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

[Guvner]

Congratulations on your long and illustrious career but with all that experience under your belt, I would have expected you to know that..



..does not have a substantial impact on A/B testing.



Do you think the concept of data-driven decision making has no merit?

There was nothing illustrious about my career but thanks for the compliment.

Do you think the concept of data-driven decision making has no merit?
I don't recall saying that. In fact I'm a firm believe it does in controlled environments. However it can easily be used/presented/manipulated to suit a narrative when and as required. What I said was there are other factors involved i.e function and flow.
The reality is that running A/B testing in live environments as massive as Qantas' also affects the live infrastructure underpinning it at many different layers such as AAA, API's, DB's, gateways, hosts etc.
But as AFF is primarily designed for seasoned travellers and not "IT people" I was trying to keep the conversation relatable by mentioning that other factors can contribute to sales/performance/usability data variations and was not intending on engaging in a pi$$ing contest.

 

[SeatBackForward]

They really should stand up a test environment for the workplace kids to play in. The last profits might allow some meagre funding for it.

The Airline is the dev environment. The FF Market is where they go live.

 

[am0985]

It's a pretty cough system right now.

The supposed classic reward availability when you open up the calendar is a sham.

Eg SYD - JFK in J shows up as CR seats available on 6, 20, 25 and 29 May 2024. This is supposed to be J specific as selecting economy shows much more (supposed) CR availability.

Yet searching each of these dates shows no J availability at all, as expected given what we know about availability on this route. The occasional phantom reward is understandable but this makes the system completely useless.

If you want J availability you're still much better off using the multi city calendar tool than this.

 

[oz_mark]

Pretty common these days for companies to be running 'experiments' in live environments.

 

[alexczarn]

Suggests the new flight reward option could be launched any day now.

It's already been leaked apparently.

 

[TheInsider]

It's already been leaked apparently.

How so? Many guesses on here, nothing showing anything though, nor how things would be priced.

What to say the new 'rewards' option will be branded something new, while still having the points + pay, points amounts.... Like 10x the amounts of a CR.

 

[Doctore1003]

I just saw this on Facebook.
1 cent per point, plus taxes and fees, with limited availability
Underwhelming if true

Qantas Will Make Huge Changes To Flights Booked Using Points

Qantas Frequent Flyer will launch dynamic pricing for points bookings, a move that will improve award availability but increase the cost of flights

flighthacks.com.au

 

[Doctore1003]

Where about? You able to take a screenshot?

I've edited my post
They also shared this screenshot on FB, but I can't replicate it myself

 

[TheInsider]

I've edited my post

Pretty pathetic pricing if that's the case. Points + pay is similar isn't it?

 

[RichardMEL]

Pretty pathetic pricing if that's the case. Points + pay is similar isn't it?

Agree. It's a BIT better than p+p but it's nothing like we, the pundits, imagined. So if this report is accurate - and it probably is - another "enhancement" that seems at first glace to be not very appealing - though there may be some sweet spots to be found I suppose.

 

[elanshin]

Iirc p+p is 0.6c per point so it is better than that. But given EDR conversion is also 1c per qff point it's not that attractive.

I don't think there's any "sweet spot" if it's pegged to its conversion value and dynamic pricing. You'll always get the same value. With how high QF J prices generally are, you'll still get some ridiculous points prices.

 

[logicallysynced]

This popped up today:

Qantas Will Make Huge Changes To Flights Booked Using Points

Qantas Frequent Flyer will launch dynamic pricing for points bookings, a move that will improve award availability but increase the cost of flights

flighthacks.com.au

A Qantas Loyalty source tells FlightHacks that the Qantas Frequent Flyer program will launch a ‘Reward+’ flight reward product within weeks. The new redemption product is designed to sit between the existing Classic Flight Rewards and Points Plus Pay, improving availability while also offering attractive value.

