Qantas rolls out Classic Plus Flight Rewards

[RichardMEL]

Not sure if anyone cares but just an interesting update.

My friend booked a CR+ flight during the sale and was issued a PNR. However, due to some payment issue taxes weren't taken out so the booking wasn't ticketed.

I rang QF on their behalf and they effectively said, CR+ can't be fixed manually via the call centre. You can choose to pay the cash cost of the flights but you can't use your points. Since the sale is now over, prices have reverted back to CR prices which is a few thousand points more.

Unfortunately this makes sense to me.

Since the ticket was not ussued, any attempt to donit niw woukd be repriced at the current level, and since CR+ is linked to a dynamic price based on the current fare level, then that's effectively all they can do. It is unfortunate the error was not picked up in time.

It's a bit like calling and saying "Hey that sale fare was there yesterday and now it's not.. can I have it at the sale price?"

 

[33kft]

It's a bit like calling and saying "Hey that sale fare was there yesterday and now it's not.. can I have it at the sale price?"

Hmm, is it though? It's more like you saw the sale fare, you bought the sale fare, you went through the payment flow and it only debited some of the the amount (at the sale fare rate) due to an error on their side, then you called up later to point out their error and they said sorry, we've repriced it in the meantime and you need to pay double, rather than honouring the price you purchased it at.

 

[RichardMEL]

Also, it should just be 100% obvious to QF that it's their issue, if you book a fare and less than the full fare is debited, I'd love to know in QF logic how that was a customer error. It follows that if this could happen for a CR+ fare, it could happen for a cash fare as well, and the same situation could ensue.

What if the problem was caused by the customer due to a problem with expiry date or some other thing. It's unclear from the post where the payment error lay.

 

[RichardMEL]

Hmm, is it though? It's more like you saw the sale fare, you bought the sale fare, you went through the payment flow and it only debited some of the the amount (at the sale fare rate) due to an error on their side, then you called up later to point out their error and they said sorry, we've repriced it in the meantime and you need to pay double, rather than honouring the price you purchased it at.

"Payment issue" while it probably is QFs error, we don't actually know that.

Anyway I concede your point, though with the dynamic nature of the CR+ seats tied to the current fare.. I think that's the real issue.

Or the agent was unable to complete the booking correctly.

Possibly something @madrooster might be able to opine on

 

[33kft]

What if the problem was caused by the customer due to a problem with expiry date or some other thing. It's unclear from the post where the payment error lay.

It's possible. My view is skewed in that I've had revenue fares in the past where QF didn't properly debit taxes and didn't ticket flights, and I've had to call Hobart to get it fixed, so I suspect I know where the blame lies but I am happy to be corrected.

I'd like to know how you could be responsible for getting it wrong though - you go to the booking engine, you see a Classic Plus fare, you book it, you check out - how could you realistically underpay for a classic rewards plus fare? You don't get much more input into that transaction in my experience, but I could be missing something here.

 

[RichardMEL]

It's possible. My view is skewed in that I've had revenue fares in the past where QF didn't properly debit taxes and didn't ticket flights, and I've had to call Hobart to get it fixed, so I suspect I know where the blame lies but I am happy to be corrected.

I'd like to know how you could be responsible for getting it wrong though - you go to the booking engine, you see a Classic Plus fare, you book it, you check out - how could you realistically underpay for a classic rewards plus fare? You don't get much more input into that transaction in my experience, but I could be missing something here.

I dontend to agree, but back in the day I did make an error with my payment info tgat wasn't picked up by the autovalidation and it went through.. until it didn't and needed an agent to fix it. I don't recall what it was though.

It probably is more a system and agent problem in this case though.

 

[_TheTraveller_]

Yep I had a similar issue where I clicked pay but the system didn't charge my CC and I had to call up to get it ticketed.

QF acknowledges it's a system limitation that they can't fix it. I'm more disappointed that there is no work around beyond telling the customer to go book again at the higher price.

