[oliverd]

I noticed tonight on the American Express (Australia) web site when checking the various airline frequent flier scheme affiliations the comment: "Points redemptions for points in the Qantas Frequent Flyer program are not available to Cardmembers that have joined Membership Rewards Ascent since 1 August 2008." I haven't seen this advertised anywhere... Is it a strategy by QF to force people to use Qantas/Amex branded cards, giving Qantas visibility of how their "points liability"? And is it going to be introduced for existing Ascent members? (Apologies if this has already been covered somewhere - I did have a quick look :-) Oliver.

Sorry - just read the thread quoting AFR about the "direct sweep" vs "indirect sweep". So the second part of my question stands... anyone know for how long existing Amex Reward points can be transferred to QFF, and whether any notice will be provided if/whem this changes?

[NM]

I expect that if there is a change in either the transfer rate or transfer availability, there would be a reasonable notice period provided.

However, for me, I really don't care what Amex and Qantas do going forward, so long as Amex continues their Ascent program allowing transfers to a range of partners (with or without Qantas makes no difference to me).

Personally I am taking advantage of the current Starwood transfer rate or 10:6 in order to launder a few hundred thousand Amex points to AAdvantage at a rate of 1:1.25 (or 20,000:25,000 to be exact). I believe that for my situation this provides significantly better value than transferring to Qantas FF.

[Febs]

Originally Posted by NM

Personally I am taking advantage of the current Starwood transfer rate or 10:6 in order to launder a few hundred thousand Amex points to AAdvantage at a rate of 1:1.25 (or 20,000:25,000 to be exact). I believe that for my situation this provides significantly better value than transferring to Qantas FF.

That's what I did with the bulk of my AMEX MR points, though I took it one step further and laundered them into HHonors points, netting about 0.6 additional points per dollar over the direct transfer.

[oliverd]

I need to get a little more creative with how I use an increasingly large number of Amex Reward points Which is where these forums are really useful!

I've always had a deluded notion that having some status with Qantas (Silver, just scraping into Gold this year) meant it would be easier to use points than an airline I rarely/never fly. But this seems to be a fallacy.

So I'm looking at which airlines - Singapore being the leader contender at this stage, or MAS Enrich - that offers a good choice of international routes AND decent availability of seats, preferably Business class.... Qantas is always the fallback position as in the past I've always managed, with much juggling of dates, to get seats on Cathay or BA as part of a OneWorld award - but don't want to transter 500K of Amex points now to Qantas without knowing what surprises they have up their sleeve next with their FF scheme!

I'll have to research thses forums to see if there's any Visa/Masterccard that allows points transfers to other airlines too. All my points earnings have been very Qantas-centric. Oliver.

[Dave Noble]

Originally Posted by oliverd

Qantas is always the fallback position as in the past I've always managed, with much juggling of dates, to get seats on Cathay or BA as part of a OneWorld award - but don't want to transter 500K of Amex points now to Qantas without knowing what surprises they have up their sleeve next with their FF scheme! .

Given the current exchange rate of AMEX -> SPG -> AA (see NM's post) , I would be looking to transfer there rather than QF

Transferring 500,000 to AA will net arounf 375,000 AA points rather than 500,000 QF points

120,000 AA points will get a J r/t AU-Europe , so you could get 3 of those whilst it costs 256,000 QF points to do AU-Europe plus around $400 in fuel surcharges

3 J with no fuel fines vs 2 J plus fines

Dave

[oliverd]

Thanks, that's really useful... Hopefully J redemption availability on AA is slightly better than QF. (I'm also surprised by the variance even within Oneworld wih fuel fines - it's a big reason to avoid QF, especially on longer sectors).

[JohnK]

I have just over 100,000 Amex MR points, may not sound like much but it is close to a QF Oneworld RTW award, and I would hope that if and when Qantas and Amex want to terminate the relationship of transferring points from Ascent to Qantas we are given plenty of notice.

[Flying Fox]

Originally Posted by Dave Noble

Given the current exchange rate of AMEX -> SPG -> AA (see NM's post) , I would be looking to transfer there rather than QF

Transferring 500,000 to AA will net arounf 375,000 AA points rather than 500,000 QF points

120,000 AA points will get a J r/t AU-Europe , so you could get 3 of those whilst it costs 256,000 QF points to do AU-Europe plus around $400 in fuel surcharges

3 J with no fuel fines vs 2 J plus fines

Dave

Would this travel be on QF metal? Something like SYD - SIN - LHR? And is availability better under AA? (as you can probably tell, I'm new to the AA program)

[JohnK]

Originally Posted by Flying Fox

Would this travel be on QF metal? Something like SYD - SIN - LHR? And is availability better under AA? (as you can probably tell, I'm new to the AA program)

Yes, if there is availability.

[Dave Noble]

Originally Posted by Flying Fox

Would this travel be on QF metal? Something like SYD - SIN - LHR? And is availability better under AA? (as you can probably tell, I'm new to the AA program)

You can use any of BA,CX,QF,JL for the trip via SIN,BKK,HKG or NRT to get to Europe using the 120k partner award

If you use the One World award, you can use any OW carrier via any routing desired

Dave