Qantas rolls out Classic Plus Flight Rewards

[Seat0B]

The chatter in various Facebook groups about this is *very* negative.

The Qantas share price change since Friday is *very* positive.

Likely this is related? What’s bad for punters is good for shareholders - unless the punters walk….

or maybe the customers know more about it than the shareholders?

 

[Doctore1003]

We may have to wait a while to find out. Qantas’ next earnings announcement isn’t until late August.

 

[jrfsp]

The chatter in various Facebook groups about this is *very* negative.

The Qantas share price change since Friday is *very* positive.

Mostly due to commencement of $448 million in share buy back.

 

[MelbFlyer]

Depends on your perspective - there's more reward seats in circulation but a lot of them will cost more to redeem (Classic+).

I guess it's a positive for some people who are points rich and have a young family that can only go on trips during school holidays etc, considering that there's now CR availability in traditional blackout periods.

For me, as a non-frequent flyer and only really racks up points to redeem business reward seats and can travel during non-peak times, the only issue would be if there's actually regular Classic award availability on said reward seats.

Too early to tell at this stage, but I'm sure that this is a step in the direction of eventually phasing out / reducing traditional Classic reward seats.

 

[JennyMG]

The impact of this announcement depends a bit on which type of Frequent Flyer you are:

Category 1: You don’t have all that many points, you don’t fly that much but you have built up some points in your account. You have saved up points for years, you don’t really know the value of them but you’d like to get a free flight at some point.
Outcome: Frequent flyers in this category have now got another way to use points.

Category 2: You know the value of points, you probably fly a lot (WP or P1) and you get good value by redeeming points for business class (eg to Europe). All these flyers (me included) are really unhappy that we can’t get Classic Rewards seats. Even with platinum and P1 status we still can’t get those seats for around 285,000 points return to London (and we called when they were available for P1's to request).

Sure, I can pay 1.4m or so points per seat but that’s 4x or 5x the price.

Flyers in this category get very little out of this announcement. The only benefit is that we can now pay 2x the classic reward price instead of 4x (eg now pay 600,000 points for business class return to London). Not many flyers are going to pay twice the price. I’m still very unhappy with the terrible availability of classic award FF seats.

The outcome of all this is that Qantas has created more seats for more people to use. This works for people in the first category, but that’s because they don’t know they are being ripped off.

Qantas hasn’t helped its most frequent flyers at all. Those that know the value of points are still unhappy. There’s not more classic rewards seats and they can’t use their points very easily. Alan Joyce used to offer to rip me off by charging 4x or 5x. Now Vanessa Hudson is only going to charge 2x.

My personal view is that Qantas has done nothing for its most frequent flyers (gold, platinum and platinum one). We still can’t get the seats we want.

This is a “fail” by Vanessa Hudson. The review was announced, the new scheme foreshadowed and deliberately leaked out in bits. The big day came. Except there is no big news or benefit to the most frequent flyers. It only gives a benefit to those she will rip off. In about 4 months from now, we’ll still be complaining that we can’t get classic reward seats and the only way to use our points is to get ripped off by Vanessa Hudson.

My household has 3+ million points and we still can’t use them unless we pay twice the price (v. classic rewards).

The SMH and AFR articles should say "The 'most frequent' flyers believe this is a fail by Vanessa Hudson"

There's a third category. Between the first two. I'm one of them. Earners and Learners.

I have about 1.2m points. It's taken me a decade to earn them. Credit card churning and serious point gathering, all the bit by bit effort for years with the goal of a wonderful trip or two in J.
I learned everything I could get my hands on about QFF and earning and redeeming points. I don't pretend to know what many of you do, but that is what this forum is about, wonderful advice and knowledge. I've been learning it for years.
BUT I'm not gold or platinum, and I have very little status, and would rarely be able to keep the status I earn. I know how to do it, but am not flying often enough. Instead, I concentrate on learning the best way to redeem points, in the trickiest and most effective manner instead of buying a qantas toaster.
So. The Earners and Learners. I think WE are also very disappointed in this non-event, but more than that are 'scared' that it will negatively impact our ONLY way of redeeming excellent flights via CRs by someone devaluing or reducing the amount of CRs available, since we don't have the status to obtain value any other way.

 

[smckay]

There's a third category. Between the first two. I'm one of them. Earners and Learners.

I was the same. Bronze for years but still managed to get J RTW seats for about 2 or 3 trips over 4 years, albeit basically not on a QF plane and well before The Vid. I made my points by credit cards and chasing every point possible.
It can be done, but you need to spend hours researching flights, transit points and be very flexible.

If it make you feel better, 2 years into Platinum and I am still spending hours searching for indirect flights.

 

[tdimdad]

Effectively, this sounds like the higher value rewards shrink from three types to two.

The old program allowed us to redeem for CR's, QF cabin upgrades and OWA's. All these can provide good value and from the customers' viewpoint you can call them rewards for the spend.

If the updated program gradually phases out the CR's in favour of CR+, we are left with upgrades and OWA. OWA's are for those who wander through several destinations on a single trip which would be well used and exciting for some but a rare event for many others. This means that for most(?) of us upgrades become the only meaningful way to seek value while travelling.

QFF's dreams of multiplied future revenue may be feasible if it leaves the masses to burn their points on CR+ and QF Marketplace.

 

[smckay]

Looks like Qantas is now milking the media attention from this drop. Can see a "surprise 72 hour sale" on domestic fares just opened up.

O M G.

You are the the real Insider....

 

[mviy]

If the updated program gradually phases out the CR's in favour of CR+, we are left with upgrades and OWA.

