Moving from QFFF to BAEC
 

Hi everyone. I recently moved to London from Sydney. I am a QF Platinum and cannot decide if it would be easier to maintain my QF status or move to obtain BA Gold as I'll be living in London for 2 years (maybe more). I'll be flying mostly around Europe and to America with maybe 1 trip a year back to Australia and maybe Asia. Is there an advantage to being BA Gold as I'll mostly be flying BA and AA from London? Many thanks for your advice - it is most appreciated.

QF Platinum is equivalent to BA Gold status level wise

You would not have to worry about 4 QF flights to maintain status - you might also want to consider whether crediting to AA might be better than BA - if you decided to do a redemption for UK-Australia, the award costs are dramatically different

With BA, the one way redemption cost for travel on, say, Qantas would be
Business Class : 125,000/150,000 miles plus £232.00 surcharge plus taxes
1st class 170,000/200,000 miles plus £232.00 surcharge plus taxes

With AA miles
Business C;laas : 87,500 miles plus taxes
1st class : 115,000 miles plus taxes

I wouldn't - the QF redemption rates are so lousy that I would definitely look at switching to AA given the travel to USA and the poor redemption value of many Qantas awards

+1 If you enjoy QFF's colossal surcharges on awards, hundreds or thousands of dollars extra, then you'll really love BAEC's special F surcharge. And for most routes you pay about half as many miles on AA as QFF charges. Best of all AA allows you to reserve an award for 3-4 days before committing yourself.

AA's scheme is hardly complicated - it seems to be designed such that the average person should be able to understand it

How close are you to QFF's "for life" status? Much easier to get with QFF than with BAEC...

E2A: Apologies, realised this has already been commented.

I agree with the above questions re: lifetime status.

I switched to QR from QF when I moved to the Middle East but have returned to QF as I am close to LTG but lost three years of credits which would have probably already gotten me there by now.

The issue is getting your four squiggles per year, although not required for lifetime status.

If you are QF Plat you obviously have some lifetime balance of note already.

A few things to consider:

- QF sectors, i.e. will you be able to fly 4 sectors?
- Flying patterns within Europe: BA does not have "15/60 SC" band for medium length short haul economy/business class, if you know what I mean (only 40/80 TPs) which might make a difference to your qualification/requalification
- QF upgrades - as you probably know, you can't use BA Avios to upgrade QF sectors (including ODU)
- As mentioned already, QF lifetime status question, including LTS and LTG
- Australian credit cards earning QF points (you don't want to spread the points/miles etc. too thin everywhere)
- Most JQ sectors can only be credited to QF and you cannot use the lounge when flying on QF on the basis of a non-QF OW status
- Redeeming on EK is not an option with BAEC
- Status bonus not mutually available between BA and QF (unless on codeshare)
- There is no equivalent of Any Seat Award with BAEC (at least not yet)
- Money off with Avios option on BA flights is available with BAEC Avios but not with QF points
- Last but rather importantly, BAEC won't be available to you once you move back to Australia

Do think about your options, your current lifetime status credits, and flying patterns carefully before shifting programmes.

I'm an "ex-QF Platinum"- I did not move over to BAEC despite living in Europe until I had the Lifetime Gold with QF.

Given you are already Qantas Gold (Sapphire), I'm not sure if there's much point to change over to BA. Have you calculated whether on your expected travel you will be able to maintain QF Platinum? And is status more important, or redemption?

Since you have lifetime gold status, you can get into the lounge by showing the QF membership card for domestic travel

They need some searching, but had lots of success with QR and MH in getting awards with some flexibility - useful if you want a holiday back to Oz

The redemption rates are so much better on AA that I would seriously look at the travel profile and see if you come out ahead - if at a travel level that can get lifetime gold status in QF, good chance of decent earnings on AA

Another thing to consider is your day to day mileage earning potential. London is almost entirely a cash free city and equipped with the right credit card you can earn miles/Avios by breathing.

Theoretically less expensive but with AA cutting its business class capacity and with its judicious application of dynamic pricing, these theoretical advantage fizzle out in practice. How much does an AAdvantage redemption cost now for intra European flights?

Besides, with no affiliate credit card in the UK market, AA is a weak programme here.

for flights to places like Asia and Australia, AA award availability is hardly relevant - award availability is no sifferent on OW airlines than for BA

intra EU flights are not so cheap, but for travel back to Australia, BA rates completely suck compare to AA

Credit card earning may not be that important unless he can get credit cards as a new resident to UK

Sure, it’s good to know about this but these appear to be tertiary requirements for the OP

Welcome to Flyertalk and welcome to the BA forum dwglee, it's good to see you here, and I hope we will see more of you.

As with all these sorts of questions (and there are a number of thread on this in the oneworld forum) a lot hinges on what benefits you are seeking. If it is lounge benefits in the USA then BA and other airlines are worth consideration, indeed many USA residents have BA cards for that reason. However AA Clubs - not Flagships - do have various paid for entrance options. For getting trips back home then follow this forum to learn all the tips you need to do this, however on every flight to SYD on BA metal there are always at least 6 redemption seats made available, 4 in WT, 2 in CW.

The one benefit that may have been overlooked is that if you only have a few years with us in the UK then you perhaps will want to grasp the opportunity of visiting the vast array of European cities within 90 minutes of London. And BA's Reward Flight Saver deals with Avios are among the highlights of the programme. Just keep good records just in case you have to fill in an Indefinite Leave to Remain form in a few years time!

The OP has LT Gold (Sapphire) status with Qantas , so no issue with lounge access

Something that's good to know: I found that Avios flight bookings within Australia on Qantas had great availability and the same low fees we have for shorthaul in Europe.

This let me bounce between MEL/SYD/BNE on my last trip back without any hassles using my BA FF points.

It really depends on your precise flying pattern, but bear in mind you can renew QF Platinum with 1,200 SC, and QF somewhat frequently run double SC promo etc., whereas qualifying/maintaining BA Gold requires, 1,500 TP. If you are 'only just' qualifying for QF Platinum, you might fall short of obtaining 1,500 TP with BA, particularly if you tend to fly on lower fare economy class, as some fare buckets only earn 5 TP with BA.

On many routes SC/TP may be the same for the same fare class but there are some differences (e.g. aforementioned 15/60 SC routes, MEL-BNE for instance comes to mind) but there are some major differences, e.g. you earn at least 10 SC for QF E class with QFFF but it earns no Avios or TP with BA.

I'm in a similar boat these days, I only do about 1/3 of my flying on QF but have decided to maintain my FF membership for a couple of reasons that might be of interest to you:

1. Qantas rewards flights aren't a great use of Qantas points but the long haul classic upgrade rates are pretty reasonable. For example, to upgrade from flexible economy to business on the SYD > DFW route costs 55000 points. If you fly into/out of Australia a couple of times a year on your own dime it's a good way to get premium fares at economy prices. Although upgrades aren't guaranteed I've never been denied a points upgrade as a platinum FF.

2. 1200 status credits is easy to maintain if you do any amount of long haul flying in business and 4 QF sectors can be covered by 1 return trip home from London per year (either via Perth or Singapore).

3. The Qantas Q tags look cooler than the BA Gold cards.

4. BA now sponsors English rugby whereas Qantas sponsors the Wallabies. I rest my case.