QF vs other one world program
 

I just took a quick look at the QF program and found its burning rate is far more worse than Asia miles,let alone AA program. Anybody have detailed comparison? If that is the case, who is willing to bank their mileage into QF?

Most of my flights are on QF on cheap fares - they wouldn't earn AsiaMiles, so it's QF or nothing (even though I do a bit of flying on CX).

I think that QFFF can be better than some other OW schemes for earning status. So if you're going to earn more miles than you can use, and status is important, that might be a good reason to stick with QFFF.

In addition, some people may find the QF-specific status benefits useful.

And some people may have a good flow of non-flying miles to put into a QFFF account as well, when they couldn't be put into any other OW scheme. Being able to aggregate miles from more than one source may be useful for some people.

So as always, it depends on exactly how you use the FF scheme, and what your aims are. There's no one single answer.

QF is a lot easier to obtain status if you fly in the premium cabins. An extreme example would be flying in J TPE-xHKG-SIN return 6 times in a year, plus 4 QF/JQ/3K mr-squiggle-earning flights, and you would make platinum (OW Emerald). The same level of flying with CX AsiaMiles would just barely get you to silver (OW Ruby).

In terms of points, it's quite a bit more complicated. While the burn rate appears to be very poor, sometimes, the earn rate makes up for it. Another extreme example - SIN-xMEL-SYD on QF in class O/N/Q (deep discount Y fares), as a QF SG, earns me 15,122 points. With AsiaMiles, it's zero. Even if I fly in class V -> B, it's still only 4,188 points.

So, in some situations, it is possible that, despite the perceived poor burn rates on QFF, as a net, you may be better off.

As pointed out above, it depends on where your flying.

Long haul Y>J upgrades are pretty expensive IMO. (QF offered me a upgrade on a Red Edeal last year - 96k points to upgrade - l thought was a lot of points to use up for a one way, LHR-BKK-SYD trip)

QFF is among the world's worst programs for awards and upgrades. No-one in their right mind would join Qantas Frequent Flyer unless they were forced to, as part of QF's captive market in Australia.

Just as a reminder to those unfamiliar with the QFF program
- premium class redemptions cost about double, in QF points, compared with AA miles for the exact same seat.
- international upgrades on Qantas are standby-only, a lottery on the day, but that doesn't stop QF charging like a wounded bull for the upgrade - often an AA award for that same seat would be fewer AA miles than the points for the QF upgrade.

What's more, in the past, Qantas upgrades were not allowed on normal fares. Typically you would have to pay double the normal fare to get into a class that was eligible for the upgrade lottery - like gambling on a UA "W" fare to try an SWU.

But recently as a "temporary" measure, upgrades are now available on all paid fares. And in another change, high-status pax on intenrational tickets have their upgrade-lottery drawn a few hours earlier. And for purely domestic itineraries upgrades can be confirmed in advance, there just needs to be award availability for business-class. The cost of the upgrade is still punitive of course, for example 16,000 QF points to upgrade SYD-PER to J, compared with just booking a J award seat with 17,500 AA miles.

But over here we are constrained into the QF program by some nasty collusive practices which would be illegal in many places (Australians are forbidden to join BA "EC", for example, and you won't find any creditcards offering AA miles over here, while QF ensures its normal Y fares earn nothing on AA).

So the confirmed domestic upgrades are perhaps the best value for those miserable QF points - buying a normal SYD-PER fare for $200 and upgrading immediately to J for 16,000 points.

As regards status and the "good" earnings for paid premium classes, this needs to be balanced against the laughable cost of premium seats on QF. Particularly in the protected domestic market where - thanks to "competition" from DJ - the price of a J seat has fallen from about 7 (seven) times the normal Y fare to about six times. International J fares are also out of whack, as many threads attest.

Who pays these fares - why, you and I of course, not for ourselves but as taxpayers for the public service officials in the J seats, and out of our superannuation for the cosseted mining and bank executives.