Reward+ is expected to go live across the entire Qantas network in all cabins, as a dynamic product tied to the commercial fare availability of a specific flight. The same Classic Flight Reward fare rules will apply, in addition to identical taxes and fees charged on those redemptions.

Qantas Loyalty claims that Reward+ will offer a rounded 1-cent of value per point, tied to the tax-exclusive cash fare of a flight. For example, if a flight costs $500 excluding taxes, a Reward+ seat would be 50,000 Qantas Points, plus the Classic Flight Reward taxes and fees for that route.

We expect Reward+ seating to appear on the booking page for flights without Classic Flight Reward availability but with Reward+ availability.

 

[levelnine]

Yes, this is probably the more appropriate place to discuss this leak than the booking site changes thread.

As I said in the other thread, a huge disappointment that is a flop even by Qantas' low standards.

I'm not sure why Qantas bothered to pause the share buy back until the launch of this new product. It is simply a rebranded points plus pay at a slightly higher value. They could have rolled this out with essentially no fanfare.

Edit: To give an example, SYD-LAX on Qantas in J is currently going for around $12K return on the low end. The base fare is $11.5K (ie almost none of it is taxes), so that makes it 1.1mil points return. To the average punter, this is going to look no different from points plus pay — an astronomical amount that is not even worth considering.

Edit Two: It is even worse than I first thought. While it is tied to the tax-exclusive commercial fare, you still have to pay the regular classic award fees on top of it! That makes the value considerably worse because the classic award fees on many routes is disappointingly high. Imagine paying 1.1mil points for a simple SYD-LAX-SYD flight and then having to stump up hundreds of dollars in charges on top of it!!

 

[Mr H]

With a consequent reduction in classic reward availability that will be introduced gradually and quietly.

 

[Mattg]

Yes, this is probably the more appropriate place to discuss this leak than the booking site changes thread.

As I said in the other thread, a huge disappointment that is a flop even by Qantas' low standards.

I'm not sure why Qantas bothered to pause the share buy back until the launch of this new product. It is simply a rebranded points plus pay at a slightly higher value. They could have rolled this out with essentially no fanfare.

Edit: To give an example, SYD-LAX on Qantas in J is currently going for around $12K return on the low end. The base fare is $11.5K (ie almost none of it is taxes), so that makes it 1.1mil points return. To the average punter, this is going to look no different from points plus pay — an astronomical amount that is not even worth considering.

I find it hard to believe that a "reward+" option with points worth 1 cent each would be the final product. It's not really much of an improvement over the current situation, and would still leave many members disappointed.

I thought the whole point of these changes was to remove a major pain point for program members - a slightly better value Points+Pay type option doesn't do this.

I would have expected to see a second tier of Classic Reward pricing, maybe 50% higher in price, with more availability.

 

[Saab34]

The whole point is to increase revenue and profit so it all sounds like it’s on point to me.

 

[arrow]

This is disappointing! I would have thought they would offer something like the SQ saver and advantage type award fare differentiation.

 

[levelnine]

The whole point is to increase revenue and profit so it all sounds like it’s on point to me.

The problem is that I can't see how this increases member engagement with the program.

As most credit card surcharge fees are greater than 1c/pt these days, it means there is no incentive to put regular spend on a Qantas-earning credit card. It only makes sense if your points are worth considerably more than the surcharge fee, which they won't be under this new scheme.

 

[ozflier]

Who knows if this is true?
If it is, then I worry basic CRs availability will be reduced even further!

 

[serfty]

Pretty rubbish value there

Agree. It's a BIT better than p+p but it's nothing like we, the pundits, imagined. So if this report is accurate - and it probably is - another "enhancement" that seems at first glace to be not very appealing - though there may be some sweet spots to be found I suppose.

If the flight hacks article is correct, then it would mainly be a rebranding of "Points + Pay".

- Increased value of points (~0.8¢ to 1¢)
- Possible loss of the points/SC earn that Points+Pay currently is eligible for.
- Really just a different way of searching