QF Lad

Although I live in the UK now, I grew up in Australia, and consequently have QF Frequent Flyer membership as well as BA Executive Club membership.


As a Qantas Frequent Flyer I have been aware that a benefit (whether published or unpublished) or being a Platinum Frequent Flyer has been the ability to request revenue management to create a classic award for you.


I have had two experiences with this, over the last month. Both requests have been declined.


These were:


(1) QF 18 EZE-SYD, 14 January 2012 - I rang to request a classic award in J. I was told that this request could not even be sent to revenue management because it was only J4 on that flight, ie. the only seats available on the whole flight available were 4 Business class seats. Fair enough I thought.


(2) QF 29 MEL-HKG, 26 December 2011 - I rang to request the creation of a classic award in F. Expertflyer says that this flight is F9 A8 available in First Class. This request was also declined.


Having had 2 recent declines, including on a holiday season First Class flight (QF29) with F9 availability, I was wondering how many people on this board had put in requests to create a classic award to revenue management, and whether they had been successful.


Do many of you actually achieve success requesting the creation of classic awards to revenue management as Platiunum frequent flyers?

Blackcloud

IIRC that this benefit is now openly available for Platinum One, and probably Chairmans Lounge.
So never an official benefit for WP but now for PO.

number_6

I recall having an award opened by yield mgmt LAX-SYD on QF11/12 (which was technically blacklisted for awards that year), this was circa 2005 when trans-pac was booming for QF with F full on every flight (so somewhat of a big deal). Definitely happens, but ymmv and I think it depends on more than your FF status.

og

I asked for a J classic seat on the last SYD-AKL of the day and was declined. The operator did however offer the earlier flight that otherwise showed U0. She said that "we can't and won't open a seat on that flight" (ie the requested last flight of the day). Nevertheless, I was still happy with the outcome.

m0hamed

I just requested a seat to be opened up for a fellow WP family member SYD-LHR on 21 December and was successful. I have had success for SYD-LAX/LHR/JFK/BKK-SYD +/- 3 days, however most were for 744s rather than A388 routes (for LAX/LHR).

The only route I have declined was SYD-EZE-SYD which I suspect has no award availability until QF switches to SLC in March 2012 as I tried calling back once a week for 6 weeks and eventually gave up.

Tyrolean

Similar things have been seen, when Lufthansa did introduce their Supeduper HON Circle Tier.

They had "inofficial" benefits that their SEN/Gold got. With the introduction of those, the Golds lost them and the HON got them officially.
I do not believe QF when they say: All WP benefits will stay the same.
As a plat you are now a the number two. Second tier. There are more loyal pax than you. We are sorry, if you were P1...

Over the time we will see, what kind of benefits (official and unofficial) will be taken away from Scum-Platinums and solely given the to the superduper Platinum Ones!

og

Oh no. Is this the start of new FT acronyms (abbreviations): SP and SDPO ?

thadocta

I was about to start a thread on that, but you beat me to it. I think WP should stay as is, we need a new term for P1's - DP1's perhaps? (d1ckh34d platinum ones) perhaps?

Dave

DownUnderFlyer

Yes, on several occasions. IIRC you can requests seats domestically but only in Business and only if Business is wide open. Internationally you can request in Y and in Business but for Business you need to have a lot of D availability. I have done this successfully on many occasions PVG-SYD, SYD-SIN etc.

With so little benefits anybody going for P1 should get a cozy nick name which breaches many of the Flyertalk TOS. It isn't really logical to go for P1. The biggest benefit is the fact that QF will look after you if things go wrong.

Dave Noble

Qantas will look after most passengers when things go wrong

og

Perhaps, but some are more equal than others. The special attention may happen for everyone, but some get it faster or with less pushing / requesting / begging / waiting. The colour of the card helps a lot.

Dave Noble

It may assist a bit, but not to the levels that get occasionally suggested; you might get served quicker mayhaps, but QF will generally look after people when there is a problem

serfty

There's a large thread on this over on AFF.

Irrespective of that, WP1 seems to being adopted. Personally, I prefer ÜW

Blackcloud

Yes but that is a different website.
Also some of us left AFF for various reasons so I am not one for complete harmonization.

Dave Noble

Indeed. AFF is a completely separate set of fora ; as far as an insulting nickname for the status, why is there a need for one? P1 would be a nice logical simple abbreviation