Thanks for the pick-up blackcloud, thadocta and nonce :) now where is Red Roo and QF ???Really this has been dragging on for so long I think they are just hoping it all blows over, senate enquiries aside.
What's happening in the "commercial in confidence " negotiations ?

Welcome to FT, beresfordbear007!Actually, we still don't know (and we may never know) whether the change in policy is because QF has decided not to pay or because BA has decided not to allow access.

Conspiracy theory: if the Poms win the Test match, the T5 issue will be quietly put to bed. If Oz win the cricket, then we won't even be allowed into T5 let alone the lounge. :D

And after the next Soccer match Germany vs. England I will be shot entering T5 - a Kraut holding a FF-Card from the colonies - two evils in one person!

Personally I would not be holding your breath when it comes to getting anything from Red Roo. QF has not mastered social media and if you look at this forum vs other airlines, one can see why QF is becoming more a follower rather than a leader in this area. Comparing the BA forum to QF is like night and day (in respect to social media interaction).

After first hand experience.....I totally agree with you.

I'm QF Plat...nothing BA but have received mulitiply offers of assistance from BA staff members that have helped my family & I immensely^

Without meaning to downplay the significance of the underlying issue, some of the recent flurries of posts on AFF are pretty funny!

That's why I find that site to be a total waste of space.

Dave

Actually, someone has has the time to do some digging - there's been some quite interesting recent posts on this topic:

It's certainly further evidence that QF once thought that Galleries lounges were included in the Qantas Club arrangement, in the same way that everyone seems to have thought that at one time. But IIRC we already knew what QF thought from the material provided to travel agents at the time of the extension of the JSA to include HKG.

The sudden reduction from 250 to 130 lounges seems unlikely to have been due to this issue, because surely there can't be as many as many as 120 Galleries lounges worldwide? It seems likely that some other QF counting problem was at work.

Galleries Vs Terrace/Executive
 

The crux of this matter seems to lie in the understanding of the type of BA lounge. To use the term "Standard BA lounge" would be a misnomer given the caveat described in the Qantas Club polices for the use of BA lounges.

While Qantas has been clear that only Terrace and Executive Club lounges are available for use by Qantas Club members, what they have failed to do is to provide a context to that caveat. The reality is that BA is in the process of upgrading all of its lounges from the 90s looking Terrace to the more plush Galleries lounges. To date only 3 lounges in the UK are Terrace lounges (LHR is not one of them) with a great number of Terrace lounges in the United States and Europe being refurbished to the new Galleries. What this means to Qantas Club members is an increasing number of BA lounges, which are out of bounds to them and the corresponding drop in value of a Qantas Club membership.

Now unless someone from Qantas is prepared to fix this and work a deal with BA to allow Qantas Club member use of ALL Terrace, Executive and Galleries lounges, I fear there may be an exodus of frequent flyers to Star Alliance (Currently United Club is only USD 475 p.a. plus a one off USD 50 admin fee).

The only reason I fly BA is due to the access to BA lounges. If BA lounges are increasingly unavailable to Qantas Club members, coupled with the weakness of Qantas' international network I shall be forced to switch to SQ, which already has more frequent flights out of Australia and better connections to Asia/Europe/USA with LH/BD/UA out of SIN/LHR/FRA. Increasingly with the prospect of Virgin Australia being part of Star Alliance, the thought of abandoning Qantas and OneWorld seems even more enticing.

I doubt this; I suspect that the majority of QC members have membership for use of Qantas lounges and that it is a small minority that purchase it for BA access; those flying BA are hardly a core concern for Qantas I would suspect

If another airline better meets ones needs, then makes sense to change but I doubt very much that this would impact OW much

+1
Totally agree with you on this one Dave Noble.

Hi DaveNoble. I agree with you from the perspective of domestic travel. However if you're flying internationally the United Club option does seem quite attractive. Especially since QF fares ex AU is sold at a considerable premium. Dollars saved flying TH or SQ will more than make up for the cost of United Club at USD 475 a year.

Everyone should make their own assessment on what makes best value ; personally I will stick to Emirates at the moment; ironically one of the things I like about them is that they are not in an alliance and so do not have paid lounge members or economy/business passengers with status using the 1st class lounge

If UA membership is of value to someone, then maybe that will sway them to using Star, but in relation to the comment I replied to, the lack of BA lounge access may be annoying to some, but I cannot see it making any real impact to Qantas or OW

I suppose it comes down to the definition of "real impact". As it is Qantas' international business is lagging. Notwithstanding their new "Asian Strategy", the loss of a perceived value of flying Qantas will further erode their market share of international sectors.

