Qantas rolls out Classic Plus Flight Rewards

[Gremlin]

Hence the concern and surprise about 20,000,000 seats open to CR

My take on this is that CR+ is not separate inventory to paid fares. I'd hazard a guess that there's some backend match happening so that there might be six seats available for the cheapest CR+ fare bucket and six seats available for the cheapest paid fare bucket, but only six seats available in total for those two fare buckets. Once six seats are exhausted (potentially a combination of CR+ and paid fares), both will go to the next fare bucket. I would also expect that the most expensive cash fare buckets wouldn't be matched to a CR+ fare bucket.

QF have probably priced this so they are indifferent between someone booking using cash and someone booking using CR+ points.

Hence 20m seats available for CR+ is very much possible.

As an aside, if this is how the mechanics work, have a think about what that does to the price of (paid) airfares...

 

[TheInsider]

My take on this is that CR+ is not separate inventory to paid fares. I'd hazard a guess that there's some backend match happening so that there might be six seats available for the cheapest CR+ fare bucket and six seats available for the cheapest paid fare bucket, but only six seats available in total for those two fare buckets. Once six seats are exhausted (potentially a combination of CR+ and paid fares), both will go to the next fare bucket. I would also expect that the most expensive cash fare buckets wouldn't be matched to a CR+ fare bucket.

QF have probably priced this so they are indifferent between someone booking using cash and someone booking using CR+ points.

Hence 20m seats available for CR+ is very much possible.

As an aside, if this is how the mechanics work, have a think about what that does to the price of (paid) airfares...

It matches up to available fare classes.

 

[CaptJCool]

I think it depends on the amount of points you have and how much value you put into them.

For me, I'm not a massive points earner (should just be able to reach Points Club in a few months time - but I did top-up some points a few months ago as I did the sums and it was cheaper to buy points then redeem award seats, than to buy a regular revenue seat - so that helped toward the progress to PC).

I'd personally not spend points on a domestic trip in business but would rather save up / use points for international business reward seats. If I was earning points as if printing money, no question yes (even if only in 737 business).

But yes overall, moving forward it will be harder to redeem traditional classic reward seats over Classic+.

We all know it's coming / inevitable despite Qantas' reassurances that there's still 5m Classic reward (non-plus) seats etc.

150,000 top-up points for $3999
If on the 50% special
225,000
Syd-Melb or Melb-ADL for 8,000 = 28 one way trips plus 28 * $48 = $1,344

(For 12,000 it’s 18 one way trip)
Total $5,344

So current cheapest one way fare is $166 x 28 = $4,648

No guarantee of course that’s the price at the time of day you wish to book



And the bonus is it gets you into Points Club where you get Status Credits from those points flights
Virtuous circle ️

 

[elanshin]

150,000 top-up points for $3999
If on the 50% special
225,000
Syd-Melb or Melb-ADL for 8,000 = 28 one way trips plus 28 * $48 = $1,344

(For 12,000 it’s 18 one way trip)
Total $5,344

So current cheapest one way fare is $166 x 28 = $4,648

No guarantee of course that’s the price at the time of day you wish to book

View attachment 379507

And the bonus is it gets you into Points Club where you get Status Credits from those points flights
Virtuous circle ️

But if you take the common wisdom route - you also end up with a cellar full of wine =)
Which you can either use to drown away your QF customer service woes or sell to other people.

I'm sure you could get half the price back.

 

[encryptededdy]

At most on average = 17.3%

I believe Revenue Seat Factor is just % seats sold. 17.3% is the percentage of unsold seats on domestic.

I also think a Reward seat still counts as a Revenue Seat.

 

[elanshin]

But if you take the common wisdom route - you also end up with a cellar full of wine =)
Which you can either use to drown away your QF customer service woes or sell to other people.

I'm sure you could get half the price back.

If some enterprising person does do this, don't forget that you could probably call QF Wines and ask for more points as you're doing big purchases. They can often offer you a better deal.

And if you resell at half price you're probably looking at anywhere from 0.6-1c per point. Or maybe you need to buy wine for a wedding.

Might as well get a honeymoon trip out of it

 

[equus]

If some enterprising person does do this, don't forget that you could probably call QF Wines and ask for more points as you're doing big purchases.

And if you resell at half price you're probably looking at anywhere from 0.6-1c per point. Or maybe you need to buy wine for a wedding.

Unlikely to get more points - the sweet spot relies on large bonus point offers - not the points per dollar.

Try to resell is not so easy - you really need a liquor license to be doing that.

