Originally Posted by
Dave Noble
I pretty much dropped Qantas for international travel and for domestic use them sometimes but find I tend to prefer VA domestically
To me the most important elements are schedule and quality with points being a nice to receive for the travel. I have found that for premium classes particularly, Qantas is higher priced and provides a lesser product
Not only that , the FF scheme provides dismal value on awards imo .
I've criticized QF often in the past -- and continue to do so -- but in all fairness I find QF
far superior to Virgin. Much more reliable schedule, better service and when there is a problem, service recovery. While Virgin has become much closer to QF under its mostly ex-QF management, it still has a long way to go to catch up. Just illustrates that everyone has a different experience and conclusion -- all equally valid.
Advantages for QFF: better award and seat selection availability at times, faster status earning if flying premium fares, informal benefits for WP and higher that come and go but can be very valuable. Irrop benefits if flying QF.
Disadvantages for QFF: Approx half the earn/burn value compared to Aadvantage (though this varies a lot -- rather ironically AA is much more lucrative in Australia for awards than it is in the US, making it particularly valuable for Oz-based participation).