Qantas surveying members about spend-based status attainment

[Boeyn]

They would have done spend based points earn first. No way that’s coming this year.

I definitely agree that after making the first changes to points earned from flights in almost five years, they aren't going to move to a spend-based points earn methodology anytime soon.

But I don't see why they would have to do spend-based points earn first, before they did spend-based status earn. The fact that other airlines might have done it in that order doesn't mean QF has to follow.

From a PR perspective, I think it makes sense to bifurcate the announcement of any nasty changes to QFF into "points earn/burn" and "status" buckets. The universe of customers who care about the former is much larger than the latter. Assuming any spend-based status earn program isn't as contemptuous as BA's was, I suspect it would get significantly less negative media if it was announced as a standalone 'enhancement' in a few months than it would have gotten if it was part of yesterday's changes. I don't think the mainstream media would be nearly as interested in covering changes to QFF status - the overwhelming majority of Australian's don't have it, and therefore don't care.

Plus, staggering the announcement of changes gives QF the opportunity to administer us with a spoonful of sugar to make the medicine go down. I bet there's one hell of a Classic Rewards seat release planned for the week of 24 February...

 

[Dmac59]

I bet there's one hell of a Classic Rewards seat release planned for the week of 24 February...

Or a DSC announcement.

 

[elanshin]

Or a DSC announcement.

Or both

 

[drron]

I definitely agree that after making the first changes to points earned from flights in almost five years, they aren't going to move to a spend-based points earn methodology anytime soon.

But I don't see why they would have to do spend-based points earn first, before they did spend-based status earn. The fact that other airlines might have done it in that order doesn't mean QF has to follow.

From a PR perspective, I think it makes sense to bifurcate the announcement of any nasty changes to QFF into "points earn/burn" and "status" buckets. The universe of customers who care about the former is much larger than the latter. Assuming any spend-based status earn program isn't as contemptuous as BA's was, I suspect it would get significantly less negative media if it was announced as a standalone 'enhancement' in a few months than it would have gotten if it was part of yesterday's changes. I don't think the mainstream media would be nearly as interested in covering changes to QFF status - the overwhelming majority of Australian's don't have it, and therefore don't care.

Plus, staggering the announcement of changes gives QF the opportunity to administer us with a spoonful of sugar to make the medicine go down. I bet there's one hell of a Classic Rewards seat release planned for the week of 24 February...

The highlighted words suggest if you are right then it doesn't matter when the spend part is announced.
On last nights 7 news the QF changes were announced as positive changes for frequent flyers with millions of premium awards to be released. So just maybe QF didn't want to muddy the waters just now but later on. I suspect though about this time of next year when many are on holidays

But whether it is 6 months or 5 years very likely it will happen.