Being downgraded from QF Platinum to Gold.

Being downgraded from QF Platinum to Gold.

Hi AusBT'ers,

Has anyone had any luck in convincing Qantas to maintain Platinum when they fall short of their annual SC target?

I fell short by 60-odd SC's and went to the trouble of forward booking about 100 SC's worth of travel. I didn't get a call or email from Qantas re the shortfall (which they have done previously).

Has anyone had any success in speaking to the help desk and seeing if they can make a retrospective honouring?

Hi markpk

I fell short by about 210SC last year to requalify for platinum ( 31 march Anniversary) but noticed in my QFF account that a message popped up congratulating me for "requalifying" for another year ( in the SC earn box).  I was on the brink of booking an EK first return flight from BNE to AKL.  I rang Qantas and asked about the message and they basically said that because in the previous 2 years I had exceeded the 1200 SC requirement (1670 and 1560 SC respectively) to requalify that they had complimentary extended my platinum status for another year but that I would have to earn enough SC to qualify for the coming year.  Now I wouldn't guarantee that this happens to everyone who is in the same boat but it does look like that they take into consideration a number of factors when considering/ extending that complimentary status.   I was of course grateful and it's a nice touch to recognise loyalty.

Hope this helps and good luck! 

BNE0077 is correct here.

For members that don't achieve the required status level qualification for the member year, each case is considered on the basis of averaging SC over a (variable) number of years.

And I can advise that this procedure also applies to all levels of tiered membership ie: Plat1, Plat, Gold and Silver. I have a mate who has been Silver for a number of years and was short on SC's recently and the ccomplimentary extension was automatically granted in the same manner described by BNE0077, based on previous travel history. Perhaps a call to QFF and a conversation with a Supervisor or Manager might yield some reconsideration?

You perhaps need to understand two things. The shear size of the organisation....... you are but nothing to them (this is not meant as a sneering insult to QF). I dont know the exact details but likely they have a few tens of thousands of Platinums ands maybe almost a hundred thousand Golds. In these circumstances it is just too much to expect tailored service. Roughly speaking, they have a similar sized client list to Centrelink.  All credit due..... I reckon QF are WAY better to deal with than Centrelink.

Secondly,  the whole FF thing is set up to work for QF (as it should be). You may not be aware that when it first started (late 80's as I recall) they had gloriou,s shiny catalogues with wonderful, readily redeemable prizes. It was like being in heaven. They quickly ditched that for the present system because they figured out that that was better for the customers than it was for the airline and that was not supposed to be the point of the exercise.

I was Platinum for about 12 years in a row but stopped travelling much. they downgraded me to Lifetime Gold and in fairness to them, it was the right thing to do.

I gotta challenge you on those numbers. There are not that many Golds/Plats. And you wouldn't have been downgraded to Gold - your accumulated flying would have got you there.

In terms of responding to customers, you are right to an extent, but I personally feel that off-airport/aircraft service at Qantas is lacking. A couple of years ago, I was Platinum on both QF and VA. When I had an issue with Etihad (not even VA), I received a personal call from someone up the Virgin hierarchy and their response was perfect. When I have contacted QF as a Platinum I've received a call from someone who's response was perfunctory. And as a QF Gold, I've received a reply 3 weeks later, full of grammatical errors (assuming a cut and paste). 

I think airlines should respond appropriately to the customer. So for markpk, it would take 5 mins for someone to review his account and approve his upgrade - a good investment for continued loyalty.

I think I read on FlyerTalk that there are about 40,000 Platinums, and about 5,000 Platinum One members; and those might be outdated figures by now...

You have to remember that there are approx 10 million Qantas frequent flyer members (not all active), and that even 1% being platinums would put that figure at a hundred thousand people.

On that basis, you would have to expect that Gold membership numbers would be an order of magnitude greater again.

You've hit the nail on the head - but you haven't followed through on your logic. If only 1m are active flyers, then you're saying 10% are Plat. The Woolies partnership alone added millions of non-flying and even non-redeeming members. 

I received a letter from Qantas saying that I was near my anniversary date and just short of requalification. They told me to ring them if I had plans to book any flights within a few weeks after my anniversary date and they would continue with my current FF level. I had no plans so I didn’t ring and it lapsed. Three days after it lapsed my work booked me a long flight but there was nothing that could be done by then, I had to start from scratch.

Slightly off topic, but I requalified for Platinum at Christmas for 2017 (starting July 2016 - July 2017). I've actually stopped flying Qantas and switched to Air NZ so I'll be interested to see if they even notice the change in my flying habits by mid 2017. I've been QF Platinum for more than 10 years and am also Lifetime Gold. I'd be interested to know the experience of anyone else who has deliberatley switched from Qantas after a lifetime flying them first preference.

Thanks for the feedback team,

Further background - I am Lifetime Gold and have been Platinum for around 7 years. Right or wrong I'm a very loyal Qantas customer and book 95% of my hire cars, and 90% of hotels via qantas.com. 

I also got a email from Qantas a few years ago re coming up short and outlined my travel plans - interestingly they dropped me back to Gold but I subsequently requalified the next year. From memory, I've only come up short once in the past 4 years where Qantas kept me at Platinum - so to BNE0077's comment, my year on year average would have to be over 1200...

The irony is that I was due to fly to Singapore in January but convinced my client to push it back to April as I was taking my family to Disneyland - so Qantas wins with the extra revenue and I drop back status due to the missing intl flight! 

I wouldnt be hungup on Platinum status.  I'm Lifetime Gold as well and have been Platinum for 15 years, but have decided now to fly J or F internationally using points purchased from Lifemiles or AA or Alaskan or UA (so more options than QF).  Thus family and I get all lounges, priority board etc anyway when we travel overseas.  I still accumulate QF points and fly with them domestically but find that Gold status is sufficient with lounge access etc.  Only difference would be missing QF F lounge with Plat status, but being in Perth that is not something i would use anyway.

I agree riskman - Lifetime Gold is a great card to have in the wallet. 

Quick update...

I did in fact call QFF this afternoon and lucked into a very patient agent who looked up my details, checked into my history, looked at the forward bookings etc and has taken my situation off to her supervisors for further consideration. 

In her words "no promises, but I'll go and argue the case"

Happy to post an update tomorrow once I know more...

Mark

I gave up on Qantas 8 years ago after being platinum for 9 years - two years in the lead up to my hate relationship with Qantas I received letters saying you are short to quality / maintain Platinum (even though I had bookings in the sytem to qualify) but they would offer complimentary platinum for the next 12 months and when speaking to them about the letters they said it is just standard to send out to everyone in the final month. The one year, i was short 60 SC, I didn't get a letter and when I phoned to ask about letters I had received previously, I was told I didn't qualify even though I had bookings placed after my review date. 

Subsequently, to date, I have not flown Qantas and avoid them like the plague - Virgin gave me a Platinum status match and from there both my parents are platinum members and my sister-in-law gold. 

The straw that broke the camels back - on a red eye from Adelaide to Melbourne I had reclined slightly just to get out of the straight up seat position to get some sleep, when my chair back flew forward (the person behind didn't appreciated 2cm being taken from his space). I ended up with whiplash and could not connect to my international flight - Qantas's response "we cannot control our passengers actions". That is a concern in this day and age. 

I'm not sure why you feel this is an issue for Qantas?

Take Qantas out of the story and insert Virgin, or Singapore Airlines, or Emirates, or Delta...This stuff happens as does a varied service experience on any airline.