QF is an overhyped marketing phenomenon.
I only fly for work once a year and company policy is Y, so I have to top up the difference to fly J. For leisure I like to treat myself in F/J. When its your own money, you tend to pay more attention to value for money, and that’s where QF falls short every single time (other than when they have a big sale on). Some of the F/J fares are downright outrageous, and the only people I know who pay those tariffs are travelling on the company dime (and the only reason is chasing status); for leisure travel in premium cabins they are a lot more price sensitive and choose other carriers. The fees for changing or cancelling flights are pretty high and also a lot higher than say EK, even for the same codeshare flights. Domestic J is daylight robbery – although Ive only flown it a handful of times (and only 1-1.5 hr segments), the lounges were disappointing, the inflight grub insipid (LF/OS does well for flights of similar duration) and why anyone would pay 3 times the Y fare for a short hop with that sort of service and product differential is beyond me.
The food in J has been getting worse and worse over the years, compared to EK or EY its embarrassingly mediocre – I couldn’t get both fruit and pudding on several flights, which I don’t think is asking too much when Im paying $5-6k for a flight to HKG/HND when carriers like EK/CX/SQ gives you both and cheese too if you want. Not a fan of the small/big plate concept either, or the very average quality of the food. The seats (other than some of the A330s) are one or two generations behind the top carriers. In F the food is better but still miles behind the competition, and the wines (other than the champagne) are a joke compared to their peers especially EK. The cabins are no contest either – the new suites on EK, SQ and EY are just in a diff league. QF hasn’t done much with the F/J cabin for years. The pajamas are handy but they might as well stop handing out the poor excuse they call the J amenity kits. I might sound like a whinging princess but this is all in relation to the high prices that QF has the audacity to charge. QF has been cost cutting for years, and its nice that the company is making record profits, but eventually some customers will get annoyed at paying a premium for a vastly inferior product and vote with their feet. Although given QF’s latest results today it seems most aussies are happier than ever to be ripped off. As Rooflyer said, they pump/print/give out the points like it’s the Weimar Republic in the 1920s, and finding a redemption seat in a premium cabin is near impossible on some routes and has been for a long time – and Im not interested in using pts for overpriced appliances. Apparently QF is thinking about introducing a new level of reward seats at twice the price, but with “more” seats. Direct and indirect devaluations/enhancements make the QFF program very average at best. AJ himself made a comment about how successful Qantas Loyalty has been to the bottom line given the pulling power of QF points. That division has made $370m per year for the past two years. They even managed to issue over $4bn in QF cash, which offers FX spreads so wide/bad that it would make the big four banks blush - Ned Kelly would be proud to run it and yet plenty of peeps get conned by the points.
The biggest positive about QFF however is that it is arguably the easiest/cheapest way to one world sapphire and emerald. Being able to access BA lounges when flying Y around Europe is a very nice perk. The F lounge in Sydney used to be the main reason why I would strive for WP, but the food on the last few visits have been very disappointing and given the reasons above I don’t even bother trying to retain WP anymore. With the constantly declining service and product level of QF, it’s a no brainer to fly a different airline when it’s both cheaper and offers a far superior product. Buying a QF ticket and flying EK on a QF coded flight is a great way of maintaining status.