I think they are good changes for the casual flyer who might only try to redeem one flight a year for a family holiday in Economy but I feel they have neglected a portion of their core FF members who have been loyal to them and spend considerable yearly amounts with them. Qantas has being devaluing their FF program for a while now and it’s part of the reason why many like myself have diversified into other FF programs that reward us better.
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I agree. As someone who flies regularly (consistently gold or platinum status each year) I got sick of accumulating Qantas points I could not redeem for premium flights to North America where I have family.
When they started handing domestic routes solely to Jetstar and Jetstar let me down repeatedly, I switched my loyalty to Virgin who have much better availability and cost for premium cabins to the main destinations I fly to. I may not have done that if I flew to Europe regularly but I guess I could always use AMEX points for that instead.
Yeah I’ve dropped back to Gold from Platinum this year for the first time in a long time. I’m closing in on LTG so once I have that I’ll probably swap all my OW flying over to the BAEC as they look after their members a mile better.
I’m Platinum Virgin and they look after us really well domestically and although reward availability is getting harder it’s easy to transfer my points to SQ KrisFlyer which has brilliant redemptions.
In the last few years we have switched a lot of flights over to SkyTeam aswell and have built a nice little stash of points with them.
We have no status with AA, Alaskan or Avianca but are members of their FF programs and they have great specials on buying points and pretty good award availability on partners so we invest quite a bit in them aswell
from the web: 300,000 of the new seats will be in premium classes, encouraging lower tier point earners to take their time and save.
Which should mean more seats to upgrade to from Economy.
Being the operative word…
Except most of those award seats are snapped up long before lower tiers get to see them.
sure, but if there are more then they should take (a bit) longer to snap up
I’ll be life time gold by year’s end, so hopefully I get a reasonable chance in the future.
Hopefully. Yeah I’ve only got 805 SC’s to reach LTG so with the travel I have already it should be achieved around Christmas also. I will never reach LTP which would be my ultimate aim but oh well.
I just find it easier to fly to Asia as as there are stacks more rewards from Asian ports
75,000 SC for Lifetime Platinum???
WTF is Joyce thinking? At a minimum of 1200 SC for Platinum, you would have to qualify as Platinum for SIXTY years to qualify. Even if your first year was as a 20 year old, by the time you qualified you would be too old to travel internationally without a medical certificate.
Exactly and hence why I’m switching over to BAEC.
We fly very little with QF and heaps on Cathay and Malaysian which QF punishes us for. BA treats all OW members as equals unlike QF
it’s going to take some serious flying.
Melb- London return in business is approx. 600, so doing 5 of those a year makes it 25 years. Sure, throw in connections here and there and it may drop to 20-ish. There’ll be the frequent business traveller doing 5-6 flights a year who would get it.
Getting our Winter Feast on at Dark ■■■■ here in home town of Hobart
Channeling Molly Meldrum - do yourselves a favour and get yourselves to this one year - it’s awesome
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Also looking for good tips for places to eat
Heading to Scotland and Ireland (yes I know it’s not ‘ultra cool’) in early Sept. So good eating places in Edinburgh and & Dublin plus other places would be appreciated. Have done a bit of research but word of mouth is much better.
Any of the hundreds of brilliant pubs in Edinburgh and Dublin do excellent pub grub with great beers and friendly locals. Most will have some form of entertainment or live music over weekends.
The food is usually always locally sourced and tastes so fresh. We don’t eat seafood but some of the dishes looked amazing. If you like Pork there are a couple of joints that do wicked pulled pork. Pig in a Poke and Oink are 2 of our favourites. There are restaurants and cafes everywhere though in both cities
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For Scotland, go to the NW towards Cape Wrath. It’s just fantastic. Stay at the Rhiconnich hotel - get a room with a view to see the sunset over the sea loch.
Definitely try to make time to get up to the NW of Scotland. The drive from Ullapool is amazing with some stunning scenery. Plenty of B&B’s and lodges that offer great hospitality in pristine locations
Off to sunny Auckland tomorrow for a few days thanks to a ripping LATAM sale a few months back
Lived in AKL for fufteen years. Hit me with any q’s.
I’ve hired a car whilst there so after a few day trip options
Wedding I’m Da Nang , Vietnam coming up any tips?