NM

I guess its time to digest all the changes and think about how this WP is going to be affected by it. Its a good thing I bought the Glenmorangie Sherry Wood Finish on the way out of Australia. It will definately help me digest the "enhancements".

I have not found too much to be "enhanced" about so far . In fact, the rest of this current trip is more than enough to complete the AA Plat Challenge (DFW-PHL-ORD-NRT-BNE).

ozzie

I am absolutely livid.

LHR - YVR in F goes from 125,000 points to 180,000. How is this possible ? I usually redeem at least two flights a year on this route to go skiing ....

My most commong LHR - JFK in F has gone from 125,000 to 150,000.

Addtional tier points have been moved from 1000 miles to 1200 miles which means reduced tier credits for just about every European route that I fly.

But NOT A SINGLE opportunity to earn more points. I'd agree with some of the changes if they were equitable in providing 2x points for business class travel and 3x points for first, but it is still 1.25x for business and 1.5x for first - how is this possible ? I'm flying on a £12,000 first ticket LHR to SYD and only earn 1.5x the miles of someone on an economy ticket, yet need to spend tripple the miles for the first redemption ticket ? Sorry, but hello Star. Singapore Airlines / Lufthansa here I come.

Flying Prof

After lurking on this very useful and interesting for some time this has finally provoked me into posting so pardon the length of this. I'll be more brief in future.

The ability to to confirm upgrades has been the major attraction of oneWorld versus *Alliance (correct me if I'm wrong here as I'm only really familiar with Air NZ policy). Air NZ does, however, give confirmed upgrades to its Gold Elite members but it seems QF is not even going to give WPs this privilege. For me, whether or not upgrades cost more is irrelevant if I can't get one confirmed. I only ever use my points for personal long haul upgrades and I'm not interested in free economy seats. I note that they've also substantially devalued redemption flights in J and F. In F, SYD-LHR-SYD is currently 275K but following the "enhancement" will be 384K (210K on CX).

I still do enough mileage with CX to keep my Gold status and since I'm now up to my 1200 SC's to keep my QF WP, with 6 months to spare, I'll be putting all my future miles on CX and going for Diamond membership. CX Marco Polo/AsiaMiles is not an overly generous scheme but it's usually easier to get redemption flights and redemptions cost less (see above) than on QF although miles are harder to earn. At least I'll keep my confirmed upgrades (including the ability to upgrade on BA) which cost MUCH less. My regular travel is trans-Tasman and to Asia and Europe via HKG, so QF can say goodbye to my fairly regular SYD-HKG J class bookings. It's just not worth it any more and CX has better service anyway, especially in F. It also flies direct AKL-HKG. The additional status miles from my WP are no attraction if I can't use them. So, come June 2006 when my WP will expire, bye bye QFFFP and I don't imagine I'll be the only one doing this. With my travel patterns it is all downside so there isn't really any reason to stay with QF.

Just one more point. I've just called QF and confirmed that the new policy applies to BOOKINGS made after 25 May so there's still some room for manoeuvre.

drewbles

Out of interest, has anyone actually sent a complaint to Qantas about this? I just sent them a letter expressing my disappointment in the changes and asking them to closely examine what they have done, and what business they will lose out of this.

How many people will change or seriously consider changing factions to *A?

Drew

Zermatt

[QUOTE=Flying Prof]
The ability to to confirm upgrades has been the major attraction of oneWorld versus *Alliance (correct me if I'm wrong here as I'm only really familiar with Air NZ policy). Air NZ does, however, give confirmed upgrades to its Gold Elite members but it seems QF is not even going to give WPs this privilege.

SQ will confirm the upgrade or full reward at the time of booking and allow you to waitlist if there is no availability. Also, they don't require you to ticket the upgrade or reward until shortly, usually 10 days or so, before the flight. And at the time of ticketing, they give you the choice of using all points or buying a cheapie and upgrading it with points, whatever suits you best.

NM

About the only positive I have found so far is that under the new SC earning, my current DCIR22 would earn me 830 SC's instead of the current 600 SC's. Noting that AA domestic flights on D fares get put into A and hence earn F points and SC's. And under the new scheme, F earns more SC's than D even for short flights.

And no longer need to get onto SFO-BOS flights to get the 150 SC bonus. There are now lots of options for 150 SC's on the US Trans-Continental services. And can even get 100 SC's for QF107 LAX-JFK in D (previously only 60). So DCIR22 and DONE4 are now very attractive.

So two DCIR22's will easily make WP, and three more gets me to Lifetime Gold.

