Switching from earning QFF points to Velocity.

[fly2earth]

Only if you stick to redeeming QF flight and have top tier status and book well in advance.
Otherwise it’s pretty well-known that it’s incredibly hard to redeem points for J/F rewards seats for everyone else. And when you try to redeem points for partner awards surcharge are high.

It’s not like Delta’s SkyPeso where the amount of points require for redemption is high it’s more that it’s hard to actually use them.

I see the golden triangle flighjts redeemable every day each week minus Fridays and Sundays. And see them as good value. But then that's because I value my points at 1.5-1/9 cents each and use them on domestic J or when they jack up the prices on Y so I'm effectively getting 1.9 cents (what I'd actually pay for a plane ticket if I actually had the money)

 

[philr2000]

I've made the switch from Qantas to Velocity more recently - early observations - there is just a lot more consistent availability in general with Qatar and Singapore airlines, two premium partners.

In my eyes, it effectively opens up a reliable route to Asia (Singapore) and two routes to Europe (either via Qatar or Singapore).

Flights to Singapore seem to have ~4-6+ J seats per day available (at least from Sydney) given the multiple flights; whilst Qatar has 2 seats available in J to Doha from each capital city in Australia (in theory works out to be 8-10 seats per day if you are flexible), then lots of connection options with good availability into Europe.

Qantas doesn't come close to this, and it's a lot more haphazard in release patterns of its own QFF rewards and partner airlines (with some exceptions).

 

[WilsonM]

I would note that it does also depend on where you want to go with your points. If you're looking to get to Europe a lot, then with VFF you'll have QR and SQ, along with EY in Y (J is restricted to 30 days) - even technically NH, although availability is limited. If you're looking to fly to the USA, then you have United which has been patchy, and AC which has been nearly non-existent in J. If you're looking to fly within Asia, then you'll pretty much be always routed via Singapore. So availability is a lot better with VA, having access to QR and SQ, both of whom have excellent networks, but you have less partners overall, so specific destinations might be a little more difficult to get to, or they just might require a stop. Hopefully VA keep improving this!

Also be aware that IMO Velocity status is less valuable than QF status, purely due to the lack of alliance-wide recognition when travelling. This generally doesn't matter if you're travelling on award J tickets, but in general the lounge access policy flying partners using VA status is more restrictive than flying partners with QF status.

 

[levelnine]

I would note that it does also depend on where you want to go with your points. If you're looking to get to Europe a lot, then with VFF you'll have QR and SQ, along with EY in Y (J is restricted to 30 days) - even technically NH, although availability is limited. If you're looking to fly to the USA, then you have United which has been patchy, and AC which has been nearly non-existent in J. If you're looking to fly within Asia, then you'll pretty much be always routed via Singapore. So availability is a lot better with VA, having access to QR and SQ, both of whom have excellent networks, but you have less partners overall, so specific destinations might be a little more difficult to get to, or they just might require a stop. Hopefully VA keep improving this!

Also be aware that IMO Velocity status is less valuable than QF status, purely due to the lack of alliance-wide recognition when travelling. This generally doesn't matter if you're travelling on award J tickets, but in general the lounge access policy flying partners using VA status is more restrictive than flying partners with QF status.

I agree, though I will say that Velocity is also superior to Qantas to North America unless you have Platinum (or higher) status with Qantas. With Qantas Platinum, you have a decent chance of getting award seats through release requests to North America (unlike Europe), presumably because they have a lot of flights there.

But if you don't have status, you're better off with United. They are much more generous with business class award releases. The caveat is that you need to wait until close in to get them. But if you're willing to book economy, you stand a decent chance of seeing award seats open up close in and be willing to pay the change fee to switch to business.

It's a bit akin to a flight upgrade award with Qantas, but far better because you can lock it in 2-3 weeks ahead of time (rather than have to wait until 24 hours beforehand with Qantas).

There's very few places that Qantas is superior to Velocity these days simply due to the complete lack of classic award seats on any of their long-haul flights in premium cabins.

