SMS with offer of flight voucher to change flights

[mannej]

So as a Platinum what would I do with that pass to First Class lounge?

Sell it

 

[Fynsie]

So as a Platinum what would I do with that pass to First Class lounge?

Fair point I guess. I suppose I assumed that Platinum were living Gods in a world above mine, and thus would never get bumped! he he.

 

[dajop]

Back when I used to travel between CBR and BNE regularly I'd often book BNE-SYD-CBR for the SCs. Almost invariably I'd be paged in the lounge and asked if they could please move me to the direct flight as BNE-SYD is overbooked.

Many years ago when I travelled frequently between MEL & CBR , there were a lot less CBR-MEL flights than now (from memory a Dash 8 -300 at 3pm and then a 737 around 5:15pm), and the 737 was always heavily booked. If you reached airport early, QP staff were often happy to reroute you via SYD to clear space on the 5pm or even the 6pm to MEL. Good for the SC haul, and usually get you home earlier too despite the detour.

 

[JohnK]

Sell it

Gumtree or eBay? Qantas then sees the ad and shuts it down.

 

[Dazz70]

I received one of these SMS messages for a flight from BNE to ADL just before Christmas. The voucher was $200 each. Hope the screen shot works, and the irony was the aircraft was originally a B737 and was changed to a B717!

 

[Quickstatus]

Sell it

Possibly not transferable

 

[mannej]

Possibly not transferable

That was never an issue previously!

 

[Solid]

So as a Platinum what would I do with that pass to First Class lounge?

Use it when you have more people travelling with you than you are allowed to guest?

 

[JohnK]

Use it when you have more people travelling with you than you are allowed to guest?

I only travel with wife and daughter and I'm sure my daughter will be allowed access for quite some time to come.

In all my years commuting this was the first time I'd seen this offer. If travelling alone I'd take the $70 next time. And $200 for BNE-ADL sounds like a great deal, almost the cost of the airfare alone.

 

[bmam]

Knowing Qantas they probably charge you $100 when it comes to redeeming the $70 voucher.

 

[kermatu]

I've never experienced over booking on Qantas domestic i.e. never heard for volunteers to up seats which is extremely common on US domestic flights - i wonder if they look at how many flex tickets are booked for the "full flight", I usually have a discount outbound, and flex return ticket for work trips, I probably only end up on my purchased return flight 10% of the time, usually switching to an earlier or later depending on Melbourne traffic.

I think unlike the US they just deal with it better or don't overbook to that extent.

Back when I used to travel between CBR and BNE regularly I'd often book BNE-SYD-CBR for the SCs. Almost invariably I'd be paged in the lounge and asked if they could please move me to the direct flight as BNE-SYD is overbooked.

Of course I preferred the direct flight so happily accepted and then would just put in a request for original routing credit

Is it overbooking or is it possible they are looking to cancel flights? Happens all the time on CBR-SYD and MEL-SYD routes.

 

[JohnK]

Is it overbooking or is it possible they are looking to cancel flights? Happens all the time on CBR-SYD and MEL-SYD routes.

In my case it was a reasonably full flight and I think they were trying to spread the load around to other flights that were not so full although cannot be certain.

 

[Ewing]

Is it overbooking or is it possible they are looking to cancel flights? Happens all the time on CBR-SYD and MEL-SYD routes.

In all my cases the flights went ahead, and checking E/F my seat was occupied within minutes of being moved by the lounge staff.

 

[kermatu]

Thanks. Interesting - I too didn't think QF were a major overbooking culprit.

 

[Mattg]

Looks like Air France have now adopted a similar system for overbooked flights - Air France Launches SWING

 

[vandy]

Is it overbooking or is it possible they are looking to cancel flights? Happens all the time on CBR-SYD and MEL-SYD routes.

Funnily enough, tonight I got to the lounge early and asked if there was space to transfer to an earlier flight. Get told, yes there's seats available but sorry you don't have a flexible fare, so no you can't change flights. Then 30 minutes later, my flight is cancelled, and I return to the service desk to change flights. But now the earlier flight is already boarding, so I have to move to a later flight. This flight was 100% full.

 

[dylarr]

These SMS offers seem to be the fruits of an investment Qantas made in a tech startup called Volantio rather than a strategy to manage overbooking.

Qantas has bought into a US-based startup filling more seats on planes

Qantas Ventures, the venture capital arm of Qantas, has invested in a US startup which has developed software to help airlines fill more seats on each flight. Volantio announced a $US2.6 million funding round led by Ingleside Investors and strategic investors International Airlines Group...

www.businessinsider.com.au

Whilst the tech can manage irrops, oversells and reaccomodations it also has a module to maximise revenue by using AI to identify situations where the airline could buy back high value seats and resell them at a higher price for maximum yield.

There's a good description of how it works here on page 3 for anyone interested: https://www.volantio.com/content/images/pdfs/volantio-info.pdf