serfty

Nup!

CBR-SYD-CBR is two one way trips < 600 miles at 8,000 pts each totalling 16,000. MEL-CBR-MEL will cost16,000 as well.

The following extract from the QANTAS web site gives it away (if you look hard enough)

Quote:

For example:

*Currently under the 5-zone table a return Award flight between Melbourne or Brisbane and Sydney would be 20,000 points (plus taxes and charges).
*From 25 May 2005, under the new 10-zone table, the same Award flight will be 16,000 points (plus taxes and charges).

If you look at the 10-zone table, there is no entry with 16,000 points. This figure is actually obtained by adding two 8,000 pt zone1's together.


They will retain thier original "date to" validity and will not expire until then. You just can't get any more.

Any one for AAdvantage???

Kremmen

I switched over when QF went to tier credits.

Let's face, it, business class on UA MEL-anywhere in NorAm for 90k UA pts vs. ghod-knows-what pts on QF for it? Every time QF makes a programme change, I'm just happier that I switched.

MJA

Good on ya Qantas.....you've taken our worst fears and exceeded them!

The '24 hour' thing is very confusing. In the small print of the T's & C's on the website section 15.2.3 says that WP's can waitlist up to 72 hours before departure, all others up to 14 days. Am not sure where the 24 hour thing comes in as another section says that upgrades can be requested up to 24 hours before departure.....

Interesting that Chairman's Lounge members get no mention........does that mean they won't trump WP's come check in time?? Me thinks not....

Let's see how it goes..but with HK and LHR being my two most frequent destinations, the new Virgin service is looking good. And with Life Gold under my belt, Jetstar is looking more attractive for domestic.

martynriddle

This wouldnt be the same holier than thou minister that wouldnt have ever dreamed of offering, ahem, inducements to renegade MPs to clear them out of his way.

Or the same minister that in the 6 weeks prior to the recent election personally signed off on investment projects from the regional development fund. It just so happened that 100% of these projects (that accounted for approx 40% of the funds capitalisation to date) were for electorates that were either National Party marginals or electorates where the Nationals had lost a seat in previous elections?

Of course, stories like these are just whipped up by left-wing socialist do-gooders that know no better. And as Johhny Boy (that paragon of honesty, truth and a fair go) has personally vouched for the aforementioned minister, then everything is OK. After all, this is a capitalist society where the innovative are rewarded, the strongest survive and a free market is left to dictate who are the winners and who are the losers without government intervention - isnt it?

As mentioned just after the election, the population gets the government they deserve.

Leumas

I don't know where I got 699 from, but my point still holds... Just find flights that are between 601 and 1000, and you should be ahead...

I think I need to digest the changes more, but the upgrade changes aren't looking too good.

Anyhow, I'm seriously considering switching to the other side.

Dave Noble

It doesn't seem confusing to me. Currently, waitlisting is possible for international flights where they cannot be confirmed immediately. As it stands a non WP member has to waitlist at least 2 weeks prior to departure and WPs 3 days. Under the modified scheme, all members will be able to request an upgrade up to 24 hours prior to departure and they will be confirmed where available on day of departure. This is one aspect which is overall a benefit ( ignoring the latest price hike) imo given that I have had to waitlist for nearly all my upgrades so far.

Dave

martynriddle

So, how long before the marketing bods at *A come up with a comp plan for all the p1ssed off QFF members? Given the vehement reaction today on these boards, you would think they would be able to secure a load more members. And surely the master of marketing Dicky Branson will be all over this like a cheap suit and use it as a great way to launch his new service.

Another thought that has come to mind today is how Qantas came up with these changes. All the rumour over the past few weeks has been that NB and PS flyers would suffer at the expense of SG and WPs. However, it would seem as though the former hardly rate a mention - in fact that MEL-SYD type routes that they often fly have now come a lot more attractive with their Myer FlyBuys - whereas the latter have been severely affected.

Did QF run focus groups? Did they send out questionaires? Did they commission a market reserach company? Whatever they did, it would seem as though they got it oh so wrong. The VP Marketing needs to hang their head!

MJA

So you call up a couple of days before your flight and request an upgrade, they put you on a list and you wait until checkin to see if you've been successful. All that says to me is it works as before, but just not clearing the waitlist until the day.

chrisb

It's only an improvement for those with higher status - Those of us at the bottom have almost no chance of scoring upgrades no matter how far in advance we book, as all the seats will be allocated to the higher status members first, even if they book at the last minute.

Advance booking has been the only savior of us "lower" level members.

Oh, and doesn't this kill off QP ODUs?

MJA

That's a really good point. I was only thinking yesterday that not once in all the flying I do with QF have I been asked to fill in a survey of any kind.

On about 50% of my CX flights I'm asked to fill in a questionnire (which goes into a monthly draw for 2 free flights).

I think the bean counters may be driving the changes, rather than the marketing guys (although they must have had to pull out all the stops in selling this as an 'enhancement')

chrisb

Unfortunately what they lose is those "casual" FF's like myself who, up until now, didn't even consider other carriers due to gaining Points and Upgrades.

I really think the decreased chance of upgrades, plus increased cost, combined with Virgin's new Foxtel IFE will probably mean that I shop around more in future.

I'm not sure if they consider that a bad thing or not...

Chrisb.

PS. It might be time to retire the ANZ Gold FF card too.. $150pa vs my free Virgin CC. (And virgin gave me a higher limit... go figure. )

Leumas

I just recalculated my DONE4. Under the current scheme, I'll get 1650 SCs or 1990 with the new scheme.

1650 / 450 = 3.7 UCs = 15000 points (based on 3 whole UCs)

1990 / 450 = 4.4 UCs = 20000 points (based on 4 whole UCs)

Woohoo...?

This upgrade thing - how often do you get a confirmed international upgrade? I think I'd it happend twice. Most of the times I'd to be on the waitlist. One good thing though, while it means QF will never have to release any U or Z seats until the last minute, it'll save us plenty of time from checking ITN and the like...

davidMEL

From http://www.qantas.com.au/needhelp/dy...ckform?cat=ff:

Feedback

Whilst we may not be able to reply to all feedback, we appreciate receiving your comments which are used to continuously improve our products and services.

These changes are terrible and we should all let QF know.

I'd really love it if someone can outline the benefits and drawbacks of starting to credit QF flights into AAdvantage instead of QFF.

Dave Noble

exactly...except for the major difference that you can now now join the list up to 24 hours prior to departure rather than 3 days for WPs and 14 days for everyone else.

Dave

santana

Real pissed off with the changes, I was looking forward to getting a OW RTW in Business for 240,000 next year. With the new changes, it's gone up to 280,000 PLUS a 2,500 booking fee , since OW entails that there are non-QF flights, GRRRRR!!!!