American flyer new to Qantas
Nov 27, 2015, 4:53 pm
#16
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Join Date: Apr 2001
Location: MEL CHC
Posts: 21,016
Nov 27, 2015, 5:33 pm
#17
A FlyerTalk Posting Legend
Join Date: Jan 2002
Posts: 44,581
Nobody is arguing about the relative cost of awards between QF and others. And yes, Oz-Europe awards are relatively easy due to the number of carriers operating and their respective alliances. But try that on the monopoly or near monopoly routes - such as SYD-SCL. Even Y awards are sometimes difficult let alone premium cabins. The (sometimes) extra availability for WP and beyond makes award travel possible with QF points whereas AA points are useless.
It is , imo, a small benefit for most people. In most cases there is not great benefits in redeeming Qantas points, but lots of drawbacks in price and cash co payments
Even with travel to USA (one of the routes with difficult availability), going via Asia to , say, Chicago currently still only costs 95k ( 110k after March) in business class vs 132k SYD-LAX-ORD in business ( first US domestic ) ; availability on Cathay et al is not that bad
If I was looking for the best award availability options, I don't think I would be choosing One World but more likely to look at Star Alliance
I think that giving 3 examples with 2 favoured towards Qantas is quite misrepresentative of the reality for most routes
Nov 27, 2015, 8:25 pm
#18
Join Date: Feb 2009
Location: Cairns, Australia
Posts: 924
IMHO the benefit of having QF points are:
1) Access to Emirates inventory which can be generous in premium close to day of flight (if you can afford the woeful fuel surcharges)
2) Short sector redemptions wherein AA is more expensive
Otherwise, Dave Noble, offers the logical conclusion: points value much better with AA...that said, if status matters and you ain't gonna hit the mark with AA do a status run or two on your QF account when in the USA to get your OneWorld Emerald for the year then revert to AA to push up those points...but if you're travelling premium anyway the status don't matter much...
Last edited by Platy; Nov 27, 2015 at 8:30 pm
Nov 28, 2015, 2:52 am
#19
Original Member
Join Date: May 1998
Location: Portland OR Double Emerald (QF and AA), DL PM/MM, Starwood Plat
Posts: 19,589
Classic ymmv. Everyone is right in that neither plan is perfect and each has some advantage with variable or difficult to assess value. After all AA invented FF plans (to recover after a strike destroyed the airline) and all FF plans are run for the benefit of the airline and not for our benefit. The rather large arbitrage opportunities of past years have slowly disappeared in all plans as they become bigger profit centers for the airlines. I keep status in multiple plans because it seems worthwhile and occasionally there is a tangible and large benefit (mostly from irrops).