So, I looked at the 100,000 mile issue so I thought I would take a look at a comparision of achieving status levels between QF and that "other" US type program.

I won't rehash all the assumptions I've used (see the other thread!) except for the following:

* Most people accept that first level elite (ie: QF Silver) status is next to useless except for a small bonus mileage but no real status perks such as lounge access, priority boarding etc so I will ignore this level as something to obtain. Instead I will focus on the Gold level as the minimum acceptable status level that anyone would want to get.

* The top tiers are important because they provide perks the lower ones don't. For example at AA or UA you get the confirmed upgrade certs valid on some/most/all(pick) lowball fares. At QF you get partner gold status privs and of course top priority (under CL) for upgrades and the like, use of F lounges internationally and the like. This is a perk many people like.

So to refresh, at QF:

Silver: 350 SC's
Gold: 700 SC's
Plat: 1400 SC's

In our "Generic" US based mileage program:

Silver: 25,000 flown miles/25 segments
Gold: 50,000 flown miles/50 segments
Plat: 100,000 flown miles/100 segments

For the sake of simplicity I will ignore things like AA's Q points which are a half way house between SC's and miles for qualifying and treat elite status on the "generic" program to be totally mileage based, as with most of the other US majors.

AGain, I shall compare with 100% minimum mileage trips (eg: MEL-SYD type), 50/50 short and long hail, and 100% long haul fares, comparing discount Y purchased fares.

(Can I phone a friend too?)

Case 1: Short haul.

On QF, this would require 70 one way trips to make Gold, and 140 one way trips to make Plat.

On the mileage program, assuming 500 mile minimum earn, you would require 50 segments for gold, and 100 for plat.

Advantage: Other for Gold / Plat

Scenario 2: 50% short haul, and 50% long haul (SYD-LAX @ 7500 miles earn/40 SC's).

On QF:
Gold: 17 one way short hauls = 170 SC's
+14 one way long hauls = 560 SC's
total: 31 flights / 730 SC's.

Plat: 17 one way short hauls = 170 SC's
+31 one way long hauls = 1240 SC's
total: 46 flights / 1410 SC's

*or*

Gold: 35 one way short hauls = 350 SC's
9 one way long hauls = 360 SC's
total: 44 flights / 710 SC's

Plat: 70 one way short hauls = 700 SC's
18 one way long hauls = 720 SC's
total: 88 flights / 1420 SC's

Over in Mileage land:

Gold:
50 one way short haul sectors (25,000 flown)
+4 one way long haul sectors (30,000 flown)
= 54 flights

Plat:
100 one way short haul sectors (50,000 flown)
+7 one way long haul sectors (52,500 flown)
= 107 flights

However you have already made plat with your 100 flight sectors, so this straight 50/50 split is not valid!

Therefore:
50 one way sectors (25,000 miles flown)
+10 one way long haul sectors (75,000 miles flown)
= 60 flights/100,000 miles

The next step is to somehow put a weighting on the cost factor of the long haul sector relative to the short haul sector because obviously it costs some factor X more to fly LAX-SYD than it does to fly SYD-MEL. For simplicity's sake I'll put a cost multiplier of 10 on the long haul flights vs 1 for the short haul flights.

So the equation now becomes:

on QF:
Gold: 17+140=157 or 35+90=145
Plat: 17+310=327 or 70+180=250

With miles:
Gold: 50+40=90 or 50+100=150

Advantage: Generic mileage program (cheaper cost of total flights)

And finally to the all long haul equation, which is easier as we don't need a cost weighting as we assume sector costs to be equal:

On QF:
Gold: 18 long haul flights = 720 SC's
Plat: 36 long haul flights = 1440 SC's

With Miles:
Gold: 7 one way long haul flights = 52,500 flown
Plat: 14 one way long haul flights = 105,000 flown

Advantage: Generic mileage program (less than half the flying required to obtain the status).

Conclusion: A mileage based program is more generous status wise than QF for low ball Y fare flyers. However someone paying full C fares with QF would fare much beter:

ie:
short hauls:
Gold: 24 flights @ 30 SC's = 720 SC's
Plat: 47 flights @ 30 SC's = 1410 SC's

Gives a clear advantage to QF and the mileage programs do not usually offer a status bonus for higher fares paid (exception: Lufthansa Miles & More). You'd only need to fly a little less than half the flight sectors required with QF to get plat vs the mileage program.

On the long hauls:
7500 mile flight sector = zone 4 = 160 SC's
Gold: 5 flights = 800 SC's
Plat: 9 flights = 1440 SC's

Again advantage to QF (5 vs 7 for gold, 9 vs. 14 for plat).

The 50/50 exercise I leave to the reader (it's late and my head hurts!) but you'll obviously find that the fare weighting makes QF far more attractive for earning status, or at least within earshot of a mileage based program, unlike for discount Y pax.

Hope this has been of interest to some people!

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RichardMEL, UA 1K
A Star Alliance Member.

RichardMEL...I thought you said you weren't going to produce new figures, but obviously curiosity got to you.