The QFF program serves quite usefully as a SECOND FF program - given my location in Australia. It collects the odd CX flight I can't afford to upfare to H class and of course the E, Q and N class domestic QF fares. My membership in the grocery card program crediting to QF ensures that my account is kept up to date (with respect to expiry)

And there are award tickets that the QFF program does provide more economically than AA. HKG-TPE (even with the call-in penalty) comes to mind.

Getting 600(700) SC to maintain lounge access is easy with business tickets from TPE or CMB and four 3K flights from SIN solves the 4 QF flight issue. And since BA provides better earn than QF for my AA program, I will be flying on BA tickets SIN-PER-SIN. But most haul flights in Y or W will still continue to be credited to AA, though I suspect seeing EXP status again after February may be a dream.

Happy wandering

Fred

I fully agree that Qantas has to be one of the worst value frequent flyer programmes around and that the redemption costs in premium cabins are dire compared to AA but for 1st class redemptions often worse than twice the cost; e.g. Australia - east cost USA, would cost 145k AA points vs 384k Qantas points ( 2.6 times the cost in points ) PLUS the qantas co-payment scam disguised as a fuel surcharge of $530 to pay too

going to Europe using CX 1st becomes a difference of 160k vs 405k ( over 2.5 times ) plus $610 of delicious cash payment to pay


There are not many places where an organisation in one country cannot choose to not deal with countries that they do not want to

As far as getting AA miles, it is possible to get Diners Club and American Express points across to AA via SPG giving a rate of up to 0.41 AA points per Amex point or 0.625 AA points per Diners Club point

Given the relative value of AA awards to Qantas awards, the use of points to top up an account works out pretty evenly vs the 1 for 1 transfer available for Amex-Qantas


Well, for international travel, while people are prepared to pay out the fares that Qantas wants to charge, they will continue to do so; for domestic travel, it is good to see competition in the premium cabin

Another extreme example assuming QF SG and AA base (which would be the case unless you credit enough to AA to achieve status).

QF SG: SIN-xMEL-SYD = 15,122 points
AA (on BA-code): SIN-xMEL-SYD = 8,376 points

Although, given that each AA point is worth just about 2x QF points (as demonstrated by above posts), and AA doesn't charge crazy surcharges... it looks like even extreme examples can't save QF this time... (unless you only fly SYD-CBR and back) but that's too unrealistic.

That is a poor example imo since it is comparing one with status against one without
Comparing like for like
Base AA vs Base QF would earn (one way) 4908 Qantas miles vs 4347 AA miles
Gold AA vs Silver QF would be 6862 QF vs 5510 AA miles
Platinum or higher AA vs Gold QF would be 7839 QF vs 8816 AA
Platinum or higher AA vs Platinum QF would be 8816 QF vs 8816 AA

Redemption rates though for premium travel on Qantasl are
Qantas 60k Business plus $175, 90k plus $175 1st
AA 35k business , 45k 1st


Even when comparing base AA vs Gold Qantas then the difference in redemption rate almost offsets it and the $175 cash supplement would make up the difference

Does anyone know if the international upgrades on all fares is still available?

I just booked SYD-JNB return in October on a "sale" fare and the web-site won't let me request an upgrade.

(Don't get me started on the cost of the fare...)

Thanks

AFAIK it was a promtion for a limited time, but could just be a "feature" of the website..give the service centre a call and they can request it, if elligble

Back to the OP from a domestic earning view point, QFF will give you points/sc's on deep discounted red-e deals etc, where as AA for example wouldn't.
Like anything FF related YMMV. ;)

The cheapest red-e-deals SYD-MEL are in O class which are eligable; the next 2 Q&N are ineligable; S is also eligable

All fares higher than that are eligable

Bingo!

(However, l just did a ODU in PER, for a PER-SYD sector for 10k points. Fare was a Flexi-Saver, cost was $460 booked a few days ago).

That's true, although it is more in reply to the above mentioned strategy rather than comparing apples with apples. However, even in such comparison, we can see that AA is slightly ahead. (And if it wasn't the case, I wouldn't have posted it).

And, as shown clearly by yourself, when comparing between the same status, the difference is miles apart, in favour of AA.