Thought it may interest some of the community who fly Qantas and count on upgrades that majority of international flights are at total capacity week after week. This includes the A380/787 flight to London/Singapore and 787 to Rome, Los Angeles with premium cabins next to no availability and economy completely full. EK/EY flights are also completely full to Aus with QR flights having the most availability but only a handful of available seats to book and even oversold premium cabins weeks out. There are also on average high amount of commercial upgrade requests excess of 20/30+ on intl flights.
There is definitely a huge demand and it appears airlines are not able to keep up.
And this is obviously going to disappoint a lot of travellers with failed upgrades. I was one of those. Applied for upgrade as late as at the gate and failed recently both ways and that's with Gold status at the time. They were my first failed upgrade attempts in years. There were others with even higher status who failed to get upgraded as well.
There's a lot of people who only see value in using their points for classic reward seats or upgrades and were denied the opportunity to use their points for a few years during lockdown and many that continued to earn lots of points on the ground.
So right when there's a lot of demand to travel with some willing to pay inflated fares using cash/card, there are probably more than usual wanting to upgrade using points.
Having said all this, the Northern Hemisphere summer and near that is one of the most popular times of the year to travel between there and Australia so even pre-COVID seats would be difficult to get at this time of year.
QF downgrading LHR pre-COVID from two A380s to one A380 and one 787 didn't help people get upgrades.
QF sells the points dream, but when people want them to deliver it's much harder than the advertising would make out.
And this is obviously going to disappoint a lot of travellers with failed upgrades. I was one of those. Applied for upgrade as late as at the gate and failed recently both ways and that's with Gold status at the time. They were my first failed upgrade attempts in years. There were others with even higher status who failed to get upgraded as well.
There's a lot of people who only see value in using their points for classic reward seats or upgrades and were denied the opportunity to use their points for a few years during lockdown and many that continued to earn lots of points on the ground.
So right when there's a lot of demand to travel with some willing to pay inflated fares using cash/card, there are probably more than usual wanting to upgrade using points.
Having said all this, the Northern Hemisphere summer and near that is one of the most popular times of the year to travel between there and Australia so even pre-COVID seats would be difficult to get at this time of year.
QF downgrading LHR pre-COVID from two A380s to one A380 and one 787 didn't help people get upgrades.
QF sells the points dream, but when people want them to deliver it's much harder than the advertising would make out.
Agree but they do offer the points planes but you really need to know your travel plans months/year well in advance. In saying that mid August flights to Rome at least saw every last available Business seat bar 1 upgraded with FF's approx 1 day out. That was around 10-15 seats. But looking for classic rewards on QR/EK to Australia is no availablilty until Feb next year. SQ even have lack of rewards seats on their multiple flights to Aus and they too are near capacity from loads I can see.
Points planes only make sense if there is another points plane in the other direction a few weeks or a month later or you are moving from one country to another for an extended period.
We certainly need more capacity to come back and competition to drive prices lower back towards what they were pre-COVID.
I presume you meant “real” capacity as my bone with QF is the fact they sell seats but does not have the capacity, and we are not talking about booking for domestic travel just a few days in advance.
This forum is replete with queries about changes in schedules/ticketing/metal (plane type) for international flights booked months in advance and subsequently the cancellations or flight changes that is simply not suitable or getting seats which doesn't match the ticket class at a take it or get a refund (months down the line) Jetstar attitude leaving people high and dry. Considering we are more than 6 months into restarting normal international services meant that QF has a real problem reactivating or recruiting the old staff back so even if there is the plane and the staff doesn't meant you get the service you paid for as the experienced staff will be in short supply (doesn't matter much for domestic-ironically the more profitable arm of QF- but certainly plenty of difference in long haul international flights)
Furthermore the lies and rubbish most real frequent flyers has to deal with coming from overseas-based ill-trained (and without consequences) call staff may fob off regular green (or rather red tier) travellers but to try it on for premium flyers is mind boggling, particularly when trying to change flights when given unsuitable alternatives.
Hopefully the QF executives are on notice (if ever their minions are reporting back the responses to the QF apology token gestures in forums like this) but the contempt and lack of regard for true freq flyers meant that their actions in creating capacity without real ability to carry through the transaction will likely continue into the next year.
