InternationalLiving

Well I look forward to my first time in the Platinum lounge then
If I'm lucky I might get a few trips to Asia on business this year rather than just for holiday. So that would likely keep me Gold at least. TBH, I get the impression that other than the extra Qcredits, there's probably little benefit to the Platinum membership over Gold when flying QR... similar lounges, not much extra miles bonus... but I'll leave that conversation for another thread. At least I have extra flights I can upgrade now

SullyofDoha

Don't forget that Platinum earns more QMiles per flight, better chance at operational upgrades as well a Emerald status on One World which means first class Lounge Access with BA in LHR, CX first class lounge in Hong Kong, First class lounge with Malaysian Air in KUL. So yes, it is more than just the DOH Platinum lounge and Qcredits.

theox

The biggest plat benefit to me has definitely been the OWE status and first class lounge access (doha aside of course where I don't think you'll see much upgrade lol!)

Also as I went up through the levels I noticed that when I hit plat they absolutely go out of their way to help you. They have quite often opened up award seats for me when there were none being told 'there are none but as you're platinum il put an application in for an exception to be made!

Anyway, here's hoping to GT17/18!

toz100

I agree except the better chance for op ups. I had quite some flights in Y and was never offered an op up except one occasion where I knew that Y is full booked and asked for a QMiles upgrade at the gate and finally was given an op up which I believe I wouldn't have received without my request. I always believed to reports that QR protects its premium classes and give op ups only when Y is overbooked and following a strict status hierarchy. My faith was smashed recently when my niece was offered an op up on her first ever QR flight with a booking in a promo economy booking class.

SullyofDoha

Well, that was a nice bonus for your niece. Maybe she was on a flight with no other status members? Maybe QR saw it as a chance to encourage a new flyer to start to reach for loyalty status in the future? Maybe she was dressed well? Maybe she was attractive?
As a Platinum, I have been sitting in an economy seat before the flight took off and I was given an op up while my wife who was Gold was not given an op up

toz100

Yes it was great for here. I doubt that there have been no status members on her flight. And I share your thoughts about other reasons to upgrade her like impressing a new customer or her being pretty. But it certainely contradicts to the strict op up rules that we can read about here.

What did you do when you have been offered the op up and your wife not? Accept and leave her in Y? ;-)

theox

I know we are slightly deviating from the title of this thread... but apart from DOH-DXB shuttles where i WAS op-upped 99% of the time - my 2 only long haul upgrades were my first ever flight with QR where they actually said if i joined QRPC they'd upgrade me, the other was when i just turned silver. So agreed - plat for long haul op ups has been terrible for me!! Once on a totally full BHX flight I actually asked about it and if i could even use miles and was told there were staff loaded in J and they had priority... I questioned my loyalty to QRPC at this point!

SullyofDoha

I first asked if it was possible for my wife (Gold at the time) to also join me. They said no. Then I asked if my wife could take the op up instead of me. They said no. They told me that If I did not accept the upgrade, the offer would go to the next Platinum member on the flight. My wife said, take it! So, somewhat sheepishly, I took it, until the flight took off and they pulled the curtain across so I could no longer look back into the economy class with guilt

MKE-MR

Interestingly, I've had good luck with op-ups. I'm now at 2 op-ups on QR over the last two years. May be just my flight patterns, but in general I've found good luck, even with carriers that "protect the premium cabin," if you're in the right place at the right time I've had 5 this year, on about 90 flights total across all carriers.

purple1addict

From my personal experience (and of course YMMV)...

I've been on a QR flight before with a colleague when I was Gold. My colleague had no status - having only joined QRPC the evening before. I was lucky enough to be opped-up as we entered the gate hold area (although I did feel terribly guilty that my colleague was left in Y). Fast forward 30 minutes - we had boarded and the "all customers on board" announcement was made. My colleague's name was then called out over the tannoy and she was asked to identify herself to her nearest cabin crew. At that point she realised another pax was approaching with the same seat number on their BP, and she was then promptly escorted to J by cabin crew as the final op-up. This was a heavily overbooked flight during peak holiday season from CMB - with approx half the J cabin opped-up judging from the proportion of yellow hand luggage tags. This suggests to me that the status hierarchy was respected on that occasion (as I was upgraded at a much earlier stage) but perhaps when they ran out of status pax they then chose her as a new QRPC member. Could it be that there was a similar situation with your niece?

I have also previously been told in the DOH lounge (as Platinum) that I was first on the upgrade list for a busy flight - again reinforcing my belief that status does play a large part in op-ups. I have been very lucky as well with QR and firmly believe that I personally have benefitted hugely from having status.