Originally Posted by
QF Lad
No, not really. If you have Qantas club access you will be able to access the Qantas club prior to the jetstar flight.
I find Jetstar can be quite comfortable domestically because:
(1) there are a number of direct flights, eg. ADL-CNS, MEL-TSV which are direct on Jetstar, but would require changes and take much longer on Qantas;
(2) you are able to prebook "preferred" seating in row 1 or exit row seating for a small extra charge;
(3) there is often more choice of menu items than on regular QF domestic services. Unless you are travelling right on a mealtime you are often only presented with an apple and a cookie on regular QF services. It is often difficult to work out when you will get a hot meal on regular QF services in economy; and
(4) the domestic IFE on QF has not been too good recently...you are probably better going with the paid Jetstar options.
So Jetstar actually has some advantages over economy QF travel, so in most cases it is not worth the premium, except on longer MEL/SYD-PER or MEL/SYD-CNS servcies where QF will be better.
Once upon a time, MEL-TSV was available on QF - not sure if these were actually replaced by JQ or whether there was a break.
After numerous times when flying back from NTL to MEL on JQ on a Friday night, when there was NO catering availablle (because all the food had been sold on the MEL-NTL outbound and JQ did not cater ex NTL), I simply gave up ... not that the plain white bread sandwich appealed too greatly in the first place. At least with QF you know what will be offered (because you've already paid for it in the ticket price). In the end, JQ's unreliability meant that I would always BYO.
Where QF (and DJ to a certain extent) score over JQ is with irregular ops and flexibility. I lost track of the times that I knew that a JQ flight would be delayed (sometimes very significantly) because the inbound was delayed. Still had to check-in 30mins prior to scheduled departure otherwise lose the ticket. That meant lost work time.
Cancelled flights - tough. This may have changed - this was back in the days when online check-in did not have bag-drop capabilities ... if you were checking luggage you had no choice you had to be at the airport. At least on cancelled flights with DJ, they always strove to get you there somehow. JQ lost me, early days, and won't be getting me back unless there is NO alternative. The last time I flew JQ - last Nov - they were obviously lying as to the issue ... rolling delays because a plane was u/s at the departing airport and they were shifting flights onto the next arriving aircraft. They were blaming the "late arriving inbound flights". In the end they ran out of aircraft because of the one sitting on the tarmac surrounded by engineers and just cancelled the last flight of the day to SYD. Tough!!
Now, I'll even drive an extra 45mins (eg BNE vs OOL) than fly JQ!
BD