Qantas does not want me as a customer!

I just recently consolidate all my flying to Qantas over the past 3 months. Previously i would just go with what was cheapest or more convenient and was not too worried about Frequent Flyer Status or lounges. These days I am getting a little older so that little bit of extra comfort would help alot.

If you'd asked here for some advice being short there are a few things we could have suggested. For one thing the recent Double Status Credits promo may have helped. Also flying indirect can mean spending about the same but lead to extra status credits e.g. SYD-MEL-HKG will earn more than SYD-HKG direct. Flying indirect a trip or two would have made up your shortfall and got you to 700 SC.

If you can get Gold from 3 months of flying then twice that would get you up to Platinum which would get you into QF/OneWorld First Class lounges and a soft landing back to Gold when you eventually fail to requalify Platinum at some point in the future.

Unfortunately this happens and there is little you can do about it other than take your business somewhere else, Qantas and Airlines in general are a law to themselves basically, if you were dealing with a bank or telco you could complain to the ombudsman of each sector and seek an outcome as the airline clearly failed to deliver what they promised, Airlines can even cut capacity and lift prices by double digits with no consequence at all, imagine if banks acted this way, they would be screaming on the news every night.

I can also see your frustration. However, this is a feature of the QFF program (and indeed all other FF program). Given your travel pattern and destination, i would stick to QF if I was you.

Qantas does not want anyone as a customer. Like many big businesses, it is struggling to adapt to a customer centric world. In particular, it struggles with joining the dots between business units and services. They have (or had) a strong internal data strategy, so there is hope they might sort that out, but I'm yet to see it. Staff are generally pleasant, but perhaps the cracks are showing a little bit.

I think that VFF is still the better one now, since they brought in Y(X).
That with the cheaper membership for the VA the Lounge, etc, all adds more to the advantage of flying VA than QF.
QFF have given me a shadow (as a QF SG) of about 30% success rate, and have only ever given me an op up once, yup, just once.
I thought that they would have given their SG customers a bit more benefit, but no, seems only WP/P1 gets benefits.
I don't know whats the ideal, OP, but maybe VA is still the better one.
Will let my QF SG drop to QF NB but will keep QP, $600 odd vs VA's the lounge for $300 if you are a VA PS flyer.
Also VA's partner (Air)NZ is now flying its 787 out of and to ADL, most days, which is a good thing.
Edit: VFF SG is 500 SC, this gives you access to lounges internationally, and in Aust too, and if you have to fly a route that VA does not fly, you can join SQ KF, and transfer the points to VFF.
SQ do fly to a lot of places, and if you fly them, you will earn points at a good rate, unlike flying OW's MH as a QFF where you earn very little.

Lifetime status is the reason to hang if you will get there, as someone else has pointed out. LTG should be mine by 50 (without trying to get there other than not flying outside OW if I can help it), which will set me up well for travel in retirement.

no great loss.i have not used them in ages and get this they if you fly qatar airways give no points on the cheapest economy tickets.the price gap to get the fares that qualify for the points is a big one to the point if going to europe i would rather fly singapore airlines and get my points in either thai royal orchid plus or velocity and use them to help a hospital in bangkok or something like that.

It's little wonder that Qantas Loyalty continues to make record profits. They employ a "wear you down strategy", that relies on the passenger to give up wasting their time. For example, every time I have got a first class flight on JAL I have only been credited at PE earn rate - yet it can take hours of to and fro and automated responses citing incorrect and irrelevant conditions from Qantas. All of this is designed to encourage people not to bother or give up - it is only a few status credits that don't mean too much as I'm already LT gold and will easily make platinum status this year again, so it is only the principle. It is time for the ACCC to investigate Qantas gouging FF program as they seem to adopt practices not consistent with Australian consumer law.

If you can say positively that you would, but for the advice you received from the first staffer, have taken steps to ensure you reached 700 points, you would have a solid basis for asserting that Qantas has engaged in misleading and deceptive conduct contrary to section 18 of the Australian Consumer Law. The representation was, of course, about a future matter, so it would be necessary to establish that the staffer had no reasonable basis for making the representation. This shouldn't be too difficult to establish if, as I suspect, the staffer made the comment without any basis or, as you suggest, was beling deliberately misleading.

I am not for a moment suggesting that you run off and commence proceedings against Qantas in relation to the matter. It would obviously not be worth your while. What I would, however, recommend is that you write a polite but firmly drafted letter to the head of QFF outling your concerns and noting the potential for it have constituted misleading and deceptive conduct. You can then, if you so wish, refer the matter to the ACCC which will investigate conduct which may amount to misleading and deceptive conduct. It must be remembered that the ACCC has responsibility for mointoring and enforcing compliance with, inter alia, the Australian Consumder Law. Where a provision of that legislation has, or has arguably, been breached, it is not always necessary to commence proceedings in order to obtain some form or relief or redress.

In my experience, responsible companies such as QF are usually very mindful to come to a speedy resolution where there is an alleged breached of the consumer legislation. Whatever may be fairly said about QF and the Australian airline industry in general, I think they are usually well aware of their responsibilities and will act accordingly. I do not really accept, as some others have suggested, that they are a "law unto themselves". I don't think that is correct when you are talking about Australian airlines. Things may well and, in my experience, often are different with overseas carriers.

So you didn't make the SC required and then went on here to have a whinge about why you didn't get special treatment, unfortunately quite a common whinge on here. Rules are rules, if they broke them for everyone who was close just because 'they should recognise your loyalty in some way' they might as well not have them. Sorry sounds harsh, but true. The suggestion above of emailing the CEO direct is just laughable, as if he has the time to deal with petty issues like this. Some people think they deserve gold star treatment for spending a few bucks with an airline, the mind boggles !

Originally Posted by Doubleplatinum

"Double Platinum", the point which sticks out in my mind is that the poster was given inaccurate or materially misleading information by a Qantas representative on the telephone. I think the situation would be quite different if he hadn't been told by someone "if i come close to 700 to call back and they will be be able to help put me on Gold".

If it were not for this earlier statement, I would have no hesitation in agreeing with you. Certainly, no one has any right to complain that "we was robbed" if they don't make it to the necessary threshold. There is, however, more to this particular case.