Upcoming Qantas Frequent Flyer Changes

[awilcockson]

Only if none of those SCs were earned in the current membership year at the time. There were comments made before that suggested ALL SCs are wiped, which is not the case, unless of course 1. You've had no flights in that year or 2. Your membership year happens to coincide and end on Nov 30.

Which it does for me (and others). It's nice that you only lose a months of SCs, but others will lose a lot more. Don't forget that going forward they will wipe your credits at the end of each year, so if you make it to 440, you will lose them all, whereas previously they would have rolled into the next year and would have got your bonus 10SC later. I can't see how anyone can argue that this is a positive change?

Having said that, I doubt there's any point getting upset. Just like the removal of anytime access, Qantas will simply ignore their customers and continue to erode the benefits. Which will simply push more and more people to the competition. As I've already said, I've already made platinum for the next 18 months, perhaps I'll go the soft landing to gold the year after that and send all my points toward AA from now on.

 

[medhead]

Airlines don't really make much money from people flying coach. So it doesn't make sense to 'reward' (spend money on) WPs who only fly coach.

Well, Qantas obviously though that someone flying in economy enough to get 1400/1200 SC was giving them enough money to get Platinum benefits.

I have a couple of ideas around the "loyalty bonus" for QF to consider - would also like to hear other's thoughts on this.

The new change will mean that infrequent flyers (who you may still consider loyal, assuming they don't fly with other airlines) miss out on a loyalty bonus. For status members, Silver will get either none, or one loyalty bonus. For SG, they will get one or two, and Platinum 2-4.

My Option 1

.....

My Option 2

.....

Just a couple of ideas ... Discuss!

My initial thought about both options is that it still rewards all SC earned. The new system wipes out upto 495 SC each year. (or much more for 2000+) It seems to me this is the reduction in benefit for flyers. (no blame it that statement) I don't think that a suggestion that still rewards every SC is wanted.

 

[thewinchester]

No offence to everyone, but I can't read through 16pgs of posts to see if my views have been addressed - apologies if they have been covered already.

On a positive note, the changes do seem to offer greater rewards for more frequent flying. It would have been nice if QF was able to offer more details on the new WP One program on launch day (not that I'll ever reach that level). Other than that, the communications strategy seems well executed with an effort to get as much relevant information to members from Day One.

However, these changes have been done at the expense of actually loyalty to the company. It goes to the line oft uttered around these parts that QFF is/has become a frequent spending program due to the ever increasing focus on earning points to make effective use of the program.

Hmmm "Loyalty Bonus" changes from 11.1 QFF points per SC uncapped to 16 per SC, capped at 32,000 per year.

Is that per membership "year", or per Calendar year?

Yeah, I'm really not a fan of the changes to the loyalty bonus. Extra points are fine, but it's not really a loyalty bonus now.

The idea behind the bonus was to reward lifetime loyalty, and give those (QFF NB's and frequent Y- flyers) a small, achievable reward for their accumilated lifetime loyalty.

The changes which zero the loyalty bonus balance at the start of each qualifying year is a major step backwards.

It severly disadvanges those who preference QF for their travel needs but don't have opportunities (or income) to fly as often as they might like, and in order to hit a bonus now you now need to shoot for well beyond PS to hit this 'thank you' mark.

My view on this change is 'if it ain't broke, don't fix it'.

For the love of all that is holy please don't use these guys to provide internet access to the lounges.

Agreed. I'm a paying QP member, and for the last 18mths I've had to resort on a 3G dongle in the lounges because the wireless is useless. IMHO, the poor performance due to supply not meeting demand and signal not giving quality coverage across the whole lounge. The problem is more prevelant in DOM lounges (PER, MEL, SYD T3), but the INT lounges (SYD T1) also have some explaining to do.

Pity we couldn't get an alliance with a Telco that is actually usable.
Other than that - all good - can't wait to hit Silver on the 31st of July as part SYD/MEL adventure!

Amen. I left Optus two years ago as their data network in WA was horiffic. They had too many blackspots in frequented metropolitan areas.

 

[straitman]

Red Roo, given that you are already giving WPs domestic J and international F lounge access, how are you going to give better lounge access for recently announced P1 tier? Won't you have to push the WPs back into the standard QP in order to make P1 worthwhile?

The other option is to let the WP 1s into the domestic CL lounges.

 

[ozavanti]

Just a general observation:

For all the complaining of the vocal minorities here, there's going to be exponentially more people out there who aren't obsessed with exploiting the FF programs to their maximum. And these people will be platinums, golds and silvers as well, and I think the vast majority of them will be pretty impressed with the benefits announced today.

