The article headline in the SMH ought to be "Qantas shafts most loyal passengers". My brief commentary on my first review of the minutei of the changes is as follows:
- Airlines (as always) increase the level of miles required. The airlines have a commercial objective in doing this.
- Qantas' changes represent, in many cases, a phenomenal increase in the 'cost' to most passengers. However, the bitter pill is sweetened by the small change to the SYD-MEL route from 20,000 down to 16,000.
- The biggest impacts come at the top end of the scale for the most loyal passengers. The 'cost' of a SYD-EUROPE has increased as follows:
Economy was 110,000; now 128,000
Business was 220,000; now 256,000
First was 275,000; now 384,000
That's a 40% increase in the last category. Or to put it another way, they've wiped 40% off the value of points for the most loyal passengers who use their points in this manner. If you have a large balance the this has an enormous impact. As an indication of scale, those with 440,000 points or more have a $ loss of >$8,000 from a total points value of (say) $20,000. Ouch. Maths available on demand.
- However, at least they're not making it retrospective in the unethical manner that Altitude recently did.
- Of course, all this is exacerbated by the recent changes by the banks that make the earning of points harder. I assume someone from smh can put together an interesting article that shows that the average gold and platinum member has had their total benefit cut in half as a result of the banks and qantas combined.
- The phase-out of upgrade credits is a real loss but (as I understand it) this is a benefit that many other airline loyalty programs do not currently give.
- The solutions to all this, of course, lie in the competition:
1. Virgin Upper Class gets here in December - good for the international travellers but no good to the domestic ones. I understand that the upperclass service is (like SIA) far superior to QF.
2. SIA, again for the international travellers is a much greater benefit. Without having checked the data, I recall that the cost of an awards flight to Europe with SIA is around 80,000 - 90,000 (rather than 128,000 for QF). To put it another way, the SIA program grants >150% of the benefits that QF does.
I am not aware of a great solution for domestic travellers.
Anyway, back to work .. .. ..
Vaccav
PS I can be reached at
vaccav74@hotmail.com.
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