"... we'll shortly announce a major investment to improve our Frequent Flyer program"

[seritonin]

QR premium seats out of Australia were not available for at least two weeks over Christmas and New Year 2024-25. SQ was very patchy as almost all of the availability had been taken by KrisFlyer members. Plus Velocity makes you book sector by sector on most through routes and there are no connections once you get off the QR/SQ trunk routes. UA, if available, seems to have been charging in the millions.

I disagree. I can still see SQ and QR availability Christmas/NYE 2024.




Compares to QF, you'll be schlepping it in JQ or pay crazy fees with EK.



It's a no brainer. The value of using your points for two of the best airlines in the world (SQ & QR) vs low cost (JQ) or cough up $2k in fees (EK)...

 

[kamchatsky]

1. Book your United award flights in economy: there's currently award space for 4+ people from Australia to the US for pretty much every day in December 2024.
2. Book accommodation and on the ground stuff.
3. If premium cabin availability emerges before the flight, which occurs for most flights, switch to that. If not, take your economy flight.

This isn't possible with Qantas because (a) there isn't even economy award availability and (b) the chances of 4 J seats becoming available is next to zero.

It is possible, but only on less popular routes. I got 4 * J CR QF SYD-HKG awards flying on Boxing Day last year. They opened up 2 weeks before the flight. I even snagged 4 * F Suite (new A380) seats on that flight.

 

[Berlin]

I think holding points with BOTH Qantas and Velocity is the sweet spot.

As a recent example, we managed to score J class reward seats to Singapore and back just a few days before Christmas- out on SQ via Velocity on the 23rd and back on BA via Qantas on 3rd Jan. A few days in SIN and then redeemed further QF points to get to Thailand on MH. Stayed at the gorgeous new Andaz in Pattaya using our last Hyatt Globalist Suite certificate for the year.

Was a truly lovely (albeit unexpected) escape from all the Christmas madness here and we paid maybe $1000 bucks total for a 5 Star holiday over Christmas and NY.

 

[TheInsider]

So Qantas please price your J international one way fares the same way you price domestic (half the cost) to give FFs the ability to mix rewards with revenue fares.

You can mix revenue fares with rewards.

 

[bullerdude]

You can mix revenue fares with rewards.

Yes and no, sometime the IBE just doesn't allow the combination you are seeking.

The bigger bug bear for me is you cannot purchase both rewards and paid tickets in the same booking; it can only be done via seperate booking which can cause big issues for families if flights change or are disrupted. For instance, if I needed 4x PE seats but only two are available as classic rewards, it would be great to have the option to pay for 2 with points and 2 with dollars within a single booking.

 

[oz_mark]

Yes and no, sometime the IBE just doesn't allow the combination you are seeking.

The bigger bug bear for me is you cannot purchase both rewards and paid tickets in the same booking; it can only be done via seperate booking which can cause big issues for families if flights change or are disrupted. For instance, if I needed 4x PE seats but only two are available as classic rewards, it would be great to have the option to pay for 2 with points and 2 with dollars within a single booking.

Pretty sure that is a GDS limitation, as everyone must be on the same fare classes etc.

 

[Mr H]

I disagree. I can still see SQ and QR availability Christmas/NYE 2024.

Are you referring to this? Which, incidentally, doesn't seem to connect to anything.

 

[RichardMEL]

Are you referring to this? Which, incidentally, doesn't seem to connect to anything.

View attachment 372371

That pricing looks very much like QF ASA.... def not a typical reward pricing.

 

[Mr H]

That pricing looks very much like QF ASA.... def not a typical reward pricing.

Indeed - I was just pointing out to @seritonin that the alleged availability of reward flights with QR is not quite what it seems. There has been no genuine premium class availability with QR over the Christmas 2024 period. They had been available until mid December 2024, usually disappearing within a couple of hours, but nothing since then. QR made the flights available to their own members for double Avios.

 

[Gremlin]

And this is the way I see QF going with their own metal.
Perhaps at something like 30 days out they will open up more or all remaining seats to CR.
This would fulfill their “promise” of releasing more CR seats, it’s just that you won’t be able to book until a month out.

This is incredibly unrealistic. A lot of genuine paid J or F pax wouldn’t be booking travel 30 days out. Some barely 30 hours out.

The idea that QF should be cannibalising its share of the highest value revenue pax in order to make more CR seats available is laughable.

 

[seritonin]

Are you referring to this? Which, incidentally, doesn't seem to connect to anything.

