Hi I have been Qantas platinum for 4 years now, the greatest perk I had no idea existed until recently was that you can nominate yourself for any award points seat on a Qantas h

Hi

I have been Qantas platinum for 4 years now, the greatest perk I had no idea existed until recently was that you can nominate yourself for any award points seat on a Qantas hull aircraft even if there is no availability. I have now done this 5 times and each time have received an award seat on points in J and F on international flights, I even booked my parents to HKG return in J for their anniversary under this arrangement . I love it!

This in my opinion is the greatest perk of all being platinum yet it's not advertised on the Qantas website. I find it disappointing that Qantas don't promote this on their website, surely there must be tonnes of platinum members like me that have no idea about it.

I find the other Qantas platinum perks to be useless, as when you fly J and F you automatically receive the same perks as platinum for that flight. I rarely fly economy so being platinum was meaningless for me.

Does anyone know why Qantas doesn't advertise this perk? Good idea for Ausbt to do an article on this hidden perk.

It's interesting that you got the seats each time, did they boot someone else into Business?

Not at all, if the cabin is full you obviously have no chance. But if there are paying fares available they must be happy to let a platinum member book it on points. 

How do you do this?  How does the nomination process work?

I think he's saying that: 

...If the limited seats made available for Award flight bookings on a flight is exhausted, but further paid seats are still available, Platinums are able to go ahead and book them as Award flights anyway! 

Is this correct Tom? As a Plat, I hadn't been aware of this, and find this a very interesting unadvertised benefit... You mentioned you'd done this successfully for F and J class; can you confirm if you've been successful in P or Y? 

Hi Jay,

yep that is correct, I don't fly P or Y but yeah it will work 100%

the nomination process works by calling Qantas and making a request, they most of the time give you instant confirmation, sometimes takes 24 hours.

i put a request in for Boxing Day in F from MEL - LAX which is a very busy day to fly and got instant approval. I saw by the seat chart that the F cabin is already half full and we are only in March.

Are you referring to a "Premium Request" - wherein you can call in & ask (using this terminology) if they can essentially create a business class reward seat for you (I had no idea this worked for F)?

I've had this work several times now actually, however, it is subject to their 'yield' calculation (a function in their system that I'm guessing weighs up the probability (and profit) of that seat being sold as a revenue seat vs. sold as an award seat). 

It is a handy, unadvertised perk of being a Platinum-level frequent flyer.  Sadly, today is my last day of QFFP Platinum status... for now.

I've never tried it for Premium or Economy.... worth knowing if that works!

As a QF Platy, I've rung and successfully made premium requests for J most of the time, but also F and Y, never tried P but imagine it would be the same formula as described by 'slim'.

PS also successful in making premium requests, using my points, for other family members.

I think the ablilty to request a Reward seat to be relased is a formal perk of Platinum One, but they seem to allow Platinums to make the request as well.

Sometimes the request will be confirmed straight away, sometimes it heads off for a manual review, and sometimes it gets knocked on the head.

what are the redemption rates for this? ie same as a classic award ( say 60 000 one way in J to asia) or more like a points booking ( squizzillion points to go anywhere)?

Yep, same as classic award 

EG

Asia in J 60k

LAX in F 144k

I have booked at classic award rates this way.  The assisted booking fee applies for QFFP.  I was told some time ago that the seats had to be available in one of the low fare groups, which probably means sale fares.  For P1s it is more like any available seat. 

This Q&A thread has gone cold, but for what it's worth, in case anyone now (or in the future) is interested...

I just spoke to a Qantas agent about this very issue, as I wanted to unlock a domestic Award seat (at extremely late notice) in Economy for the footy this weekend.

For the purpose of reporting back to the fine people of AusBT, I asked for some clarity on the topic, and this is the explanation I was given:

For an on-the-spot release of a seat to a Platinum member, there must be at least a Sale or Saver seat-type still available for public sale... Otherwise, if there's only Red e-Deal or Flexible available, then they can't release a seat instantly. The same applies for Business class fares, and so on.

In the case that appropriate fare-type seats aren't available, then a request is submitted to the Frequent Flyer service centre higher-ups; They suggest a 24-hr turnaround time for making a determination, and advise that there is no guarantee of a positive outcome.

As noted by slim, there is undoubtedly a calculation performed to determine the likelihood of selling the seat. The agent noted that requests are less likely to be fulfilled when there are very few seats available.

In my case, the departing Award flight is available, and the returning Award flight is not unavailable (at the present time). Thus, a request has been submitted on my behalf, and I'll learn tomorrow whether I've been successful or not. For posterity, I'll post the outcome below.

Cheers!

FWIW, the outcome was negative! Guess they can't always reshuffle for a P! :-)