Has anyone any idea of how the proposed changed QFF will affect award and upgrade availability. I can only hope it will be for the better but am probably biased but find the current programme virtually useless having said that I have no status with QF mainly because I have found United MP far more preferable in terms of the above. The downside is of course you have to travel on UA!
I earn significant numbers of points out of my credit cards spend and additional ones when I have no choice to fly on Qantas.
I have been accumulating CC points for some years now and was waiting to see if QFF ever got better i.e. upgrades prior to the day of travel!
I am probably not the only status less Flier who is cheesed off as I see now that most credit cards give you the option of converting to more generous ffps or will organize the flights ( currently Y only) themselves using your points .
The transfer ratios of Amex has now improved for some airlines eg Singapore and I am wondering is it time to take the plunge and start transferring.
I find it hard to believe that Qantas thinks it is going to get top dollar for QFF when it runs such a mean spirited programme I understand that Air Canada has sold its Aeroplan and did well out of it .However, I can tell you that their programme was certainly more generous and user friendly than ours- you really could get long haul business class seats less than 330 days in advance and upgrades though tight on domestic long runs were accessible in the month or two ahead of departure on transoceanic ones.
Is the QFF going to be improved i.e. more value for money or are we just going to be screwed even more under a different name I recognize that the details are not out yet but it is surprising how often rumours or guesses aired on these forums turn out to be true.
I had already made up my mind to fly SQ in a couple of weeks RTW in F rather than do what I usually do - fly QF. I did this for a number of reasons: cheaper fare, newer fleet, apparently better in-flight meals/wine, and particularly the ability to make redemption bookings on SQ from much more inventory than QF now provides. E.g. many choices for F return MEL-SIN-LHR availability over the next few months versus zero from QF. The recent AMEX rule change 1:1 has re-enforced my decision. I find it curious that ever since QF announced a revision to their FF (to be released next month I think?), there is hardly any inventory for redemptions on the popular routes MEL-LHR or MEL-LAX. I suspect it is because they are holding off releasing seats until the new ff scheme, which by deduction must be going to be less attractive than their current one. Mind you SQ have some tricks when it comes to redemption, e.g. no "Saver Awards" for flying 77W, and no availability for class R - their new suites class in the 380 - and this may be a way of SQ ultimately forcing more points out of pax as they withdraw thier 744s in favour of the newer aircraft over the next 3 years. But in the meantime, I intend to get my money's worth. So my advice is don't transfer your AMEX points to QF, until you know what their new scheme entails.
I had already made up my mind to fly SQ in a couple of weeks RTW in F rather than do what I usually do - fly QF. I did this for a number of reasons: cheaper fare, newer fleet, apparently better in-flight meals/wine, and particularly the ability to make redemption bookings on SQ from much more inventory than QF now provides. E.g. many choices for F return MEL-SIN-LHR availability over the next few months versus zero from QF. The recent AMEX rule change 1:1 has re-enforced my decision. I find it curious that ever since QF announced a revision to their FF (to be released next month I think?), there is hardly any inventory for redemptions on the popular routes MEL-LHR or MEL-LAX. I suspect it is because they are holding off releasing seats until the new ff scheme, which by deduction must be going to be less attractive than their current one. Mind you SQ have some tricks when it comes to redemption, e.g. no "Saver Awards" for flying 77W, and no availability for class R - their new suites class in the 380 - and this may be a way of SQ ultimately forcing more points out of pax as they withdraw thier 744s in favour of the newer aircraft over the next 3 years. But in the meantime, I intend to get my money's worth. So my advice is don't transfer your AMEX points to QF, until you know what their new scheme entails.
This must be AMEXs way of trying to keep market share given all the other cards that are using AMEX (eg Westpac Altitude Amex which is giving 4 Altitude points per $1 until end May .. and this equals 2 QF FF miles per $1 spent).
Programs: QF WP (LT Gold), LH SEN, OZ Diamond, CO Nothing, HH Gold, SPG Platinum, Avis PC
Posts: 6,846
Quote:
Originally Posted by crdaus
I had already made up my mind to fly SQ in a couple of weeks RTW in F rather than do what I usually do - fly QF.
You will find even more availability for premium cabins on TG rather than SQ. Or NZ, OZ, SA etc. There is much more award inventory on *A.
Just some food for thought: The SQ program is not very good for accumulating miles from flying premium cabins. LH or BD are much better in this respect.
However, from Australia LH and BD have no Amex transfer (only via SPG) but the earn/burn rate is much better than at Krisflyer.
Your thread starter prompted me to look at what was available for a trip in November.
So after thinking about how many Qantas miles I had I decided to use 140,000 points on a RTW. Qantas can only devalue the program and call it enhancement.
So for 140,000 points I am flying BNE-SYD-KIX-HEL-LHR-AMS-LHR-DFW-LAX-BNE, the prime flight being the Finnair MD11 on the KIX-HEL leg.
Yes Finnair came up as an option on the Qantas booking page.
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I thought I would ask - only becuase ti is difficult enough getting normal award setas, let alone having to find as much to do a RTW that you would want to fly.
Programs: QF WP (LT Gold), LH SEN, OZ Diamond, CO Nothing, HH Gold, SPG Platinum, Avis PC
Posts: 6,846
Quote:
Originally Posted by AN_Boy
I thought I would ask - only becuase ti is difficult enough getting normal award setas, let alone having to find as much to do a RTW that you would want to fly.
It is not that difficult when you are happy flying economy and a bit flexible. And if you don't want to go to IPC.
It is not that difficult when you are happy flying economy and a bit flexible. And if you don't want to go to IPC.
And if you're having trouble, spend the 2500 points or $50 telephone service fee and you'll get even better availability with CX and JAL or the agent manually searching for route combinations. I was getting no LHR-BNE availaiblity after 29 Dec through to 15 Jan 09 and my telephone agent was able to grab availability on 5, 6, 7th Jan (peak) by mixing and matching sectors rather than booking straight through like I was on the internet.
And if you're having trouble, spend the 2500 points or $50 telephone service fee and you'll get even better availability with CX and JAL or the agent manually searching for route combinations. I was getting no LHR-BNE availaiblity after 29 Dec through to 15 Jan 09 and my telephone agent was able to grab availability on 5, 6, 7th Jan (peak) by mixing and matching sectors rather than booking straight through like I was on the internet.
I second that. In the grand scheme of things (2.5k miles for a 280k mile award) the service fee is well worth it. I secured 4 J RTW tickets for departure mid dec returning mid jan. To make it more difficult, one couple needed to travel together, one person needed to be on the same flights as his partner on a paid ticket, and I needed to be a snob and pick exactly what equipment on what carrier. I spent days screwing around trying to sort it out online, and was slowly getting somewhere, but the agent I (eventually) got thumped the computer a couple times and did it a lot easier and less painfully than I ever could.
To be honest, the only way that is (semi) fair to give non status, high mile owning pax a chance to book tickets is with the anytime award idea. Again, I would only want to see anytime awards brought in as long they do not then lower available awards (ie saver aawards).
Programs: Amex PLAT, SPG Gold, Hilton Gold, SWA RR, NationalCar.com Executive, Elvis Costello fan
Posts: 520
re: Amex: Just noticed in the SPG forum that SPG Amex points will now not be transferrable to QFF at all. Effective Aug 1 or so, probably around the time QF rolls out the Premium Economy option for SYD-LAX, amongst other routes. Stinks.
