Qantas rolls out Classic Plus Flight Rewards

[Rich]

Does the word "stampede" stem from a QF press release or us it true? If true it's okay with me. Let others use their points up on Classic Plus, especially when I have plans for trips

 

[I love to travel]

But they provisioned for these redemptions as per financial information released. True availablity won't be known until next financial year.

 

[Doctore1003]

There can be OK value here when fares on sale.
I'm looking at booking PER-YVR, which is 358k points + $1341 return in J for CR+
That's only 70k points more than CR (plus a few hundred $$ more in taxes and fees I suspect).
Not bad really.

 

[tdimdad]

6.5B points redeemed in a month? Out of how many, 200B(???) points hoarded? That'd be about 3% of the total coughulative balance. If the rate remained the same, it'd be about 1/3 of the current stock (if no new points were earnt) = a three year rotation. Sounds pretty slow in a layman's ears.

In reality, once the eager ones have done their retail therapy on C+ flights, could we expect 1/2 or 2/3 of the redemption rate? If yes, that's then more like 5-6 years to empty the current balances. All this while new points are accumulated, possibly at an increasing rate. Essentially, the big picture may not have changed much at all.

BTW, why does 'C+' have the ring of a rather mediocre school grade? The other option, of course, is 'C' rewards...

 

[exceladdict]

Report in the Oz from the first four weeks of Classic Plus

Qantas triggers stampede to cash in frequent flyer points after big change in loyalty program

Gee it's only 35% higher than the norm, hardly thru the roof.

And probably includes points spent on (what our forum members here seemed to observe) a fair few regular classic seat releases at the same time

 

[flyguy77]

Gee it's only 35% higher than the norm, hardly thru the roof.

It's probably only 35% higher due to the small percentage of suckers paying the higher prices for Classic + alongside the extra classic reward seats that were released at the time to boost up the numbers.

All this while new points are accumulated, possibly at an increasing rate.

Since launching this i've noticed them giving away 20 million points with Uber competitions

Triple Points on Wines.

Hotel/Holiday bookings with bonus points blah blah

Qantas couldn't care less about reducing the points balance sheet - they will just continue to give points away like candy left right and centre whilst it makes them money.

 

[Doctore1003]

Qantas couldn't care less about reducing the points balance sheet - they will just continue to give points away like candy left right and centre whilst it makes them money.

They’ve explicitly said they want to 4x profits from the loyalty division by 2030 - that’s why they’ve launched Classic Plus. They believe it will increase member engagement and thus the number of points they can sell.

It may work. With the current USA sale, some classic plus economy reward seats are cheaper than CR (according to something I saw on Point Hacks).

 

[flyguy77]

some classic plus economy reward seats are cheaper than CR (according to something I saw on Point Hacks).

Qantas (and the websites who are advertising for them) love promoting the odd example of it being cheaper.

But in these cases you might as well just buy a cash fare (and earn points/status) rather than trading in your points for 1c each - I guess they are assuming people won't be smart enough to work this out.

 

[drron]

Well as far as I am concerned classic plus rewards and the decreasing availability of classic awards means my grocery shopping is going to be predominantly with Coles.
I wonder if WW will notice the difference. I suspect not.

 

[Doctore1003]

Qantas (and the websites who are advertising for them) love promoting the odd example of it being cheaper.

But in these cases you might as well just buy a cash fare (and earn points/status) rather than trading in your points for 1c each - I guess they are assuming people won't be smart enough to work this out.

Or maybe people want a holiday and paying with points is the only way to afford it! No one is being duped here.

 

[chrispy3276]

I notice Qantas are promoting them again on the home page today to coincide with fares going on sale. Expecting a bit more of this in the future too...

 

[levelnine]

As one commentator said when it was introduced, the real test will be if people keep accumulating Qantas points given C+ rates, not whether they'll spend their existing points at C+ rates.

Once you've exhausted your Qantas balance on that one trip to Europe/US, will the average punter want to earn $10 of Qantas points or $10 off their next WW shop?

 

[aikman]

But in these cases you might as well just buy a cash fare (and earn points/status) rather than trading in your points for 1c each - I guess they are assuming people won't be smart enough to work this out.

Using points to save real cash on a ticket you would had to buy anyway isn't so dumb.

Compared to saving points for years waiting for the perfect redemption opportunity that may actually never come, until it reaches a time when Qantas increases redemption rates, which is only a matter of time.

 

[Rich]

But in these cases you might as well just buy a cash fare (and earn points/status) rather than trading in your points for 1c each - I guess they are assuming people won't be smart enough to work this out.

Maybe, but I value points at 1 cent each anyway. This is based on domestic travel where Classic award flights are easy to come by. 8000 points plus $40 for a MEL to ADL or SYD trip that I can otherwise get for around $120. I don't travel enough to care about status credits so I will save $80 thanks. If I get similar rates on Classic Plus then why not?

 

[CaptJCool]

Using points to save real cash on a ticket you would had to buy anyway isn't so dumb.

Compared to saving points for years waiting for the perfect redemption opportunity that may actually never come, until it reaches a time when Qantas increases redemption rates, which is only a matter of time.

Yes

It may never come

In which case the points balance is useless

 

[Gold Member]

Qantas couldn't care less about reducing the points balance sheet - they will just continue to give points away like candy left right and centre whilst it makes them money.

Qantas has taken a lead out of the US Fed’s approach to its balance sheet. For Qantas this can work in perpetuity but for the Fed, something will break at some point.

 

[levelnine]

Qantas has taken a lead out of the US Fed’s approach to its balance sheet. For Qantas this can work in perpetuity but for the Fed, something will break at some point.

Well there's a breaking point for Qantas too, which is when the value of their currency dips below the cost of acquisition for the majority of users.

It is already basically at that point for WW. If they keep going, it could be the same for credit cards — ie the vast majority of people will be better off getting a card with one of the bank's currencies and redeeming those points for gift cards.

 

[drron]

Using points to save real cash on a ticket you would had to buy anyway isn't so dumb.

Compared to saving points for years waiting for the perfect redemption opportunity that may actually never come, until it reaches a time when Qantas increases redemption rates, which is only a matter of time.

But there are some of us particularly those that are retired where it will just take too long to save up more points for that J flight to Tokyo at 200000+ points each.
No CC churning available for us so getting 1000 points through WW will take us several years. For us it is now a worse program than LifeMiles.

 

[Quickstatus]

I'm at the point of changing Ww EDR from QF points to $10 redemption at POS.

 

[Gold Member]

Well there's a breaking point for Qantas too, which is when the value of their currency dips below the cost of acquisition for the majority of users.

It is already basically at that point for WW. If they keep going, it could be the same for credit cards — ie the vast majority of people will be better off getting a card with one of the bank's currencies and redeeming those points for gift cards.

Sure, but value is subjective whereas the acquisition cost is real. As long as Qantas keep up their highly successful Marketing charades and conning people into thinking their Qantas points are worth a lot more than they really are, then this deception will allow them to keep playing this game with their loyal members.