 

[ben95]

I see the golden triangle flighjts redeemable every day each week minus Fridays and Sundays. And see them as good value.

From a CPP perspective, depending on what QF is actually charging at that time, it might very much be hitting the 2cpp target and be considered good value and that's totally fine.

But personally (and probably the majority opinion here) I find flying in J on those route completely unnecessary so I would just save my points for long-haul travel where the lie-flat seats really make a huge difference to comfort and usually gives me 2.5+cpp which is what I aim for. That's when the QF points start to get difficult to use.

But even with that said I recently still managed to get a redemption via QF on MU flying MEL-PVG during China's school holiday period in July where cash fare one-way is at $2900. I managed to get 3.1cpp out of it so that was probably the best i've managed with QF for a very long time. Somehow though those routes aren't showing up in the standard search, only via the multi-city tool (probably related to the unwinding of the JV so they filterted those MU flights out?).

 

[fly2earth]

From a CPP perspective, depending on what QF is actually charging at that time, it might very much be hitting the 2cpp target and be considered good value and that's totally fine.

But personally (and probably the majority opinion here) I find flying in J on those route completely unnecessary so I would just save my points for long-haul travel where the lie-flat seats really make a huge difference to comfort and usually gives me 2.5+cpp which is what I aim for. That's when the QF points start to get difficult to use.

But even with that said I recently still managed to get a redemption via QF on MU flying MEL-PVG during China's school holiday period in July where cash fare one-way is at $2900. I managed to get 3.1cpp out of it so that was probably the best i've managed with QF for a very long time. Somehow though those routes aren't showing up in the standard search, only via the multi-city tool (probably related to the unwinding of the JV so they filterted those MU flights out?).

I did Jap(HND)->Kor(GMP) for 30,000 miles+100AUD on Japan Airlines business class. The service was great however it was only a 3 hour flight. Much better service than the Asiana flight in the reverse direction where the seats are tired and the food was rice with minced beef wrapped in cabbage and portions are quite small. JAL has actual cubicles and everything the food and the service was fantastic. In regards to points can't comment on the redemption value, however can't complain as booked it near New Years and needed to get home. That was 3 days before the Tokyo JAL airport fiasco where two planes collided on the runway mind you.

 

[elanshin]

The other consideration for QFF vs VFF atm is your earn rate. Today VFF has higher odds of getting Aussie's off our rock. But if you're swapping because of that today and then spend 3 years saving points up, the situation could change.

It may not but things can change very quickly. Hypothetically if (and a big if) QF and QR fix their relationship suddenly VA's advantage with QR rewards would disappear.

Or we still don't know what Oman means for OW availability yet either or HA to US.

Basically VA is good for redemption now but if you don't earn and spend at a decent pace, be prepared that things could change by the time you bank enough.

 

[RooFlyer]

It may not but things can change very quickly. Hypothetically if (and a big if) QF and QR fix their relationship suddenly VA's advantage with QR rewards would disappear.

I don’t think that can happen until QF and EK end their partnership and I think that’s got at least 2 to 3 years to run.

 

[elanshin]

I don’t think that can happen until QF and EK end their partnership and I think that’s got at least 2 to 3 years to run.

I don't either.

But I'm just suggesting a situation that could happen a few years down the track and the person switching today isn't a big fast earner then suddenly get faced with a situation that is different to the status quo today.

 

[fly2earth]

I don't either.

But I'm just suggesting a situation that could happen a few years down the track and the person switching today isn't a big fast earner then suddenly get faced with a situation that is different to the status quo today.

Reminds me of an email I received a few months back from teh second worst airline in Aus titled: Time to do the switch-a-roo from you-know-who!

 

[levelnine]

The other consideration for QFF vs VFF atm is your earn rate. Today VFF has higher odds of getting Aussie's off our rock. But if you're swapping because of that today and then spend 3 years saving points up, the situation could change.

It may not but things can change very quickly. Hypothetically if (and a big if) QF and QR fix their relationship suddenly VA's advantage with QR rewards would disappear.

Or we still don't know what Oman means for OW availability yet either or HA to US.