If CR gets phased out they may also double(?) the points needed to upgrade.

 

[CaptJCool]

QF hold all the cards
There’s a conflict of interest between selling points to suppliers and selling rewards tickets to customers. Its a monopoly


And then there’s the internal segments Yield Management (“internal” supplier) and Loyalfy
appears to be an internal monopsony (Craig Emerson referred to this in his supermarket review re the power to push suppliers to lower and lower prices)

 

[Easy Tiger]

I think this below guy with a whale of points will benefit from this announcement, if he decides to fly with the general public. The $170m painting bought on AMEX can buy enough Qantas points for a 1 way ticket Classic Rewards+ to London from Australia (subject to availability).

Billionaire earns first-class travel for life by putting Modigliani nude on Amex

Liu Yiqian and his family can now fly free all over the world after he used his credit card, which earns points, to buy a $170m painting

www.theguardian.com

This guy's playing chess not checkers!

 

[tdimdad]

If CR gets phased out they may also double(?) the points needed to upgrade.

I didn't want to add the pessimistic "the other shoe will drop" but it might be just a matter of time. Mid-2025 as another media opportunity to "improve" the program again???

 

[aweingar]

I really can't see them phasing out CR. I don't think it will happen.
What is almost a certainty is QF steadily decreasing CR seat availability and increasing the points required, dressing it up as "improvements" for the CR+ program by reducing competition from CR.

Looks like I joined the wrong FF program...

 

[elanshin]

I really can't see them phasing out CR. I don't think it will happen.
What is almost a certainty is QF steadily decreasing CR seat availability and increasing the points required, dressing it up as "improvements" for the CR+ program by reducing competition from CR.

Looks like I joined the wrong FF program...

I mean depends on how you view it. It still holds pretty decent value on partners and remains easy to amass. I don't see it happening anytime soon, but if for instance QF and QR sort themselves out, that's a whole load more availability.

I agree in that i can see this being the start of decreasing CR (not eliminating) but until they drastically lower it, it's just still speculation. Who knows what OW (or VA or any other airline alliance) will look like in a few years time.

Play the game as it is today and worry about the future when we get there.

 

[jonboixxx]

I had three surprises today.

1. When looking at this CR+ stuff, I saw that USA was wide open for J CR when we were wanting to travel next March; multiple destinations on multiple days. So J is booked for SFO.
2. QF website was working on Safari and throwing errors on Chrome (normally the other way around for me).
3. "Where can I go?" for points has gone.

FWIW, for CR+, I give it a C+ and this points scrooge will be unlikely to use it. There are just too many other carrier options.

 

[aweingar]

Strange. The date ribbon shows tons of CR availability but when you get to that date there's either nothing there, or only CR+ availability.

 

[MooTime]

Just as easy acquiring VA points as QF.

This CR- is terrible for families too, how many families have a 1M+ to fly to Europe in economy?
We're just short, but to spend 1.2M or so on 1 very long painful 25hr trip in Y, throw in the increased taxes, where's the saving / benefit again?

This CR- enhancement is just for the points whales who fly alone or as a couple in J.

It's only to reduce the number of points out there by the very very few big accumulators of QFF points. Simple as that. 3.5Billion isn't it points out there, not good for their balance sheet.

Don't give me this "here's 20 million more reward seats" nonsense, absolute tripe.

Once a few new credit cards land in Aus with bonus points for other international Airlines, then QF may wake up, would need a decent nudge though.
HSBC just the first along with AMEX options.

 

[Doddler]

Clearly QANTAS needs to get points off its balance sheet. It is hoping that this will help in 2 ways:
1. People with accumulated points who just want to use them & not too fussed about value (as has been described above)
2. By sending a clear message to the rest of us: effective points devaluation is on the way, so might want to use the points you have while CR and upgrades are still available at current prices
I think the second one *is* part of the thinking

 

[Danger]

I also came across this deceptive display in the app today. The header is "Classic Plus 94,900", but look further and it's apparently just a regular award.


I'm not a particular fan of Steve Hui from iFLYflat but he did have this to say on LinkedIn today that I thought was interesting:

IMO - The Classic Plus option operates in the bubble scenario that you've already accumulated a mountain of points and can't find Classic Reward seats. (for 289,200pts + taxes).

So out of frustration and avoid the pain of paying cash airfares of $12k+ for a Rtn Business Class to London - when you spot a Classic Plus seat for 638,900* pts + taxes, you book it and feel relieved.

*using the press release numbers.

You're happy right now as you had the points balance to use and saved $12k cash.

Here is the clincher.

The pace of earning points is roughly $1 = 1 QFF on an Amex and $1 = 0.5x to 0.75x on a Visa. Let's use $1 = 1QFF to be generous and for calc ease.

Will you be prepared to direct your next $640,000 of spending on cards to earn another 640,000 Qantas points to pay for trip 2.

Or, would you switch credit cards to earn Virgin Velocity points where $640k spend earns 2.3x Rtn Business Rewards seats, or to Qatar Avios for 1.7x x Rtn Business Reward Flex seats, or Singapore Krisflyer for 1.55x Rtn Rtn Business Advantage seats to London.

It is in Round 2 or 3 or 4 where Qantas will see the decline in desire, as customers wise up and aware of the better value alternatives for effort.

It's the last paragraph that I agree with.

I'd like to think this new iteration is going to result in a temporary reduction in classic availability.

 

[RSD]

Reading the other chats in here, you would've expected the entire program to change around today.

Well most Americans thought the world was going to end today...