For every one of the platinums stating that they don't care about platinum1, many more will seek to attain it, just because they want to be top tier.
We, as well informed frequent flyers look to the intricacies of the program to determine its value to us. However many will make that value judgement based on "feeling special" "being elite" and many other emotional/non logical feelings.

At the end of the day, though we here may pick it apart and criticise the portions of the changes designed to bring cost savings to QF, on the surface, it's a good step in the right direction, and for the majority of the public in the program, they'll feel like they're getting something and feel "valued."

It's not just about us in here.

Finally someone that takes a step back.... talk about whinging and whining.... perhaps thats what the W stands for in WP? :shock:

Over the time that i have been in this forum there has been calls for QF to provide something for WP FF'ers to spend their points on other than PG.... QF deliver and then the boots get stuck in....Seriously people!!!!

As a SG, I'd happily take your WP benefits and check out the allusive F lounge or get back to my favoured bulkhead seats that have been taken away on International whY travel.

Additionally i'd love the ability to get closer to the front of the queue in applying for upgrades.... but clearly I'm in the minority that looks at the positives in these changes rather than the poor me whining.

 

[macrop]

maybe p1 status will have benefits like multiple confirmed upgrades etc

I would like to see a set amount of upgrade vouchers to use at your own discretion throughout the year.

Or simply let the the top tier WP's sit in the comfy seats up front if they are available pre-boarding with or without the extra services - meals, edible bread roll, etc etc. My flights have 90%-100% of the J seats empty most times. Such a waste.

What will the new tier be called on here? P1, W3P, WWWP, POW...

 

[medhead]

Which it does for me (and others). It's nice that you only lose a months of SCs, but others will lose a lot more. Don't forget that going forward they will wipe your credits at the end of each year, so if you make it to 440, you will lose them all, whereas previously they would have rolled into the next year and would have got your bonus 10SC later. I can't see how anyone can argue that this is a positive change?

You might have missed the excellent post below. I'll be keeping a close watch on my annual SC earn to make sure I'm in the net gain range and not in the lose range. I'll also manage my SC earn in the lead up to 1 December.

Based on AVERAGE annual status credit accumulation over a number of years this is only of advantage to people earning 500-710, 1000-1430, and 1500-2870 status credits per year

Below 500, 730-990, 1450-1490 and above 2890 status credits per year are all worse off.
720, 1440, 2160 and 2880 see no change.

Change ranges from ~10,000 points per year better off (@2000SC) to ~5,000 per year worse off (@490SC).

 

[ReLoad]

Well, what an interesting time to log on.

So here I am, mr WP, who does over 100 QF flights a year in whY, just about all domestic, with the odd international for vacations. One of your many MEL-SYD-MEL commuters.

I get nowhere near 3600 SC's but I fly your airline a heck of a lot.

Just tell me flat out, hit me in the nose with it, What am I going to lose now? You can tell me straight up, I can take it like a man.

Whats going to change in my world?
I dont get any upgrades already so cant lose that. Goneski but never hadski.
F lounge Access? goneski?
Preferred seating? goneski?
Priority boarding? didnt even exist but goneski before gotski?

I totally dig that you are rewarding the uber FF's, awesome stuff, but at what cost to me?

 

[medhead]

Finally someone that takes a step back.... talk about whinging and whining.... perhaps thats what the W stands for in WP? :shock:

Over the time that i have been in this forum there has been calls for QF to provide something for WP FF'ers to spend their points on other than PG.... QF deliver and then the boots get stuck in....Seriously people!!!!

As a SG, I'd happily take your WP benefits and check out the allusive F lounge or get back to my favoured bulkhead seats that have been taken away on International whY travel.

Additionally i'd love the ability to get closer to the front of the queue in applying for upgrades.... but clearly I'm in the minority that looks at the positives in these changes rather than the poor me whining.

Oh, so discussing how changes will affect us is whinging and whining? Well stop whinging and whining about the upgrade queue and bulkhead seats.

Oh, if you want my WP benefits, happy to give them to you when you fly 100 flights a year.

Now what are these increased ways to use our points in these recent changes, because I must have missed them. :-|

 

[markis10]

As a SG, I'd happily take your WP benefits and check out the allusive F lounge or get back to my favoured bulkhead seats that have been taken away on International whY travel.

Additionally i'd love the ability to get closer to the front of the queue in applying for upgrades.... but clearly I'm in the minority that looks at the positives in these changes rather than the poor me whining.