To @RichardMEL's point about calling up after the sale expired, the system apparently shows the discounted price of the fare and QF can take payment for that. The issue is that they can't accept points + taxes as payment and it must be the full cash amount.

 

[RichardMEL]

Yep I had a similar issue where I clicked pay but the system didn't charge my CC and I had to call up to get it ticketed.

QF acknowledges it's a system limitation that they can't fix it. I'm more disappointed that there is no work around beyond telling the customer to go book again at the higher price.

To @RichardMEL's point about calling up after the sale expired, the system apparently shows the discounted price of the fare and QF can take payment for that. The issue is that they can't accept points + taxes as payment and it must be the full cash amount.

Oh so you wanted to pay the taxes for the CR+ with basically points+pay? Do I have that right?
.so if you paid the whole amount in cash, they'd have ticketed it on the spot at the reduced rate?

Gah. So def sounds like a limitation at their end.

Frustrating!

 

[RAM]

Any system limitation can be fixed, if an organisation wants to.
In Q’s case as it benefits their customers then why would they want to given the now decades long Q attitude to customers?

 

[_TheTraveller_]

Oh so you wanted to pay the taxes for the CR+ with basically points+pay? Do I have that right?
.so if you paid the whole amount in cash, they'd have ticketed it on the spot at the reduced rate?

Gah. So def sounds like a limitation at their end.

Frustrating!

Perhaps I got my terminology mixed up! So this is the situation:

• A CR+ booking was made but payment was not processed.
• No points or payment were deducted. There was no email indicating that there was anything wrong.
• Called up QF to query about the booking. They said payment failed. I offered to make payment for the taxes.
• QF said that they cannot process a CR+ over the phone (which is correct) and the only way forward is to pay the booking in cash rather than points + taxes.
• The price quoted by QF was the amount quoted by the online systems during the initial booking ($1000+ range). Except, points + taxes (CR+) is no longer an option.

My impression of the situation is that there must be some conversion done online where the fare is converted into points equivalent and deducted from the account but when the process fails, there is no mechanism to rerun the process manually. This means that if any bookings are borked during the booking stage, passengers only have the option to pay for it in cash or rebook at the current CR/CR+ rate.

FWIW, it price difference was around 5K points and a few dollars in taxes. Not substantial in the grand scheme of things but it's a bit of a cop out in rolling out a system with no mechanisms for remediation.

 

[Doctore1003]

So with Qantas’ Europe sale now on, SYD-LHR in J, for example, is $9k cash, or as classic plus around 490k points + $1700. Lots of availability.

CR is usually 290k points plus taxes and fees. Zero availability.

So CR+ is roughly 1.7 x the number of points. (The equation is not as good ex-PER, but we make up for it on flights to North America).

Is it worth it given the ease of booking?

For those with millions of points, maybe yes?

I have millions already, and feel motivated to ramp up my points earning even more.

Which is exactly what Qantas wanted when launching classic plus.

 

[levelnine]

So CR+ is roughly 1.7 x the number of points.

Remember it is also an increased amount of cash too.

Only you can make the decision whether it is worth it or not.

For those with millions of points, they are probably choosing the smarter option: Amex USA.

I can book the same Australia-Europe J fares return for 395K + $0 using Amex USA MR and the Biz Plat rebate. And this books as a cash fare with full points/SC earn.

 

[CaptJCool]

Remember it is also an increased amount of cash too.

Only you can make the decision whether it is worth it or not.

For those with millions of points,

It’s a two speed economy

Not earnt 1,000,000 points in a lifetime thus far even when there were the days of 2 points for every $ spend - why you might ask ?
zero FF points for flying, zero points for PAYG-payday, zero points for child support, back in the day zero points for paying Orf home loans (and let’s not go to Ansett collapse with lost points…)

So there’s the two groups who do
The savvy
Rapid earners
Business folk
Credit card churning
And all linked to Points club as well

The slow road
Long term earners over a decade or two who accumulate and never burnt points