But still no recognition that B and H international fares are significant earners for QF and still dumped into discount economy SC earning. Looks like I will be continuing to pay the difference from my company's B/H fares to DCIR22 or DONE4 fares.

AllyB

No, I haven't sent a complaint letter but Yes, I am seriously considering changing to *A.

Why?
1) Due to some internal work issues, my ability to choose travel provider has improved. (Before I was wedded to QF/AA/BA/CX.) So now I can choose to book UA on SYD-JFK - my most frequent route (usually 4-5x year, in J, for work) I am also able to fly SQ to London - the only city I travel to that will present a problem is HKG, but I don't think I'd really mind routing through SIN - esp. if it's on SQ!!!

2) I was really religious about doing all my personal travel (usually one or two trips to the USA for my husband and myself each year, booked in discount WHY and upgraded using the UCs/miles I earn in my work travel) on QF/AA. As noted in my earlier post, it used to take three flights to get to my home destination (PIT - a Star Alliance hub thru USAir) on QF - SYD - LAX - ORD - PIT rather than just SYD - SFO - PIT. But we did this because of our ability to get confirmed upgrades and know that we would be able to relax and travel in comfort (I have arthritis and sitting still in those slimline seats for 14 hours is a challenge!)

3) Even before these changes were announced I was thinking of switching to *A - I had found service levels deteriorating on QF lately, broken equipment (on my 2 most recent paid J trips to the USA, I had broken seats ), and flight attendants who just didn't seem to care. Plus, the possibility of E+ seats was very tantalizing - they provide just that extra amount of space that I crave. The only thing that really kept me flying QF was the ability to get confirmed upgrades.

So now, yep, probably *A for me - less expensive, better seats, and more direct routings.

I have about 500k FF points at the moment, am waitlisted for UG on the Christmas trip home in December - and will probably use the remainder to book J class tickets to Mumbai for my husband and myself for a holiday next year. Then, probably on to *A.

Sorry for the length of this post - just wanted to detail my rationale.

flyinghighboy

well MEL-LAX award flights went from 90,000 to 80,000 points, good for me as I want to take this flight in the future.

d00t

okay, now I am really confused...

3544quebec

Um....isn't it 48000 one-way, 96000 return in economy?

mad_atta

Yes, you have missed something. WLG-AKL is only 298 miles each way, so your points and SC earning on that route is unchanged.

Go to the BA board and see how they define "enhancements" over there, and I think you'll find that by that rationale QF has made many, many enhancements!

As others have said, these changes (with the exception of one way awards and mileage transfers) all suck, but let's not forget that with very few exceptions frequent flyer programmes are all getting less generous. I fear that the golden age for award travel is well behind us, so switching to another programme may only buy a small amount of time - by the time you've earned status with them, they'll be making similar changes themselves. Having said that, most North American carriers are too afraid to change much about their FFPs, since the average consumer there is more FF-savvy and their programmes are more easily comparable with each other.

Of the *A programmes, personally I think that UA and AC offer the best options, at least for a discount economy flyer like myself. I'm sure that UA would cheerfully comp QF SGs and WPs to at least Premier Exec (i.e. Star Alliance gold). Meanwhile, the AirNZ programme is not bad if you fly a lot in premium classes, and the new concept of 'buy any seat on any NZ flight using points' is a good one, but the long haul/premium awards are a bit expensive.

jw & sa

Does this mean
Can/syd return 296 mls total 8000 points
Meb/can return 586 mls total 8000 points
ie: 2 trips per itinerary

John

kpc

It's interesting to see QFs spin on these changes...the only domestic routes that result in decrease points are the Syd-Mel, Mel-Adl,Syd-Bne etc i.e. flights in the new Zone 1.

I use most of my QF points (to save me paying for the airfares, obviously) to fly my parents repeatedly between Adl and Syd and this has gone up from 20000 to 24000 points so this means a 20% point devaluation for me On the plus side, the introduction of a one way award fares means that I can combine award and paid (even with cheap Virgin flights although these fares sseem to have disappeared recently) travel.

Basically, as I see it, if you want to travel the premium First and Business classes, QF is saying "Pay for it"!!; don't expect to get it via FF points!

StevePER

Does it say anywhere that UCs will still be valid after May 05? I'm a bit concerned that they might convert each unused UC to a 5,000 points loyalty bonus at this time.

Steve

NM

This is only really a benefit for domestic awards. For international flights, one-way fares are generally considerably more expensive than half a return fare. Often you have to get to a B fare before they will consider one-way international fare. This may be difference for trans-Tasman, but try and find a reasonable one-way fare trans-Pacific or SYD-LHR.