Qantas to start 'cocktail hour' in airport lounges

VA has the 'topiary bushes' market covered..providing boxes for your 'creation'...but only if you flying out of SYD.. seems other ports aren't valued as much as SYD in VAs eyes....not sure where these boxes get stowed inflight...is there a box limit per flight??

'fifo bogans' wouldnt be seen dead holding a cocktail glass lol ... its only in Business Lounges SYD MEL BNE CBR (not Qantas Club Lounges)...so QF dodges the bogan bullet in PER lol

so ....no different to the 'suited bogans'

Qantas needs to be much stricter on dress and conduct in the lounges! The bogan quotient (both suited and hi-viz) is cause for concern, though noticeably less visible in the Business Lounges.  This is a marvellous idea!

>5pm to 6pm will be declared 'cocktail hour' in the Qantas Business Lounges in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and Canberra

So, presumably not.

Upon attempting to enter QC : "I'm sorry sir, we don't ACCEPT 'Video Ezy' cards..."

yes yes, exactly ... LOL. Perfect.

I agree that there's always room for improvement, though I was in the Al Mourjan lounge a few weeks ago and the staff member I was talking to said the Krug was only there because the first class lounge was yet to open. 

They served the mint juleps in the business lounge in Canberra last night and if nothing else it was a nice touch and good to have the option. They seemed to be pretty well received by the fairly full lounge.

I certainly agree with you though that there is always room for improvement.

> "Sounds good, but just for comparison sake, Qatar serves Krug in its Business Lounge at Doha!"

That is absolute tripe.

Even ignoring the reference to First, you must remember that DOH is Qatar's gateway to the world. That Krug is there because there are passengers in long-haul Business across the globe, paying thousands upon thousands of dollars for the privilege. (Or rorting points. That's also alright.)

The Qantas Business Lounge for Qantas Domestic is, in contrast, almost a tin-pot operation. The longest flight is to Perth. Competition is restricted to another tin-pot operation that doesn't even have a Platinum/Business-only lounge, instead cramming everyone beyond the rank of Nobody into one barn. In the local context, it is unparalled.

I put it to you, gippsflyer, that the Cocktail Hour sees Qantas offer good variety in flavour and colour at the end of the business day, brightening up with 'surprise and delight' the time of day these road warriors need to relax.

If you viewed this Cocktail Hour within the appropriate local context, there is nothing to complain about.

You clearly haven't been in said AUH lounge - it services passengers travelling flights much the same of as our domestic flights (as I specifically pointed out in my post). That is, on regional configured aircraft plying short sector routes. I find it amazing that such a lounge is offering flowing Krug (regardless that it may not be forever and ever) - now that is Wow! worthy and a sign that Middle Eastern airlines are providing leading edge amenity (Australia no longer has the crown for lounge experiences). Even when I've been travelling First on Qantas, they normally only have a bottle (two at the most) of top shelf champange (I quite like the Comtes de Comtes), so it generally is substituted before flights end - which makes the endless bottles of Krug in the Lounge even more unusual.

Get your knickers in a knot if you must (or tripe, if that's what floats your boat), but given that one could already get basic spirits in a Qantas lounge, the only thing added here is some mixers and a few shakes of a cocktail jar. If such a benefit, for an hour on weekdays only, causes you to gasm as if sliced bread had just been invented then I say you hadn't lived or travelled much. As I said "good on Qantas" (hardly a complaint is it), but as enhancements go it's barely good, let alone "wow" or "surprise and delight". Although sounds like you could do with all the relaxation you can get, before you bring on a coronary. Sorry if you feel I've somehow diminished your pet airline (which is of your interpretation, and which you have chosen to take personally), but I find it hard to take seriously the overhype on such a minor enhancement.

I don't get, by the way, the aspersions you cast against people using points, "rorting points" you called it. I wonder if you refuse to use your own points? I certainly don't see the points I earn flying as tainted, and my Qatar flight was paid in cash (not points) so I don't understand your relevance here. If airlines say you can redeem points for air travel, then by definition it cannot be rorting. 

Is this lounge of yours in AUH or in DOH? Please establish which port this lounge is in before further discussion.

Tangled undergarments or no, the core message is that it is unreasonable to expect a domestic Australian carrier, full service or no, to serve the last name in champagne when the scope of the said carrier is strictly domestic.

Unless the lounge is exclusively for short-haul use, the implication of the lounge being in either AUH or DOH is that it is part of a global hub and therefore has the amenities to match. Domestic operations out of Sydney are in comparison much like a Lufthansa rubber duck in the middle of the North Atlantic (i.e. not very large).

And by rorting, I refer to those who seek to extract maximum value from premium travel - which, as I have already said, is alright. I use my points for award travel, thank you very much.

Yes, DOH (late hour slip), and I appreciate the please to moderate the command language used to obtain clarification (it is perfectly fine to disagree, but to be abusive or haughty does no-one any favours).

You seem to construct artificial fences for yourself, but I don't find merit in them (nor do I have to, despite your forcefulness to submit to your world view). If it takes me three and a bit hours to fly coast to coast here, and three and a bit hours to fly within the Middle East (or less), then that's like for like flying. I don't care how a company carves that up (although you seem to have forgotten that some domestic flights provide Qantas Platinums Qantas First Lounge access) - and that doesn't change the very slight enhancement you upsell beyond its merit here.

Any reasonable person would say "Krug before boarding a flight of an hour or two duration - awesome!", instead of getting into a huffy about how that makes an hour of basic spirit cocktails during weekdays pale as "Wow".

But then, you are hardly going to change your view given the way you have conducted this thread, and given I don't feel the need to force others to always agree with me - there is little point to this dance (just a shame you decided to play not the ball in your angry contribution - WorldFlyer played the ball, and sounded more reasonable because of it, your anger even infected points usage despite you conceding using points "is alright"... This is AusBT, not QT at APH, tub thumping is over the top).

Having had a morning to recover, I apologise for coming across too harshly last night.

References to offal meats aside, I stand by my original view that it is unreasonable to expect a domestic carrier in the Australian market, full service or no, to provide such free flow of Krug. Ideal though it may be, it is unlikely to happen as I believe it would be unreasonable to expect more than a select few carriers to be willing to go to such lengths (outside the three global carriers based in the Middle East). I believe the appropriate corporate buzz phrase is 'edge case'; that is to say, the case of the Qatari lounge offering Krug is exceptional and quite outside the realm of 'normal'.

Nevertheless, if we are to stand back and view the situation from a detached perspective I am today inclined to believe we can create a more conciliatory viewpoint that, within the limits of what can be reasonably expected in the domestic full-service market in Australia that is effectively a duopoly between Qantas and Virgin Australia, the Qantas offering is satisfactory if not quite groundbreaking as part of the Business Lounge product, particularly in comparison with the Virgin Australia product which does not have this upper tier of lounge.

The Qatari lounge is very much a singular exception and while certainly delightful, if you are to cast my expectations as too low, I can only cast yours as too high.

I'm pleased to say we are in wholehearted agreement that flowing Krug in any lounge is not a reasonable demand - that's what makes it a real "Wow" and a true "surprise and delight". Quite frankly I was blown away to enjoy a few glasses in Qatar's lounge. That's why I'm surprised you think a demand was made. My bone was about PR hyperbole (about said cocktails), not the cocktails themselves. I'm glad that we ended off on a more positive note, in any case.