I suppose, to truly understand the impact, one has to assess the extent of LHR as the final port of call of their customers. Or more importantly to understand the role of Qantas Club on the decision of passengers choosing to fly Qantas internationally. Strangely that question has never appeared on all the surverys that Qantas as sent me. I personally think its foolish to discount it.

However it would also be interesting to see the impact of Qantas Club membership fees on revenue. I presume this stream of income feeds into the highly profitable Frequent Flyer (FF) segment of their business. If membership drops due to the patchy BA access, how far will their FF business be affected?

In any case it seems like another nail in the coffin for Qantas international routes; Just when you think they've got it right with the A380 roll out.
I hope someone at Qantas is doing the maths and weighing up what BA is charging for Galleries use against possible drop in revenue. Incidentally, does anyone know what kind of dollar value we're talking about here? How I wish Wikileaks has info on this! LOL

I have trouble seeing why; all it impacts are those choosing to fly BA onwards; there is no impact to those passengers actually flying on Qantas since there is no lounge access issues to T3 for Qantas ( or BA ) departures

Those flying Qantas to London and then continuing onwards will likely choose whatever airline is allowed by fare rules

I doubt that this will have Qantas, BA or oneworld quaking in their boots, because those who are reliant on Qantas Club membership to access BA lounges are (almost by definition) unlikely to be high value/high frequency passengers.

That's a good point which begs the question; Why then bother offering access to BA and AA lounges in the first place? A folly of the past that they can't seem to rectify?

Either this segment of the market is valued and therefore worth keeping or as suggested unlikely to be high value, in which case there is no justification on spending for full access to BA lounges. The logical conclusion would therefore be the elimination of access to BA/AA lounges altogether and retain Qantas Club as a purely domestic product.

This half way house approach is not logical. Especially when access is denied at LRH T5, the main transit point for Qantas' codeshare network in Europe. It seems to go against the intended spirit and design of the Qantas Club product.

Perhaps if BA is concerned that UK based pax are highjacking Qantas Club to get cheap access to BA lounges, there ought to be more focused caveats to restrict entry only to Qantas Club pax connecting from/to a QF flight (+/- X number of days for genuine stop overs in London for pax enroute from/to Europe)?

In relation to BA, the ability to access BA lounges has always seemed to me a bit of a windfall benefit. However, there was a time when BA and QF worked together more closely than they do now; the developing friction and tension over the years has been visible to many long-standing regulars of both airlines, even while the inception and development of OW made gaining status (and therefore lounge access) easier for high value/high frequency customers.

I think the arrangement makes more sense in relation to AA, where there is a true reciprocal relationship. That includes comparable sizes of establishments: 40+ Admirals Clubs and 30+ Qantas Clubs, according to the current AA page.I've no idea what's being discussed between BA and QF, nor all of the policy considerations that each airline considers important (although we have collectively identified many potential issues in this thread). And obviously I have no idea what the outcome will be. But it wouldn't surprise me if the reason it's taking so long is that complex solutions along these lines are being proposed and discussed, but there has to be consultation with many departments inside BA to see whether/how they could be made to work.

Just a reminder (not that anyone here has forgotten) that this issue has been rumbing on since at least October last year. My first hint was in GVA back in August 2011, when I was told that my Qantas Club card was not acceptable.

Time for QF (and BA) to come clean, and bring this to a conclusion.

It will conclude when BA and QF conclude their discussions I expect; whether it ends up being a conclusion which benefits QF members or not will be another matter

If they even are having discussions still... wouldn't be unlike QF to do nothing, stay silent, and hope everyone forgets about it.

It would still be good if Red Roo could post here or on AFF just to say that discussions are still continuing. Red Roo's last AFF post was on 12 December, so it's been over 5 weeks now.

Globaliser

because those who are reliant on Qantas Club membership to access BA lounges are (almost by definition) unlikely to be high value/high frequency passengers.

Someone who can stump up $400 per annum or however much it is these days must have a few spare pennies in his pocket, especially if he's London based with the exchange rate at the moment. Christ, we're not backpackers.

