harryhv

The company's financial troubles have hit the Qantas Frequent Flyer program, with a set of devaluations from 1 July.

Mileage earning on normal fares (aka "deep discount economy" in Qantas terminology) is down by about 30%.

SC's earnt on partner flights to/from Australia (Cathay, LAN etc) appear to be down by about half.

LTN Phobia

I see that QF have effectively halved on partner airline earnings where they compete with QF. E.g. Australia-UK on QF in F is 420, 210 on non-QF.

Rather interesting change. It has no effect on me at all (as I only credit QF and JQ flights to QF), but for those of you crediting partner flights to QF the effects could be quite substantial, if flying on competing routes.

I see that non-competing routes haven't really changed.

Do you think QF believe that the SCs/Points earning on partner airlines will change consumer behaviour without accompanying lowering of the fares on QF?

shillard

The latest "enhancement" - clearly aimed at "enhancing" the volume of business going to Virgin Australia.

Will no one rid me of this troublesome Irishman?

RichardMEL

Following on from DL.

the laughable part is the headline says "... simpler ... fairer "
hilariously WRONG from the following pages of tables, confusing stuff to non airline geeks (eg: classes), exceptions to flights, partners.. oh my God there's nothing simpler about it at all..

though I do note from my 10 minute reading that SC earning, at least in higher classes (eg: biz, first) seems to be maintained for the discount levels (eg D, I) on domestic/int gives same SC as current, but the higher ones (D,J) give a little bonus, which makes sense and seems "fair" to me.

I also note closing of the ASA "loophole" people were using. Makes sense from a company/revenue point of view.

The rest of it is no real surprise, despite how complex it is. oy!! It's very much like the Delta model... it was only a matter of time.

nux

Almost doubling the number of booking class categorise, and changing the earning table to two pages is classed as "more simplified program"?

harryhv

The changes to QFF/JQ earn are here in this colossal crackpot chart:
http://www.qantas.com.au/fflyer/dyn/...hanges-to-earn

And the partner-earning devaluations are listed here
http://www.qantas.com.au/fflyer/dyn/...rtner-airlines

Perhaps signalling the last days of a tragic QF management, crackpot announcements, unsustainably complicated, a whiff of desperation, reminds me of the days leading up to the Ansett demise

seat_4D

All this announcement has done is give me a headache. Used to be a very simple calculation on how to retain status, now all too hard.

Certainly no incentive from a SC point of view to fly PE on a partner airline.

Also good to see the zero points or credit recognition for PER residents to SIN set in stone. Afterall, why would anyone in perth want to visit Singapore on our national carrier?

However thought this was a good idea needs to explain it to me!

davidMEL

It's a big downgrade. I think it's 360 SCs earned for QF one-way in F from UK to "East Coast Australia". So just under a halving for partners on 210.

In J, it's from 240 to 140.

The only real thing keeping me in QF is the prospect of Lifetime Gold. As I live in London, these changes will increase my incentive to fly QF rather than CX, but there's a limit on how much I value SCs. Return J fares in QF are about Ł1000 more expensive on QF and I'm not sure an extra 160 SCs are worth it.

I'm relieved short-haul BA flights won't be changed too much, but it's very annoying that LHR-AMS falls under the new 250 mile limit. So 20 SCs for J instead of 40. I will fly in J less on BA because of this.

I also fly to Doha every now and then for work and flying through Dubai would be ridiculous, but QF is still slashing the SCs earned for a LHR-DOH flight on QR.

I like QF, but has been testing my loyalty a lot with all the changes it has made since I moved to London 8 years ago.

RichardMEL

I'm glad I'm not the only one to call "bulltish" on this "simpler" call..

oy, vey

nux

Remember it is the lifetime of the current Qantas FF program..

LTN Phobia

I certainly laughed out loud at "simpler". That is definitely so far from simpler. Maybe that's where QF has gone wrong - they can't distinguish between "simple" and "excessively complicated"?

And as for fairer, maybe to Qantas, I suppose, because they are now giving people less for flying with competitors - but not for us or their OW competitors (not that I expect them to be, but still).

RichardMEL

Seems to me AA flights in the US booked in P class will still earn "First" SC's.... I thought that one would be sorted out. Or am I misreading the infodump?

Mwenenzi

Click here to join the AA frequent flyer program
http://www.americanairlines.com.au/i...false&from=Nav

https://www.aa.com/AAdvantage/quickE...utmk=137033907

I wonder why this link was not in the QF email

Kremmen

While that is an option, it's not very useful for discount economy, at 25-50% of flown miles. Better off joining Alaska's MileagePlan which credits 100% on all economy classes.

SQ421

Here's hoping BAEC starts offering a Status Match.