 

[CaptJCool]

100 bottles shared with friends at a 60th or 70th would do the trick ….

 

[elanshin]

Unlikely to get more points - the sweet spot relies on large bonus point offers - not the points per dollar.

Try to resell is not so easy - you really need a liquor license to be doing that.

You can get more points. One of the wine sales reps called me a while back trying to upsell some stuff and he threw in more points that was not available anywhere else to try to get me to bite. You can most certainly talk to the wine selling team and ask if they can sweeten the deal. Remember this isn't one dozen pack or so, this is many cases valuing in the thousands if you're trying to get 150k+ points.

And I don't necessarily mean to random strangers or setting up an actual business. Family here, couain there etc (although if you already have a business that sells alcohol...)

 

[exLXCXFF]

I know this is a bit off-topic (as non-QF metal) but just wanted to give credit to the QFF multi-booking tool together with available partner classic rewards.

So, I+1 have to travel on 26 July from SIN to ZRH, and ideally wanted to do so in J to burn QF points.

With a bit of trial and error (and not having an EF subscription) I found SIN - NRT (JAL), NRT - HEL (FINNAIR), HEL - ZRH (FINNAIR) all the way in J for 2 pax on 26 July 2024 for a fee of SGD 580 plus a few points.

Made me super happy as I like JAL, love the new Finnair seat, and it’s on the date as needed.

So it is still possible to do with CR on partner airlines.

What lounge do I go to at Narita? JAL First or CX?

 

[MelbFlyer]

So it is still possible to do with CR on partner airlines.

Although somewhat a convoluted route from SIN to ZRH, nice that you were able to get business class seats all the way. (QF/OW in general are pretty weak when it comes to options ex SIN to Europe though, unless you're okay with MH and transitting via KUL or find rare BA availability)

I think the main pain point though with CR and CR+ is the limited availability / points cost on Qantas operated flights.

There's generally pretty good availability for award seats originating outside of Australia, but hard to find leaving or coming back to Australia.

 

[exLXCXFF]

There's generally pretty good availability for award seats originating outside of Australia, but hard to find leaving or coming back to Australia.

That is why I decided to move to Singapore!

 

[tdimdad]

Now that we've been looking at the CR vs CR+ pricing and gotten used to the thought, I came across this one on the VA side. And it's not even in the near future but in early August.


Perhaps QF has been too stable and lulled us to sleepwalk. Now that they've rocked the boat, we need to get used to evaluating the value of our points & redemptions must more diligently if we want to maximise the value we receive.

 

[elanshin]

Now that we've been looking at the CR vs CR+ pricing and gotten used to the thought, I came across this one on the VA side. And it's not even in the near future but in early August.
View attachment 379963

Perhaps QF has been too stable and lulled us to sleepwalk. Now that they've rocked the boat, we need to get used to evaluating the value of our points & redemptions must more diligently if we want to maximise the value we receive.

I just always assumed this was VA's equivalent of p+p

 

[tdimdad]

It is VA's equivalent. But I'd assume this kind of wild fluctuations will become commonplace on QF, as well, when searching at rewards. It's been too easy before.

 

[levelnine]

Now that we've been looking at the CR vs CR+ pricing and gotten used to the thought, I came across this one on the VA side. And it's not even in the near future but in early August.
View attachment 379963

Perhaps QF has been too stable and lulled us to sleepwalk. Now that they've rocked the boat, we need to get used to evaluating the value of our points & redemptions must more diligently if we want to maximise the value we receive.

You can continue to pay a similar amount of points with Qantas if you really want:

 

[MooTime]

Now that we've been looking at the CR vs CR+ pricing and gotten used to the thought, I came across this one on the VA side. And it's not even in the near future but in early August.
View attachment 379963

Perhaps QF has been too stable and lulled us to sleepwalk. Now that they've rocked the boat, we need to get used to evaluating the value of our points & redemptions must more diligently if we want to maximise the value we receive.

Rusted on handcuffs comes to mind....

LT***

 

[serfty]

It is VA's equivalent. But I'd assume this kind of wild fluctuations will become commonplace on QF, as well, when searching at rewards. It's been too easy before.

No, I often saw such on QF Domestic as well (before and after this change). i.e. Only P+P in Economy (X), CR in Business (U).

 

[levelnine]

So much for the new program removing confusion among the average punter ....

 

[elanshin]

So much for the new program removing confusion among the average punter ....
View attachment 380072

They probably didn't think about fixing up various parts of the site. A "from" would technically fix this.