Leumas

Have I mis-read something...?

E.g., currently WLG-AKL-WLG earns 20 SCs and 2000 miles (1000 minimum each journey). The flight is 699 miles each way.

Now, with the new earning scheme, this flight is zone 2, and earns 15 SC. Effectively, you're earning 2000 miles and 30 SCs for this return journey?

AllyB

While I agree with Dave Noble that this is understandable from QF's point of view, for me, this just plain stinks. Basically the ability to upgrade economy class tickets to business for my personal travel is the reason why I fly Qantas and oneworld - even if it means going out of my way / paying more for flights and taking less direct routings. Frankly I don't care about domestic award travel or even domestic upgrades -- it's just the int'l upgrades that matter for me.

Seeing as United/Star Alliance serves my U.S. home port with two flights instead of three on Qantas/AA, for frequently significantly less $$, and with the option of E+ when you attain status...come May I will probably make my next bookings with them. United's economy class stinks, but Qantas' ain't that much better. And for business, the thought of flying SQ to London is very enticing...

ps. Dave I completely agree- how can Upgrade Credits be confusing??

QF ExLurker

A real improvement: Improved SC earning for some mile ranges compared to old version e.g. 601-999, 2401-2699.

A cosmetic improvement: The airline earning table on pages 32-33 of the brochure is clearer than in the old version.

number_6

An interesting strategy as the number 1 loyalty factor in FF programs is the ability to upgrade; people want to use upgrade credits earned flying the higher fares on business to make their personal travel more comfortable. And other plans have been sweetening the upgrades in order to lock in that loyalty (AA changed their plan this year -- to give free upgrades from any fare to their Emeralds on North American flights -- the opposite to QFs strategy). I suppose QF is facing up to the reality that it doesn't have enough premium capacity. Presumably the A380 arrival into service will change that!
Now I know why my WP renewal card came 4 months early -- they wanted them out before this announcement (I have lots of flights booked with QF, but they are all going to be credited to AAdvantage now and not QF, though I suppose existing UCs just got much more valuable, particularly those with long expiration dates, so maybe stocking up on UCs now is a good long term strategy ... trusting that QF will make inventory available to use them prior to expiration).

gisbornegold

My first reaction upon receiving the email from Qantas a few minutes ago was trepidation. Is this the moment when Qantas do what Air NZ has done over the last few years, and so devalue their mileage points that they shaft their high travel customers?

My second reaction after visiting the website: it's worse than that. I have a balance of half a million Qantas points, and for the types of awards I use points for, they've devalued my points balance by a third. That's over 150,000 miles in value they've cost me in one fell swoop. And that's not counting the diminished value of all the miles and ugprade points I might earn in the future.

No confirmed ugprades anymore? And we're supposed to believe the line that it's going to be a service improvement?

I'm livid. I need a new airline.

nonce

So I have worked out that QF will end up with more WP members as a result of the generally increased earning of SC however, the benefits of being WP are rapidly being dimished through the dis-incentive to upgrade. Couple with that an increased number of WP's fighting for what little seats exist I will either have to change my surname to appear earlier in the alphabet or look to another reward program.

With no ability to upgrade red-e fares, DJ, $5 for the blue room and taking the best fare of the day has become far more attractive.

3points

I see a trend happening here in the response's. And I agree..

I don't give a rats about upgrades etc for domestic, the big punch is going to be the International flights ie SYD LHR. I get a feeling this will create some angst for the poor check in staff. With lots of FF members waiting for the upgrade on departure, it will be like staff waiting an wondering if your going to get on at all...

look forward to everyone's comments on this one, might find I'll move over to the competitor for the Int filghts..

3points

serfty

MEL-BNE your gunna get 50% more SC's in whatever class. (Like WLG-ACK)

The more I look at this the more it seems the changes to Point earning, Award Flights costs, SC earning etc. seem to overall be neutral (while favoring OZ Domestic WHY class over premium international).

I feel they are more of a smoke screen to mask what they are really doing.

The big change is with Upgrades! 5,000 pts per 450 SC's instead of an UC, what's that worth? $75?

