Qantas Frequent Flyer Fee Axed

Qantas are reaching out to more Australians than ever with plans to axe its frequent flyer joining fee. The QFF scheme already has a whooping 5.4 million members but it is reported that Read more

Crunch time for Qantas Frequent Flyers

Unless you’ve been living on a desert island, you will be aware that from 31st March you will be unable to convert the points you earn on most credit cards to Qantas frequent flyer points. Read more

Points of Contention (Business Day, 19 November 2008)

The Business Day (The Age and Sydney Morning Herald) reports that Qantas’s new frequent-flyer plan offers more choice but some remain unconvinced, including comments from the Australian Frequent Flyer, an independent consumer website.

There are two camps when it comes to the new Qantas Frequent Flyer “Any Seat” plan. Some people are relieved they can redeem their points – no matter how many – after struggling to find suitable flights on the traditional, less-flexible plan. Others believe it’s an expensive way to use points.

Then there’s the concern – misplaced, the airline would say – that the new arrangements will make it even harder to bag a frequent-flyer bargain seat.

Under the old plan, now known as Classic Awards, a limited number of frequent-flyer seats is allocated on flights and sold according to the points listed on a fixed-price table.

Under the Any Seat plan, the cost in points depends on the factors that normally go into pricing a seat, such as the time of the year or day of the week.

There has been plenty of chat on websites such as frequentflyer.com.au about the much higher points required for Any Seat bookings. One, admittedly extreme, example cited in an online discussion is a North American first-class round trip at Christmas costing more than 2.2 million points.

Of the concern that Any Seat will mean even fewer seats on the Classic plan, forcing people to use Any Seat, the chief executive of Qantas Frequent Flyer, Simon Hickey, says: “Nothing in Classic has changed and nothing in Classic will change.”

Qantas Frequent Flyer was recently restructured as a separate business division, with a view to selling it to investors, and Hickey says he now has “contracted” seat capacity with Qantas, “so that’s firmer than it’s ever been”.

“We start with the Classic inventory and that was over three million seats last year,” Hickey says. “Any Seat is in addition to that.”

The managing director of frequentflyer.com.au, Clifford Reichlin, says Any Seat bookings can eat up several times the points required for the same route on the Classic plan. However, on the plus side – provided Qantas is true to its word and doesn’t reduce Classic seats – Any Seat provides more choice and will help people use backlogged points, Reichlin says.

A spokesman for consumer group Choice, Christopher Zinn, who also adds the caveat about Classic, says being able to use banked-up points on Any Seat “gives value to something that might otherwise be fairly value-less”.

However, principal of card consultancy MWE Consulting, Mike Ebstein, says it’s still a better idea to plan ahead and schedule your travel at non-peak periods so you can use the cheaper Classic plan. Ebstein has booked a northern hemisphere trip for his wife in May next year for 250,000 points on the Classic plan.

The full story is available on The Business Day website.