[freeksngeeks]

Is it just me, or is QFF grossly biased against international flyers?

I am not talking about points redemption on international flights, but status credits and upgrade points earned on flights. On casual observation it seems to me that I would be better off flying roundtrip MEL-SYD once a week than the regular flights I do between Melbourne, Japan and Frankfurt.

Maybe I was spoiled by my 13+ years of travel using mostly United. I had many happy years of flying the family around the world, often on business class, using miles accumulated on (mostly) international flights between the US and Asia, US and Brazil, and US and Europe.

It's certainly far more expensive to fly free international on Qantas than United. And I miss the double miles I was regularly getting with United.

I am wondering whether its worth going back to United, except that most of my travel would be with partners, and that might miss out on all the double miles anyway.

Why is Qantas so stingy in its program?

[NM]

The revised QF FF program rules are very generous to people flying international segments in business or first class. The revised zones for SC earning make earning and retaining FF status quite achievable when you fly in paid business and first class fares. discount economy rates for earning status have always been poor for QF FF.

This is not a tend unique to Qantas. Most FF programs are starting to become more focused on premium class travel. In fact, BA now do not provide any SC's for discount economy fares. So you can earn miles on discount fares (albeit at greatly reduced rates), but no status. At least with Qantas you earn some status credits on the discounted fares.

I have long promoted the inequity in the definition of the full economy rates for domestic and international. Nobody in their right mind buys a full economy (Y) fare for an international flight. In just about every case I have tested, you can fly business class for about the same cost as full fare international economy. It is my belief (for whatever that is worth) that Qantas would be better off including B (and perhaps H) fare basis in their definition of international full fare economy. It is generally only business type travellers that will be using B fares, and surely there is enough profit in a B fare to warrant full economy SC's.

The other area I see most inequity is the fact that you earn 25% bonus points for paying for business class, and 50% bonus for paying for first class. But when it comes time for redeeming flights, business class "costs" 100% more than economy and first class is 200% of the economy redemption. They really are trying to price the premium cabin awards out of most people's reach.