alexss

I'm heading to SYD in the new year and was wondering whether to try Qantas premium economy. From the marketing material it looks a lot better than BA WTP - but I've learnt to be cynical about marketing.

I've found lots of material online about how many miles it earns but nothing on what it's actually like to travel in. Has anyone on here tried this and how does it compare to BA?

thanks

edi-traveller

Don't know how the seats compare but the marketing suggests that the meal presentation on Q was on proper plates. BA Made an annoucement of improvements to the WT+ meal presentation onto proper plates - but that went really quiet and I don't know whether they have every implemented it.

Globaliser

It is true. It is a significant step ahead of BA. It is more J- than Y+, and indeed QF has deliberately pitched the service level at something akin to (Australian) domestic business class. (owever, it would still be a disappointment if you were expecting business class.)

There's some more information in this thread on the Qantas board.

TravelBuddha

From everything I've heard both the hard product and the service standards on QF are higher. I know its not much help now, but I'm flying QF PE on the whale jet in December, and can report back then.

Globaliser

This isn't (or is no longer) correct. Please see this thread.

alexss

Thanks for your help and the link.

QF PE definitely does sound better than WTP and I'm amazed that they are priced at the same level. That said, I can go J class on Asiana for about the same price so that's pretty tempting.

Globaliser

Possibly not for long. It sounds like premium economy may be being taken out of the JSA. See this post. IMHO, the price for WT+ is artifically high at the moment.

alexss

I hope this means BA's WTP fares to SYD are reduced - they seem disproportionately high right now. But I assume they can get away with this because lots of people who would fly Y on other routes don't want to do so for a 24 hour flight.

WeleaseBwian

I very often fly BA WT+ and on a recent trip to Oz took the opportunity to try out QF PE on the MEL-LHR return.

The QF seat seems to have a little more legroom - not sure if this is the seat thickness or more pitch - and it definitely reclines a bit more than WT+.

I had heard that the meal service was more like business class but I would describe it as economy class food served on business class plates.

IFE standard very similar to BAs AVOD system.

QF give you a welcome drink.

QF seats built down to a very low cost/quality. PE has only been around for a few months but many seats already had broken armrests and bits of plastic falling off.

Now heres QFs BIG BIG problem. They don't have PE on all their aircraft and when (yes when not if - going by recent problems) they have a tech problem you will receive a call to say the aircraft has changed and you are now in economy. They tried this on me twice. 2 days before the original flight they tried to put me in economy but ended up putting me in PE 24hrs later via SYD and then on the morning of that flight phoned with another tech problem and tried the same routine. This time they transfered me back to the MEL flight in PE.

Overall I was glad I tried PE once but QFs customer service is non-existant so I will stick to BA from now on. There really isn't that much between PE and WT+ to make me risk flying with QF.

ANstar

Actually I think more people have found themselves moved to J rather than Y in these cases.

Kiwi Flyer

I agree. WTP fares increased significantly when QF launched premium economy, to match QF Y+ fares despite the much worse product. I feel sorry for those who have bought BA Y+ on a QF codeshare.

Globaliser

A couple of things.

First, QF's actual PE availability is behind its planned availability because it's one aircraft down at the moment (I believe this is still the case). Bookings having been taken on the basis of planned availability, you have to cut them some slack. If a PE-equipped aircraft is broken, it's broken; and at the moment there's little that the airline can do to magic up more PE seats if they just don't exist. This will not go on forever. And I much prefer QF to fix the broken aircraft rather than to fly them broken.

Second, I thought I was looked after pretty well when this happened to me back in May - both PE-equipped aircraft went tech, and there was no space in J. (I already knew that from a reliable inside source, so when QF called to tell me what was going on I knew I wasn't being spun a yarn.) I was called, and offered alternatives. I had to travel back to London that evening, so in the end I got a USD 700 MCO as downgrade compensation (valid for future travel on QF), plus a refund of 50% of the half-return fare.

To put it another way, I basically flew back to the UK for free. And QF Y is not bad - I've done it often enough in the past, and it's better now than it has been. So not a bad outcome, all round.So do QF, who seem to be rebooking onto QF metal all QF-coded pax who had been booked on BA metal.

Globaliser

OK, it's started.

For the dates that I'm looking at, there is now an £80 difference each way in the pricing of BA codes compared to QF codes. And as already noted, QF will no longer sell QF codes on BA metal. There's also been a general fare reduction of £100 return since about two weeks ago. This is from the base fare, so the benefit of the recent round of fuel surcharge reductions is on top of that. So, overall, this is bringing the BA coded fare for those dates back to just below £2,000.

Interestingly, if you try to book the BA codes on the QF website, you get two warning messages: "The requested cabin class is full or not available in at least one of the options listed below" and "Note : Your flight from XXX to YYY will be in Economy".

anhphamvl

Hi Guys,

Ben over at Business Travel Guru has a quite extensive review of Premium Economy on the Qantas A380 aircraft, its well worth a read to find out what you will get:

Qantas A380 Premium Economy Flight Review Singapore to Sydney

Is this the experice most people have had with Premium Economy on the Qantas A380?