Again, you have put some serious time into collating and presenting the data. I was with you until the 10:1 long/short haul part...maybe I need to re-read it for the subsequent data to filter through to my head (must have been the 15 hour day I had yesterday)..

Of course, the greatest challenge is that the theoretical hypotheses you use may only suit a limited number of people - if they knew what their flying was going to be like (all long/all short or an exact 50/50 mix) and could choose the program (according to your figures) to suit their purposes.

Most of us would probably be somewhere between the two..like some of us at QF-land where we have short, medium and long haul Dom (short = <1K miles, medium = >1k <2.7K, long = >2.7K) & Intl flights (short = NZ, PNG; medium = Asia, Hawaii; long = the rest of the world).

Perhaps we are the minority (because I place myself in that category of true mixed travel) - mine in the past year would be 20% Dom SH, 10% Dom MH, 10% Dom LH, 10% Intl SH, 20% Intl ML, 30% Intl LH, so we need to do our own calculations based on perhaps our last 12 months travel and see which suits.

(Going a little off-topic on a related subject still to this thread)...Of course, as I am about to embark on a WT+ BNE QF MEL BA SIN BA LHR BA DUB BA LHR BA SIN QF BNE, I have toyed with the idea of either :

1. Using QF program to help me towards Gold/Plat requal, or
2. Joining AA and using "Plat challenge" (equiv to QF Gold/OW Saph)

If I wasn't already a QF Plat (OW Em, I'd be jumping at the AA program. But for me, Plat requal is more important. Had I been a newbie...AA would have been the go!

(Edited to correct spelling, spacing and add paragraph)

[This message has been edited by QF WP (edited 07-10-2003).]

Sorry to be confusing. All that I meant by the 10:1 thing was that it's all very well to equate numbers of flights on a 50% basis, but one should also consider that flying LAX-SYD (for example) would cost, ticket wise, some number of times more than the short haul. So what I was trying to say that you may need less long haul segments to get to a goal (of SC's or miles) but they cost more. I pulled out 10x as the factor for simplicity but also because your average N class MEL-SYD is around $100 and we'll be generous and say it's $1000 for a one way SYD-LAX. Therefore a 10 fold increase.

Of course now with the light of day I actually confused myself and read the weighting results the wrong way! The higher the resultant weighted number, the higher the overall cost, so that would need to be taken into consideration because we're talking about discount Y tickets here - people without bottomless pockets to buy willy nilly.

And yes I thought I would see if it was any easier to get status via a mileage program vs. QF. My contention holds that this is still the case in general.

Obviously, as you point out, hypothetical examples/figures only go so far because they really don't reflect a real situation, but I was trying to illustrate, hopefully simply (ha ha!) that QF is not good for bottom feeder pax like myself.


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RichardMEL, UA 1K
A Star Alliance Member.

I hesitate to disagree with anything in your detailed and thoughtful analysis, but - depending, of course, on who you mean by "anyone" - I think this is an unwarranted assumption to make.

I am regarded by my friends and colleagues as the most frequent flyer they know - largely because despite the fact that we are all professionals, none of us have jobs which require us to fly anywhere frequently or long-haul any more than very sporadically. Despite doing 2 runs to Oz/NZ and 3-4 trans-Atlantics a year, I only just qualified for QF Gold for the first time last year because of one crazy itinerary on a RTW, and will only requalify this year because of the lower renewal threshold.

QF Silver was still a real benefit to have. Priority check-in is probably the single most useful perk for a regular flyer unless you can online check-in and use automatic machines to pick up BPs at the airport. Lounge access comes second (often there is simply no time to use the lounge), and on QF at least can be bought for a reasonable price. Seating requests were almost always satisfied by QF and BA, with agents sometimes putting in quite a lot of effort. On QF and BA, priority boarding tends to secure you nothing except greater familiarity with your seat, neighbours and the faces of the pretty girls walking past to the back.

If your analysis is intended only to be relevant to road warriors, then it won't impact much on this segment of the market. But it's not right implicitly to denigrate QF Silver (or equivalent levels) as "unacceptable".

Globaliser, thanks for your input..again, this might have been something that RichardMEL overlooked. Certainly I agree with your position that the single most important feature of Silver is preferred check-in. I believe it's the second most important feature in the whole program (behind FF points). I agree that often we don't have time to enjoy QC and if we do, it is often solely as a benefit received from the time saving achieved through preferred check-in.

As with my position previously stated, RichardMEL's calculations were based on simpler calculations - which may suit some but not us. The air warrior may have multi-sector non return trips (I have only had 2 return flights this year domestically)

(Edited to check flight numbers and bolding)

[This message has been edited by QF WP (edited 07-11-2003).]

[This message has been edited by QF WP (edited 07-11-2003).]

Well my definition of "flight" was a one way sector... so multi sectors are covered..

Re the priority checkin deal for QF Silver - over at the opposition the silver level doesn't guarantee this at all locations, so I must admit I overlooked it in reference to QF. Mea Culpa.

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RichardMEL, UA 1K
A Star Alliance Member.