Put simply, the last two revisions of the program provide no real incentive to stay WP, do you feel F lounges are worth an extra 800 SC to attain for instance if you are lucky to travel through SYD and MEL, if you live outside of the golden triangle and CBR the J lounges are a non event? Throw in the move of the goal posts for PG, the removal of anytime access and what has a WP gained for their "loyalty" in the past year compared to the other tiers as QF rewards its "FREQUENT flyers", very little. Its great that the lower tiers have had their benefits increased, but the most frequent of flyers seem to have been given less of their share recently. Given the competition is picking up, todays announcement of the DJ/NZ tie up, I wonder how many of the very frequent flyers are starting to look elsewhere when they hit 600 SC's??

 

[Princess Fiona]

The other option is to let the WP 1s into the domestic CL lounges.

Great suggestion. On my ( admittedly one and only) visit to the SYD CL it was as dead as the proverbial dodo

 

[pshepvic]

Which it does for me (and others). It's nice that you only lose a months of SCs, but others will lose a lot more. Don't forget that going forward they will wipe your credits at the end of each year, so if you make it to 440, you will lose them all, whereas previously they would have rolled into the next year and would have got your bonus 10SC later. I can't see how anyone can argue that this is a positive change?

Having said that, I doubt there's any point getting upset. Just like the removal of anytime access, Qantas will simply ignore their customers and continue to erode the benefits. Which will simply push more and more people to the competition. As I've already said, I've already made platinum for the next 18 months, perhaps I'll go the soft landing to gold the year after that and send all my points toward AA from now on.

I do understand what your saying, so not arguing that people won't lose a whole heap of SCs (up to 445 to be exact). I guess I was just highlighting that on Dec 1 they are not wiping away all loyalty bonus SCs, only the ones from the previous year. You are right (and it's unfortunate that this is the case) that for some this will be all their loyalty SCs as it happens to fall at their renewal date (approx 8.3% of people if membership renewals are evenly spread), plus those who've had no flights to date in the current year.

In my case, I'm actually losing 4 months of SCs, it just happens that I only have 1 flight that will earn 10 SCs before then that will get wiped off again, but it could easily have been more (ironically the 10 SCs will be from a JQ flight where I didn't even think I would get any!)

At least we've got 6 months notice so people could aim to hit the bonus, although, the cheapest YASA is 8,000 points, so even if you only needed 10 SC's to get the last 450 SC loyalty bonus there would be no point as you'd be down a net amount of 3,000 points!

 

[straitman]

I wonder how many of the very frequent flyers are starting to look elsewhere when they hit 600 SC's??

I certainly think this will have a lot of people cleaning their glasses, standing up and having a good look around.

 

[QF029]

Just to confirm, we have not changed the attain/retain thresholds for Silver and Gold.

Given the the Silver threshold is 300 points, will you be changing Lifetime Silver to 6000 points?

 

[pshepvic]

Given the the Silver threshold is 300 points, will you be changing Lifetime Silver to 6000 points?

I'd only be a JASA to Brisbane away then! But then again, what's the benefit anyway?!

 

[pshepvic]

Just had a bit more of a play with the new fares on the JQ site.

I did a dummy booking on an Economy Starter Plus fare - this gives free seat selection and not much else.

It allowed me to select an Exit row (which is only free on the Max fares) but then didn't actually tell me there was going to be any cost. The only cost was the tiny print "Extras Total" section with a one liner about Extra Legroom Cost of $80 (NZD for two people, the flights happened to be domestic within NZ).

If I hadn't looked around specifically, and didn't check the total price, I may never have noticed. It's a little bit sneaky - Red Roo if you can pass some feedback onto the Orange Star that they might want to fix this up to make it clearer when you are paying extra for a seat!

 

[Mrmaxwell]

It is clear that QF are doing everything they can to;

a. get as many people as possible into the FF program (Woolworths/Optus)
b. convert as many NB's as possible into PS and SG (lowering SC entry/increasing PS/SG benefits)
c. Devalue WP (removal of WP benefits/no positive changes last two updates)

A few more points:
* The loyalty bonus should no longer be called this - 12 months of travel does not make one a 'loyal' customer
* WP should be approx 900-1000 SC's to qualify based on the new 'enhancements'.
* SG is the new sweet spot! Double SG does NOT equal WP!

 

[el_rooto]

Could WP's potentially be getting more unwritten benefits? Eg things just seem to work more easily.

 

[pauly7]

I'm glad you're exited.

My daughter who has taken 12 years to reach over 350 lifetime SC's and who's account is showing:... will have that change on December 1st to 500.

Well I'm excited, but certainly haven't exited

I just want to know more about Platinum One and loving the suggestions about CL access / upgrades... Fingers crossed.

Great strategy to keep the big wigs loyal... Well I hope - need to see what it offers!

 

[awilcockson]

Tell us what you really think?

I laughed out loud when I read his post, and I entirely get where he is coming from