Reaching yearly Qantas Gold after you get to Lifetime Silver

17 replies

rk1

Qantas - Qantas Frequent Flyer

Member since 19 Oct 2015

Total posts 31

Hi. I know you get a slight reduction in status points required to retain Silver when you have reached it (250 vs 300). What happens if you get Lifetime Silver? Do you need 700 points to reach Gold for that year, 650, 600? How about if you have Lifetime Silver and have reached Platinum that year?

Thanks

brinkers

Qantas - Qantas Frequent Flyer

Member since 16 Jun 2011

Total posts 233

Hi. I know you get a slight reduction in status points required to retain Silver when you have reached it (250 vs 300). What happens if you get Lifetime Silver? Do you need 700 points to reach Gold for that year, 650, 600? How about if you have Lifetime Silver and have reached Platinum that year?


The requirements to earn or retain Gold or Platinum do not change when you attain lifetime Silver.
To attain Gold, you still need 700 Status Credits. To Retain you need 600 Status Credits
To attain Platinum, you still need 1,400 Status Credits, To retain, you need 1,200 Status Credits

Basically, all that happens is that you will never drop below silver. Everything else remains the same.

kimshep

Qantas - Qantas Frequent Flyer

Member since 11 Oct 2014

Total posts 412

.. precisely why QF 'Loyalty' is a complete misnomer for Silvers.

Let's face it, Silver's get virtually no benefits at all these days, short of being able to check-in at Business counters and one measly complimentary Lounge Pass per year. Given that Lifetime Silver requires 7,000 status credits to achieve, some Silvers are still chasing this 'benefit' after 10 or more years of (pax) loyalty.

If QF were a bit more innovative and truly wished to reward their loyal 'Silvers', they could use the suggested inducement to progress their 'Silvers' toward Gold status. The 'benefits of LTS are so meagre that I would wager that - after achieving this level - a considerable number would question the 'value' of starting the process over again - of achieving another 7,000 status credits to bounce to LTG.

Like a lot of FF programs, QF's 'loyalty' is friendly to itself - and agnostic to it's customers. After all, your 'Silver' base is where you should be seeking to grow your base of higher-tiered flyers. Dysfunctional, IMHO.

Steve987

Member since 23 Feb 2015

Total posts 268

I agree that the LTS population is at the moment an unmined opportunity for QF.


I completely get why the benefits are equivalent to Silver as, after all it is Life Time SILVER, but a level of additional recognition for long time loyalty would likely get returned in spades. 

As a simple example, the one lounge pass annually is useless in retirement when you are most likely travelling with someone, so you are most likely going to choose your airline on price. If they upped this to four passes for LTS, while leaving it at one for annual S, then I would expect more often than not they would sell four flights in line with the four passes. 

The other thing they could easily do for LTS is give Gold equivalent baggage concessions, while keeping the difference between S and G for annual earners. Again, a cheap thing to give that may alter the individuals purchase decision.

hakkinen5

Qantas - Qantas Frequent Flyer

Member since 20 Aug 2014

Total posts 206

Totally agree Steve on all of your points there. LTS gets no more recognition than ordinary silver and that needs to be looked at.

rk1

Qantas - Qantas Frequent Flyer

Member since 19 Oct 2015

Total posts 31

I would like to see more incentives to reach lifetime gold such as starting the year with a anumber of status credits (encouraging you to go for yearly gold as a step to LTG). As you are already LTS the 250 retain silver credit level is not there for you on LTS and you really get no advantage over bronze  in attempting to reach yearly gold.

RobJ

QantasFF

Member since 16 Nov 2012

Total posts 7

Yes, I've been in this position for some years and although most years I make Gold anyway, sadly I doubt I'll live long enough to make LG. As I'm a life member of QC being Gold is mostly useful for other OW airlines; I don't suppose QF have any interest in making my life easier on other carriers, though it would be no skin off their nose.

