from SIN. Yet, somehow their system did not alert them to the delay. Indeed I had no missed calls or anything from the SST while in SIN - just the usual texts everyone got. I know they knew there was an issue with the flight as I was sitting near a fellow member who called them to move flights.

So again some sort of disconnect 0 or a lack of even checking where I may be in terms of QF anyway - that we've all seen before in terms of sometimes offering invites while we're out of the country(and if they bothered to check our bookings they'd know if there were QF flights involved). A number on this thread, including myself, have had this happen when invited to something when booked on QF operated flights elsewhere (I mean sure, if I was flying some other airline or alliance there's no reasonable way they could or should know of course).

I am not sure if it is reasonable that I should have expected some sort of acknowledgement of the lengthy delayed flight - as it wasn't strictly relevant to me crossing 3600 again but since I've had not even an automated email or text from QF regarding what I consider to be a significant delay it's a bit poor.

I don't even know that I expect or want some sort of compensation - I did not miss a connection or anything and we got in around 5.5h behind schedule, but it would have been nice to get something.. and given a human in the SST did create that email and noted the date as being a holiday it just seems odd they wouldn't have known.

Again this is not a cough so much about the QF36 situation (stuff happens) or even the SST per se.. it's just noting what I call the sometie disconnect between the SST and the operational side of the airline.

Anyway I guess it sort of counts as a P1 experience?

 

[pjohn]

though when I first entered the SIN lounge I was absolutely recognised as P1 by the staff and escorted to the reserved area etc and given champ - so that worked fine

I've been through SIN 5 times this year and not once have I been escorted to, or even offered additional assistance when visiting the QF lounge there. On the first two occasions when I mentioned I was P1 I was told that the area is for F passengers only and I was welcome to use the other areas of the lounge.. I gave up asking the next few times.
LHR on the other hand has been a totally different story, extremely attentive service every time.