Currently (going N to U), 1 upgrade credit (or 8000pts) used MEL-BNE is worth up to about $700. 2 UC's (or 14000 pts) MEL-AKL is about $1000.

With the changes, you will not be able to upgrade from N at all! And, with the eligible ecomony classes it will cost 12,000 and 16,000 respectively.

[Spelling: ecomony, a freudian slip i think ]

Kiwi Flyer

On first glance it is a big devaluation for many, especially NZ based which wont benefit from increased status earning/reduced award cost at the low mileage end.

Quite a contrast to NZ's recent changes which improved things for most.

GibSpmuh

I'd agree with many here that there's not that much in the way of sunshine for the majority of flyers, certainly appears to be a backward step in most instances. The only big saving grace I can see is the removal of the 10,000 point stopover fees, so makes it worthwhile to do a coastal hopper trip up the Queensland coast for instance, or zooming around NZ. But apart from that, I'll agree with the others that it's not a particuarly positive outcome all round - time to get some redemptions in before May next year!

(actually, on further reflection I'm wrong on that too, given each individual flight is calculated for mileage now - so in most instances you're worse off than before, even with the 10,000 points removed).

Globaliser

It's no great surprise to see the international upgrades more severely restricted than before. They do now have fewer premium seats to use for this, and there's no getting away from it. By all accounts, they badly miscalculated the points ladder for upgrade awards when they were first introduced - and it was not that long ago that they were - and between that and the Skybed, this was just a natural step for them to take.

Otherwise, things that I like, or that are not bad:-

• At least 100% point earning on all QF codes retained.
• SC earning remains on all discount economy fares - killing or restricting that more would have been my worst nightmare, but would have been entirely logical.
• LHR-SIN-SYD on QF10/6 and similar routings will now be 70 SCs not 65, while LHR-SYD on QF2 stays at 60.
• An UG on QF10/6 has now come down to the same price as an UG on QF2 for the whole trip, so you don't have to juggle.
• SYD-CBR-SYD is now back to only 8,000 points for an economy award flight - it was ridiculous when it had gone up to 20,000 - although to be fair it has become much easier to get el cheapo tickets now than it was when that trip increased in price.
• If upgrades are to be restricted from any discount economy fares, it's better that only NOQ should be disqualified, not everything below Y.

So for me and the way I use QF FF, a first glance suggests that although not all is good, not all is bad either.

Kiwi Flyer

Speaking of which, to help forgetful folk such as myself can someone please be kind enough to post a reminder say 1 April?

StevePER

This is complete rubbish for Perth people - the only destinations to decrease in cost that I can find are AYQ, KGI, and BME - definitely not the most frequently redeemed. Everywhere else goes up in cost - ADL, SYD, BNE, MEL all up from 30k to 36k for a return flight. SIN up from 30k to 50k. HKG from 50 to 60. NRT and JNB from 50 to 72. LHR and FRA from 110 to 112. Disasterous.

I would have thought that QF should be encouraging earning through flying rather than third party programs, but these changes seem to be doing the opposite. Replacing an upgrade credit with 5,000 points is laughable. I'm going to look into opening an AA account for all my QF flights, something that I wouldn't have considered before.

Thumbs up for transfers between family members, thumbs down for everything else. Are there any winners out of this?

Steve

QF ExLurker

The new table is for one way awards, so SYD-CBR-SYD is 16,000 in economy.

number_6

The old QF plan earned miles at roughly half the value of AAdvantage ... you would get double the award travel if you put the QF flights into Aadvantage rather than the QF plan (provided you were AA platinum which required 50K miles per year). Now it becomes 2.5x plus whatever the loss of upgrade credits is worth (not that much since qualifying for WP only earns 3 UCs or half an upgrade -- contrast with the 8 free system-wide upgrades that AAdvantage gives).

The net is that QF now becomes one of the worst programs in Oneworld. I'll have to work out the details as it looks like there are some niche benefits, some of which might even be lucrative, but overall the plan has been tremendously devalued (by at least 20% and probably more like 50%). QF obviously feels it has a captive market with enough of a monopoly that it doesn't need the FF program to be competitive for tying people to flying QF.