And it's not as though we'll run into the lounge and empty the whisky bottles. I just want some peace and quiet before I go to work/return from work. Or if we are flying for recreation, I would like my wife to be able to relax, rather than participate in a scrum - and T5 is a hellhole.

It is immensely disappointing that Qantas has not gone out to bat for us.

Anyone who's got those "few spare pennies" would either be buying business class tickets or doing the relatively small amount of non-economy class flying that's needed to get to QF Gold/BA Silver/OW Sapphire.

Hence, anyone who's relying on Qantas Club membership to get access to BA lounges, and who by definition does not do/has not done the above, is unlikely to be a high value/high frequency passenger.:confused: If T5 is a "hellhole" for you, I'd strongly advise not travelling to most airports in most of the world.

Even LHR can provide far worse experiences than T5.As I've pointed out before, you and I have no idea whether QF has gone in all guns blazing and has so far been met with a flat "no, under any circumstances" from BA, or whether it has simply not tried at all. So you have no basis for this statement.

I would suggest that you get a priority pass card and take flights departing from Terminals 1,3 or 4 rather than rely on a lounge access card which is targetted at those flying on Qantas or purchase a business or 1st class ticket

Maybe Qantas will get access sorted at the T5 lounge or maybe BA will just confirm to QF that their agreement is for access to Terraces lounges and that they do not want to grant paid lounge membership rights to T5

Alternatively, do enough travel to attain OW Sapphire status and can use BA lounges anyway

I think Heathrow is a hole to travel to/from and try to avoid it whenever possible ( City and Gatwick are far nicer ) but the departures waiting area is pretty reasonable for an airport

No - its a haven of serenity and tranquility. Fly into TAS at midnight and you might just agree with me.

QFF should stop being misleading through omission
 

....clearly QFF's error at best or intentionally vague at worst in order to give the impression of fewer restrictions on QC than is actually the case.

But the BA matrons do a very nice job of going out of their way to be ghastly. I am a union man but the sooner these cretins get retrenched the better. They are truly awful when you are flying F (and QP) and using the Flounge.

So, QFF, don't lull QCs; just talk straight like you Aussies always claim.

Update from RedRoo posted on AFF - essentially policy will be changed to include all BA Galleries lounges from 31 Jan 2012

Heres hoping RedRoo thinks enough of FT to post here as well .... :)

Well if this is true good on Qantas for sorting this out for the benefit of its Qantas Club membership.
A pity that there was a disruption of service but we will never know how hard this was to sort out nor how much it will cost Qantas.

You can't put a price on goodwill :rolleyes:

It seems all is well. However, it took far too long to sort out.

IMO, QF allowing their members to suffer the rejection for so long......is just wrong.

I agree, and I'm glad it does appear to have been sorted out from Jan 31st according to Red Roo.
Would be nice if the QF website was updated and maybe even nicer if the BA website could be updated to include access to their Lounges for QP and OW Sapphire and Emerald :rolleyes:

Do you know what caused the length of time to deal with the issue to determine whether it took significantly longer than it had to?

I am thinking the issue might have been from the BA end as opposed to QF trying to annoy its members as such (BA not wanting to absorb the cost for QC members using the BA lounge).

BA lounge access can often be annoying and difficult. For example (and on a tangent), I have been denied access to the BA lounge in DXB connecting to a RJ flight from a CX flight before. First excuse was that cannot access this lounge as a QC member (despite SGs and WPs travelling). When this was challenged, the lady said "Iran Air is not a member of oneworld". When this was challenged, I was told the lounge did not have capacity (there were 5 people at the time). I just left, too much arguing for entrance into a mediocre lounge :p

Sadly I very much doubt it. Considering he has even failed to acknowledge a PM(s), I would not be putting any money on it.

For such a large company, I am really surprised how poorly QF manages its social media.

The BA lounge in DXB can hardly handle BA's own premium pax. Every time I've been there, they had a pax list of the next BA flights premium pax and were checking them off as they arrived while turning away people seeking status based access.

I don't know what the issue was......could have been a number of things!

Whatever, the reason it doesn't pardon QF's responsibility to inform.

IMO, the time taken was a joke - particularly when it resulted in QF customers being rejected at the door.

Understand that rules can change....but, I also understand that allowing clients to rock up & be dismissed is PP.

Nothing to be gain by hiding.