View attachment 372371

Nope.
It's blue on seats.aero so not a direct flight. It's via ADL.

 

[drron]

Are you referring to this? Which, incidentally, doesn't seem to connect to anything.

View attachment 372371

Thats what I get every time I look at the Velocity app when it tells me J awards are available. Highly unusual to get one at the lowest rate.

 

[JohnK]

Qantas will catch my interest if airfares return to 2011 levels otherwise my Lifetime Gold is entirely wasted.

Virgin OOL-SYD $129 one-way for Choice is way too much. Qantas consistently more expensive is no incentive to book. Have zero interest in chasing Qantas SCs. Zero balance this year with May 2024 expiry.

 

[Doctore1003]

One ‘upside‘ of more expensive reward seats - more status credits for points club members? They’d have to, surely.

 

[levelnine]

One ‘upside‘ of more expensive reward seats - more status credits for points club members? They’d have to, surely.

You raise a very good point that hasn't been discussed so far.

Qantas are going to be in a tight spot on this issue.

PC/PCP earn around 50% of the SC of the lowest category of cash fare. Eg SYD-MEL in J is 40SC with cash and 18SC with points.

If this new flight reward tier costs 2x points, there's a case to be made that they should earn 2x the SC, but that would take their SC earn almost to the cash fare level (hello JASA/FASA!).

That then destroys the value of points plus pay (one of the few benefits of it was earning full cash SCs) unless this new flight reward tier is still quite restricted in terms of seats.

 

[Gremlin]

Qantas will catch my interest if airfares return to 2011 levels otherwise my Lifetime Gold is entirely wasted.

Reminds me of the time my brother told me he wasn’t going to fill up his car until petrol dropped back below 40c a litre.

 

[Mwenenzi]

Have not read all 175 posts in this thread.

Oneworld alliance are (slowly) introducing cross airline upgrades with ff miles/points/avios . Getting an agreed cost and method will be hard. Many variations in ff miles/points/avios and cash co-payment with current OW airline upgrade policies.

Would expect something on this in the announcement. Maybe something like 50% more QF ff points (plus cash?) for a cross airline upgrade.
Also may be instant upgrade on QF flight with QF points for 25%~50%-75% more than standard "lottery" upgrade.

QFF is big profit centre for QF. All changes will be designed to increase that $$$ profit at the expense of QF frequent flyers ~ QF frequent spenders. Not for the benefit of QF customers.

oneworld May Launch Alliance-wide Upgrades this year

ET posting an article about oneworld alliance wide upgrades..woohoo! (not sure If I'm allowed to post the link!)

www.australianfrequentflyer.com.au

 

[tdimdad]

Qantas will catch my interest if airfares return to 2011 levels otherwise my Lifetime Gold is entirely wasted.

Virgin OOL-SYD $129 one-way for Choice is way too much. Qantas consistently more expensive is no incentive to book. Have zero interest in chasing Qantas SCs. Zero balance this year with May 2024 expiry.

Between 2011 - 2023, the compound inflation has lifted prices by 35.4% according to the RBA inflation calculator (would probably be close to 40% if year 2024 was included). Or, turning this around, the flights would need to cost max 74% of today's prices to bring the value back to your LTG. A lot needs to happen in the world for this to become a reality.

Perhaps a more pertinent comparison could be the cost of flights vs our income. Are we spending on average more, the same, or less for a similar travel pattern as a ratio of our available funds? If there's been movement, is it fair to expect that the value of a FF program moves accordingly?

 

[oz_mark]

One ‘upside‘ of more expensive reward seats - more status credits for points club members? They’d have to, surely.

I don't think they would 'have to'. The current families (red-e-deal, flex) have multiple price points all with the same SC earning within the family.

 

[Doctore1003]

You raise a very good point that hasn't been discussed so far.

Qantas are going to be in a tight spot on this issue.

PC/PCP earn around 50% of the SC of the lowest category of cash fare. Eg SYD-MEL in J is 40SC with cash and 18SC with points.

If this new flight reward tier costs 2x points, there's a case to be made that they should earn 2x the SC, but that would take their SC earn almost to the cash fare level (hello JASA/FASA!).

That then destroys the value of points plus pay (one of the few benefits of it was earning full cash SCs) unless this new flight reward tier is still quite restricted in terms of seats.

I don't think they would 'have to'. The current families (red-e-deal, flex) have multiple price points all with the same SC earning within the family.

Maybe a small increase in the SC earn rate, but still nowhere near the cash fare rate? That would make sense