Is Qantas Platinum that much better than Qantas Gold?

25 replies

Guvner

Member since 12 Sep 2014

Total posts 4

@ Russell, sorry, what does WP stand for?

The W stands for w@nker. It's a term of endearance within frequent flyer community.

AWA2602

Qantas - Qantas Frequent Flyer

Member since 29 Jul 2013

Total posts 24

I've been Platinum for the past six years and qualified for Lifetime Gold about three or four years ago. Without a doubt, in my opinion, the Melbourne and Sydney First Class lounges are the biggest benefit of Platinum. Closely followed by the preferential treatment on other OW carriers. I find I get more "extras" on BA (short-haul economy), CX (short-haul economy) and AA (domestic economy) like Business class wine or meals than I do with QF. That said 90% of my travel with QF is international Business or First and domestic east-west Business class, so there's not much room for QF to do much more because of my status. The third major benefit is the extra luggage allowance and the complementatry checked baggage allowance when travelling on the lowest economy fares with OW partners. 

blingwad

Qantas - Qantas Frequent Flyer

Member since 04 Jun 2015

Total posts 75

As a former Platinum One now Gold (less work travel) I agree with other posters re the superiority of Sydney International First Class lounge over Business lounge.


The other thing I notice as a Gold is that other airlines seem to value Qantas Gold more than Qantas does. As a Gold on QF I never ever get recognised on board and of course there's no fast track access at Sydney International (thankly I have an APEC BT card). I was even once told by a QF check-in staff that the problem with Gold is that there are too many!


Contrast that with being a QF Gold travelling on EK or BA for instance where you get the on board recognition, fast track access etc etc.

Last edited by kiwinick at Jul 12, 2017, 03.57 PM.

I can agree with this, I get much more attention on Cathay than I do on Qantas as gold.

Chris C.

Member since 24 Apr 2012

Total posts 1,116

@ Russell, sorry, what does WP stand for?

The W stands for w@nker. It's a term of endearance within frequent flyer community.


It's not a term we tend to use here, because as you've seen, people have to ask what it means and also take offence (and it doesn't actually represent the letters of the tier name: merely a nickname that's more common on other communities).

We like to keep things simple here which means writing in words that everybody can understand, so when the admin team spots these abbreviations on the site, we generally replace them with 'Platinum' which is universally understood. :)

Ditto with 'Y' instead of 'economy'. Your average person has no clue what 'Y' means on its own, but everybody knows what you're talking about when you say 'economy'.

AlexTravAddict

Qantas - Qantas Frequent Flyer

Member since 17 May 2015

Total posts 43

As a former Platinum One now Gold (less work travel) I agree with other posters re the superiority of Sydney International First Class lounge over Business lounge.


The other thing I notice as a Gold is that other airlines seem to value Qantas Gold more than Qantas does. As a Gold on QF I never ever get recognised on board and of course there's no fast track access at Sydney International (thankly I have an APEC BT card). I was even once told by a QF check-in staff that the problem with Gold is that there are too many!


Contrast that with being a QF Gold travelling on EK or BA for instance where you get the on board recognition, fast track access etc etc.

Last edited by kiwinick at Jul 12, 2017, 03.57 PM.

Based on my experience I can't agree that other airlines value Gold more than Qantas do. In the last month I have flown BA, Airberlin, Iberia, LATAM, and Qantas and Qantas are streaks ahead of these airlines (although I've had very positive experiences flying with Iberia in and out of Madrid (not so much their aircraft and on-board service but they have competent ground staff, decent lounges in Madrid, and a website that actually works). On the other hand I have had constant problems with LATAM (in particular LATAM Brazil). On domestic flights within Brazil there are no lounges, no seat selection, no priority baggage, and you are lucky if they even have priority boarding. At Sao Paulo Guarulhos they even have a check-in queue for their own high tier frequent flyers which Oneworld Emeralds are not allowed to use. Their IT systems and website are a disgrace and even though LATAM is supposed to be one airline they still appear to be running as two different airlines (LAN and TAM) with different website functionality, different staff, different IT systems.

Personally, there are a lot of differences between Qantas Gold and Platinum that I value. I appreciate the 25% extra points, the first class lounge access (earlier this month I used the BA First lounges at Heathrow and Gatwick which were great, and the Cathay Lounge in Hong Kong is fantastic). Platinums are also given priority when it comes to being upgarded (I've even had a couple of operational upgrades recently). And while it varies from flight to flight I find as a Platinum I regularly get acknowledged by the crew. Earlier this year I flew Syd-Manila in economy and the crew were flawless. They introduced themselves, offered champagne, offered business amenities packs, and provided particularly attentive service throughout the flight.

traveller99

Member since 18 Nov 2015

Total posts 119

Platinum (ie One World Emerald) got me access in the USA to the American Airlines Flagship First Class check in on domestic flights including expedited security screening. This alone saved quite a bit of time. 


The AA Flagship lounge at JFK was pretty good too. 

ausJCP

Qantas - Qantas Frequent Flyer

Member since 28 Aug 2014

Total posts 132

@ Russell, sorry, what does WP stand for?



Hi mspcooper,

The "WP" acronym is frequent flyer community shorthand for QFF Platinum. Literally, the acronym stands for "W*nker Platinum". Importantly, it's not a term of insult; it is used as a form of good-natured, self-deprecating Aussie humour on forums, especially when Platinums are referring to themselves.

Although I rarely see these expressions used here on AusBT, you may come across other common QFF membership tier acronyms in the community, such as: "SG" (Scum Gold), "PS" (Pleb Silver), "NB" (Nothing Bronze), and "QP" (the Qantas pub [i.e. Qantas Club]).

Happy flying!  :-)

fallingflat

Member since 22 Feb 2017

Total posts 3

I'm on the verge on hitting platinum (right before my expiry date as well), but moving to London next month. Is it worth pursuing platinum before I leave? I plan on doing a bit of travel throughout Europe and the rest of the world in the next year...

Last editedby fallingflat at Jul 20, 2017, 10:50 PM.

David

Member since 24 Oct 2010

Total posts 1,021

@ Russell, sorry, what does WP stand for?

'WP' is a term used by some members of other frequent flyer forums to demote Platinum – they also use 'SG' to denote Gold, 'OW' for Oneworld etc – these are not terms we use on AusBT because we prefer plain language to make the content more accessible to everybody (same reason we rarely use two-letter airline codes or three-letter airport codes).

aggie57

QF

Member since 04 Apr 2014

Total posts 136

I'm on the verge on hitting platinum (right before my expiry date as well), but moving to London next month. Is it worth pursuing platinum before I leave? I plan on doing a bit of travel throughout Europe and the rest of the world in the next year...
Last edited by fallingflat at Jul 20, 2017, 10.50 PM.

I'm platinum and spend a lot of time in the US.  It's worth it when (in my case) booking on American but unless you do regular trips back to Australia you'll find it hard to reach the 4 flights per year on Qantas labelled flights that you need to renew.

mviy

Member since 05 May 2016

Total posts 322

I'm on the verge on hitting platinum (right before my expiry date as well), but moving to London next month. Is it worth pursuing platinum before I leave? I plan on doing a bit of travel throughout Europe and the rest of the world in the next year...

If you plan to fly mainly on OneWorld airlines then it would be worth it.

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