Qantas clamping down on frequent flyer 'loyalty bonus' next month

Ausflyer, whilst respectong your point of view and , please do share the "rationale" for this move: and is this something you assume or know from the inside? 

Insodoing perhaps address why QF management can assume there is no downside to regarding customer loyalty as a one-way relationship as suggested by continually finding ways to reduce the benefits of their frequent flyer scheme.

Just out of interest - do you think that being able to comprehend a rationale by QF management is sufficient reason for a customer to acquiesce to lowering of benefits, services levels, or whatever?

PLATY, I think the 'rationale' is pretty obvious and pretty understandable. This is a 'loyalty bonus'. Qantas wants to reward loyalty to its own brand, and not to anybody else, especially not competitores like CX and BA. Why should Qantas dole out frequent flyer points because somebody has travelled on an airline that's not Qantas and from which Qantas gets no gain? Why shoud Qantas give me Qantas frequent flyer points when I fly Cathay, MAS, AA, Finnair or anybody else?

Perhap a reason for QF to give FF points and bonuses is to keep us in their alliance or fly with their partners at least not with other competitors. I did note that the loyalty bonus was still being acrued on flights that had a QF no matter which metal it actually was.

Those of us living in Perth only have oneinternational QF destination now (as in metal) wich is Singapore and that is now once a day not twice. If we want to travel anywhere else we need to fly on a partner be it Emirates, Malaysian or BA (from Singapore) or Cathay and as QF only code share with Emirates these days out of Perth sadly we are really stuck with them and their sardine like 10 abreast 777's. 

Thanks, Al, 

You make good points, yet, the argument is not watertight. 

You give points/credits for travel on your airline partners and OneWorld kin as part of the deal - the reciprocation comes in these airlines funneling the passengers back into your system.

On one level BA and CX are competitors, but on another they are part of your extended network through OneWorld.

As QF moves increasingly to becomong a boutique international airline it is ever more reliant on the codeshare and alliance model.

For example, there are now only 4 aircraft per day leaving Austraia with a first class product by my count (MEL-DXB-LHR, SYD-DXB-LHR, SYD-LAX, MEL-LAX) meaning upgrades to first and anytime rewards are restricted to a small fraction of available flights over the "network".

Similarly any uprade to business can only be on QF metal.

The point is that QF should be encouraging the use of its partners onto this business model rather than providing disincentive.

The more QF attempts to concentrate passengers onto its own codeshares and metal, the more the system for frequent flyers gets squeezed especially when QF messes with benefits such as credit bonus on non QF partner flights.

There comes a point when a frequent flyer says, stuff this lark, and merrily goes off to another frequent flyer system or alliance (all too easy with VA and Star, etc).

Or even says, fine I'll do enough flying to get my Platinum renewal and then all bets are off, I'll fly with whoever I choose on the day.

As a QF life time gold I have little to loose by saving the $$$'s and traveling on another airline (especially with VA Platinum whis is so easy to get and retain).

IMHO it's a lot more complex than the obvious rationale and I have little faith that Joyce has a mature understanding of customer loyalty.

In the meantime the QF frequent flyer gets trashed YET AGAIN!

No Platy, I don't have any inside information. I am simply thinking rationally and I am simply stating that I, as an individual thinker, have no issue with this change as I believe that the Loyalty Bonus is intended to reward loyalty to Qantas. It doesn't degrade the points you still earn when flying any other OneWorld carrier, only that you can only earn the bonus on Qantas. Why shouldn't they? Why should Qantas have to issue loyalty bonus points if you're not being loyal to Qantas?

Other airlines have similar benefits for their own Frequent Flyer schemes where you have to be flying with them, yet they are also part of an alliance. I haven't done deep down research, so my apologies if I am completely wrong, but examples that I quickly looked at are:

Asia Miles - Bonus on flights is available on Cathay Pacific or Dragonair only

Singapore Airlines has PPS Club that has rewards for passengers who fly in the premium classes on Singapore Airlines and Silk Air only.

I just believe that the loyalty bonus is an incentive to fly with Qantas... So I can completely understand that Qantas limits awarding this to passengers flying with Qantas. Being part of an alliance like OneWorld aims to streamline flights, bookings, connections etc. It also allows for points to be awarded for flying with an alliance, but it doesn't mean that everything an airline does has to feed into the alliance. Alliance airlines are afterall still competitors.

Like you, I am a Platinum One and I am also Lifetime Gold and I have the option to fly with whoever I like. I choose to fly with Qantas because I want to and as I said earlier, it is disappointing that this has changed but I just don't see this as a huge problem because I understand why they would do it. If people decide to book on Qantas or a Qantas flight number to get the loyalty bonus then Qantas is earning the income and maintaining the loyalty which is what the bonus is all about.

Thanks, AusFlyer, for the clarification, and yes all you postulate is eminently logical.

Some food for thought...

If you follow the argument of equivalence between frequent flyer schemes you are in danger of losing your point of difference if you seek to be the same as others (ironically I've seen it reported that EK are prepared to bleed frequent flyers to QF if folk perceive as a better scheme - mind you they have little to lose given they fly 13/15 flights out of the alliance flights out of Australia).

VA Velocity is actually the better scheme for domestic travellers (easier to get Platinum, faster point earn, etc) AND they have significant points of difference such as family pooling of credits and/or points and Hilton Diamond, etc.

The frequent flyer scheme is a big profit centre for QF so IMHO it's simply about the cash for QF and optimising frequent flyer profit - their cost centres are separated which means QF are probably making decisions about the frequent flyer scheme whilst locked in a busines function silo in absentia of aspects of the bigger picture.

My presumption (and it's only that) is that they do not appply complex models for such decisions. They are gambling the reduction in benefit won't make lead to a significant lowering in loyalty, whilst they are patting themselves on the back for saving having to pay out frequent flyers with those bonus points.

Now everyone is different (and respecting the changes appear not to bother you), in my own personal case the constant lowering of benefit levels and the better aspects of Velocity have led me to transfer significant business away from QF whilst still remaining PlatinumOne. Perhaps 30 business class flights last year for myself andf partner to VA/Velocity. Of clurse QF have NO WAY of realising their loss of business becuase all they see is a PlatinumOne customer. It was a initially a BIG STEP to break patterned behaviours to even try VA...generally the paradigm is that it is 5 times harder to win a customer than to keep one.

My lingering loyalty to QF is DESPITE their contant lowering of benefits, is out of respect for their front line taff who are 99% excellent.

I have little respect for their senior management and see this recent decision as short sighted. Happy for others to disagree.

On a final note, this reduction has the greatest impact on the most loyal customers sicne you need to fly significantly to get to the 4x bonus levels. Daft in my book but apparently logical to others.

Enough for one night...too many men in blue ties on the TV so gotta go put a DVD on...enjoy...