Access to burn points ex Australia with CRs came to a grinding halt with COVID (what with EK still not fully resumed in Oz plus QR stance shift plus QF DRreamliners with no F plus the lovely QF Enjoycement of higher points spend back in 2019…and the high airfares prices of 2022 & 2023… but I digress)

The CR+ is designed to relieve the fast earners of their points at twice (or more) the rate for the same reward which to those rapid earners is neither here nor there (easier come, easy go) but to the slow roaders, it’s a serious inflation cost and a “breach of promise of the land and milk and honey” were they to delay their gratification til later down the track

 

[Doctore1003]

I will be very interested to see what Qantas says about classic plus and its loyalty division in its profit announcement this Thursday

 

[serfty]

I have noticed a change seems to have occurred during the last month.

In travelling trans Tasman recently I have been watching loadings for my flights and those of similar timings.

Economy loads have been rather light and at the beginning of the month were showing something like (For a flight MEL-AKL the day before travel):

Y9 B9 H9 K9 M9 L9 V9 S9 N9 Q9 O9 G0 X9 E9

More recently for similar apparent loading I am seeing:

Y9 B9 H9 K9 M9 L9 V9 S9 N9 Q9 O9 G0 X0 E9

No X.

On looking for award economy I only see Classic+:



Three weeks ago in a similar day before search I would see:



Now I had not been doing specific research on this and it may be a coincidence or something confined to specific routes. However, I flew last Saturday MEL-AKL on a flight with less than 50 PAX and the the only award available was of the 32,300 point variety. Three weeks earlier on the same day the 18000 option was being offerred. I am beginning to understand what the + in this award nomenclature means.

 

[levelnine]

Now I had not been doing specific research on this and it may be a coincidence or something confined to specific routes. However, I flew last Saturday MEL-AKL on a flight with less than 50 PAX and the the only award available was of the 32,300 point variety. Three weeks earlier on the same day the 18000 option was being offerred. I am beginning to understand what the + in this award nomenclature means.

It's relatively easy to see on seats.aero with the correct filters (ie exclude JQ and indirect flights). There's a hard cut-off where Qantas remove classic award availability on the direct QF flights and force people to pay the classic+ price if they want to fly close-in.

As some of us correctly predicted when this scheme was introduced, the plan was always going to be to gradually move people to this higher tier by removing classic award availability. It looks like one experiment they're trying is removing close-in Y.

These results are a few days old. The current cut-off date is 26 September:

 

[cjd600]

Interesting data points.
Close-in Y Classic still available daily SYD-LAX....

 

[levelnine]

Interesting data points.
Close-in Y Classic still available daily SYD-LAX....

My guess is they're trying a route that gets a proportionately large amount of close-in purchases (ie people are more likely to have/take a last minute trip to NZ than they are the US) to see what impact it has.

 

[thrillho]

Greedy cough going to be greedy cough, aren't they...

 

[Must...Fly!]

I have noticed a change seems to have occurred during the last month.

In travelling trans Tasman recently I have been watching loadings for my flights and those of similar timings.

Economy has been rather light and at the beginning of the month had been showing something like (For a flight MEL-AKL the day before travel):

Y9 B9 H9 K9 M9 L9 V9 S9 N9 Q9 O9 G0 X9 E9

More recently for similar apparent loading I am seeing:

Y9 B9 H9 K9 M9 L9 V9 S9 N9 Q9 O9 G0 X0 E9

No X.

On looking for award economy I only see Classic+:

View attachment 405338

Three weeks ago in a similar day before search I would see:

View attachment 405339

Now I had not been doing specific research on this and it may be a coincidence or something confined to specific routes. However, I flew last Saturday MEL-AKL on a flight with less than 50 PAX and the the only award available was of the 32,300 point variety. Three weeks earlier on the same day the 18000 option was being offerred. I am beginning to understand what the + in this award nomenclature means.

My personal opinion is that MEL-PER will absolutely be a part of this. I know not available on domestic yet but the sheer lack of close in X availability despite the entry red E deal fare available for sale points to an obvious conclusion...just imho