Dan22
Dan22
Qantas - Qantas Frequent Flyer
Member since 07 Aug 2013
Total posts 165
Thought it may interest some of the community who fly Qantas and count on upgrades that majority of international flights are at total capacity week after week. This includes the A380/787 flight to London/Singapore and 787 to Rome, Los Angeles with premium cabins next to no availability and economy completely full. EK/EY flights are also completely full to Aus with QR flights having the most availability but only a handful of available seats to book and even oversold premium cabins weeks out. There are also on average high amount of commercial upgrade requests excess of 20/30+ on intl flights.
There is definitely a huge demand and it appears airlines are not able to keep up.
mviy
mviy
Member since 05 May 2016
Total posts 322
And this is obviously going to disappoint a lot of travellers with failed upgrades. I was one of those. Applied for upgrade as late as at the gate and failed recently both ways and that's with Gold status at the time. They were my first failed upgrade attempts in years. There were others with even higher status who failed to get upgraded as well.
There's a lot of people who only see value in using their points for classic reward seats or upgrades and were denied the opportunity to use their points for a few years during lockdown and many that continued to earn lots of points on the ground.
So right when there's a lot of demand to travel with some willing to pay inflated fares using cash/card, there are probably more than usual wanting to upgrade using points.
Having said all this, the Northern Hemisphere summer and near that is one of the most popular times of the year to travel between there and Australia so even pre-COVID seats would be difficult to get at this time of year.
QF downgrading LHR pre-COVID from two A380s to one A380 and one 787 didn't help people get upgrades.
QF sells the points dream, but when people want them to deliver it's much harder than the advertising would make out.
Dan22
Dan22
Qantas - Qantas Frequent Flyer
Member since 07 Aug 2013
Total posts 165
Originally Posted by mviy
And this is obviously going to disappoint a lot of travellers with failed upgrades. I was one of those. Applied for upgrade as late as at the gate and failed recently both ways and that's with Gold status at the time. They were my first failed upgrade attempts in years. There were others with even higher status who failed to get upgraded as well.
There's a lot of people who only see value in using their points for classic reward seats or upgrades and were denied the opportunity to use their points for a few years during lockdown and many that continued to earn lots of points on the ground.
So right when there's a lot of demand to travel with some willing to pay inflated fares using cash/card, there are probably more than usual wanting to upgrade using points.
Having said all this, the Northern Hemisphere summer and near that is one of the most popular times of the year to travel between there and Australia so even pre-COVID seats would be difficult to get at this time of year.
QF downgrading LHR pre-COVID from two A380s to one A380 and one 787 didn't help people get upgrades.
QF sells the points dream, but when people want them to deliver it's much harder than the advertising would make out.
mviy
mviy
Member since 05 May 2016
Total posts 322
Points planes only make sense if there is another points plane in the other direction a few weeks or a month later or you are moving from one country to another for an extended period.
We certainly need more capacity to come back and competition to drive prices lower back towards what they were pre-COVID.
XWu
XWu
Member since 09 May 2020
Total posts 197
@mviy
I presume you meant “real” capacity as my bone with QF is the fact they sell seats but does not have the capacity, and we are not talking about booking for domestic travel just a few days in advance.
This forum is replete with queries about changes in schedules/ticketing/metal (plane type) for international flights booked months in advance and subsequently the cancellations or flight changes that is simply not suitable or getting seats which doesn't match the ticket class at a take it or get a refund (months down the line) Jetstar attitude leaving people high and dry. Considering we are more than 6 months into restarting normal international services meant that QF has a real problem reactivating or recruiting the old staff back so even if there is the plane and the staff doesn't meant you get the service you paid for as the experienced staff will be in short supply (doesn't matter much for domestic-ironically the more profitable arm of QF- but certainly plenty of difference in long haul international flights)
Furthermore the lies and rubbish most real frequent flyers has to deal with coming from overseas-based ill-trained (and without consequences) call staff may fob off regular green (or rather red tier) travellers but to try it on for premium flyers is mind boggling, particularly when trying to change flights when given unsuitable alternatives.
Hopefully the QF executives are on notice (if ever their minions are reporting back the responses to the QF apology token gestures in forums like this) but the contempt and lack of regard for true freq flyers meant that their actions in creating capacity without real ability to carry through the transaction will likely continue into the next year.
dm12
dm12
Member since 08 Feb 2018
Total posts 200
Where are all the A380’s?