Basically VA is good for redemption now but if you don't earn and spend at a decent pace, be prepared that things could change by the time you bank enough.

I'd say that's no different than Qantas.

Indeed, at least Virgin has redundancy. You can get seats with Etihad, Qatar, Singapore and ANA to Europe for example.

With Qantas, very few of its partners have reliably good availability to Europe. China Airlines is about it.

Even more problematically, if Classic+ becomes the only way to get award seats on Qantas long-haul flights, then Qantas will have devalued your points by ~10x overnight. Your 144K J classic award to Europe will become 1mil Classic+ points.

 

[RooFlyer]

Reminds me of an email I received a few months back from teh second worst airline in Aus titled: Time to do the switch-a-roo!

I got one of those a bit over a year ago - status matched platinum to platinum and then I re-earned platinum the following year. Quite happy with that sequence of events.

 

[fly2earth]

I got one of those a bit over a year ago - status matched platinum to platinum and then I re-earned platinum the following year. Quite happy with that sequence of events.

How ironic since your profile name is @RooFlyer (sorry couldn't resist tagging you). I love oxymorons in case you can't tell

 

[fly2earth]

I got one of those a bit over a year ago - status matched platinum to platinum and then I re-earned platinum the following year. Quite happy with that sequence of events.

How can you justify paying the same price but having to be in the same lounge with the Mugblood Golds?

 

[RooFlyer]

How ironic since your profile name is @RooFlyer (sorry couldn't resist tagging you). I love oxymorons in case you can't tell

The profile name was quite appropriate when I joined AFF. Hasn’t been for a while though. Tells a story.

 

[fly2earth]

The profile name was quite appropriate when I joined AFF.

Careful there you're playing with fire (as in the profile pic). Also the floor is lava

 

[WilsonM]

The other consideration for QFF vs VFF atm is your earn rate. Today VFF has higher odds of getting Aussie's off our rock. But if you're swapping because of that today and then spend 3 years saving points up, the situation could change.

It may not but things can change very quickly. Hypothetically if (and a big if) QF and QR fix their relationship suddenly VA's advantage with QR rewards would disappear.

Or we still don't know what Oman means for OW availability yet either or HA to US.

Basically VA is good for redemption now but if you don't earn and spend at a decent pace, be prepared that things could change by the time you bank enough.

I'd say this is pretty much a doomsday scenario for a slow VFF earner, who could still use points on something like SQ which is not going away anytime soon.

Also, getting from Asia to Europe isn't really an issue for QF - Take your pick from AY, BA, RJ, EK, CI, UL, JL, AF, KL, CX, MU and many days have availability. So Oman is just another option, but it's not a gamechanger by any means. The issue is getting out of Australia, as the main option for this - QF - doesn't release enough seats. With the USA, I can't see the addition of one 787/A330 a day to Hawaii really impacting availability, as at the moment HA award availability is tied to the lowest J fare class (I think I class for HA), which is effectively competing with cash bookings as well.

 

[RooFlyer]

Also the floor is lava

Question? No, its all gas - Darvaza Crater, The Door to Hell, Turnmenistan.

 

[ben95]

slow VFF earner

That can be easily sovled by a strategic credit card churn at the right time to get a big chunk of the points at low cash price. Even with the annual fee depending on the points given and promotion at the time it can still represent great value if you are actually able to use those points at good cpp value.

 

[WilsonM]

That can be easily sovled by a strategic credit card churn at the right time to get a big chunk of the points at low cash price. Even with the annual fee depending on the points given and promotion at the time it can still represent great value if you are actually able to use those points at good cpp value.

The idea of a "slow VFF earner" was simply a response to the post I replied to. However, some people stay away from CC churning but still want to play the points game (for a variety of reasons, such as retirees, young people just starting out without any credit history, people who struggle to control spending etc.). CC churning is the best way to cheaply build up a points balance regardless of the currency, sure, but it doesn't mean it's suitable for everyone. Obviously, these people will end up with less points, but that shouldn't dissuade them from playing as they can still save money!