Dachie

Qantas - Qantas Frequent Flyer

Member since 05 Feb 2017

Total posts 3

Agree, pity Qantas does not encourage loyalty more. Dropped down from Gold at the end of last year after 3 years at that level but attained Lifetime Silver, WOW, still have to get 700 credits this year to get back to Gold. Have enough flying coming up to do that but Lifetime Silver should mean a little more than it does.

cloud-9

British Airways - Executive Club

Member since 28 Mar 2014

Total posts 10

QF are actually pretty generous with regard to this.


Most airlines - BA for one - insist you earn a certain number of status credits each year with no reduction for retention.

Their tiers are 
Bronze (QF silver equivalent) 300
solver (QF Gold equivalent) 600
Gold 1500
LTG 35,000

LTS does not exist

No carry over, and no retention discount..


Rezzadogs

Qantas - Qantas Frequent Flyer

Member since 12 Jan 2017

Total posts 8

I would have thought your incentive would be to get to LTG, and the LTS is just an interim step. Sure not a lot of benefits, but silver is not an enormous amount of loyalty show by you to Qantas either.

Fair enough, you may not fly a lot, and the flying you do is loyal to them. But when you consider how many customers are platinum, and then how many more are gold, then you may have an idea of how highly ranked you are of all of their loyal customers.

Lifetime status is not a feature of most frequent flyer programmes. I'd suggest Qantas are doing something for you already.

kimshep

Qantas - Qantas Frequent Flyer

Member since 11 Oct 2014

Total posts 412

@Rezzadogs,

Sorry, but I do not agree with your premise.

  1. In the example I give ie: "Given that Lifetime Silver requires 7,000 status credits to achieve, some Silvers are still chasing this 'benefit' after 10 or more years of (pax) loyalty". Ergo to achieve Lifetime Silver over a 10yr period, you would need to acquire 700 status credits per year to qualify for the 7,000 SC threshold.
  2. According to my knowledge of mathematics, that 700 SC's per year is the same number required to achieve Gold - on an annual basis. Let's also remember that after achieving annual Gold, the threshold to retain drops to 600 SC's per year. In the case of LTS, it remains at 700, each year.
  3. So, in a perverse manner, it might actually be argued that Silvers chasing LTS may well be more valuable to QF than Golds.
  4. "Sure not a lot of benefits, but silver is not an enormous amount of loyalty show by you to Qantas either". To remain in 'disagreement mode' I would also remind you that on Red-eDeals (the most common fare) 70 one way SYD-MEL flights per annum would yield 700 SC, at a rate of 10 SC per sector. That is not an inconsequential amount of 'loyalty' in anyone's language. Especially when multiplied by a factor of 10 over a ten year period.
  5. I think your comments reflect a lack of knowledge of just how few Platinum One's, Platinums and Gold members QFF realistically has, compared to it's total overall membership of 11.5 million. QF don't publish information on these numbers (except for total membership), but I do recall seeing an article some 18 months ago suggesting that total Plat / Plat1 combined membership is less than 10K. Add Golds (maybe 50-70K) & Silvers (perhaps 200K) and you probably equate to 5% of total membership at very best.

Last editedby kimshep at Mar 16, 2017, 05:31 PM.

kimshep

Qantas - Qantas Frequent Flyer

Member since 11 Oct 2014

Total posts 412

"QF are actually pretty generous with regard to this.

Their tiers are 

Bronze (QF silver equivalent) 300

solver (QF Gold equivalent) 600

Gold 1500

LTG 35,000

LTS does not exist

No carry over, and no retention discount"


@cloud-9

Bear in mind that BA's Executive Club program offers features which QFF doesn't:

  1. BA Bronze members (QFF Silver equivalent) are offered Priority Boarding.
  2. Priority Baggage Arrival Services
  3. BA Silver (QF Gold equivalent) achieved at 600 SC's, not 700 as per QF. Note the OP's first post.

Offering LTS (as QF does) is relatively easy to do, when no additional benefit is offered. OTOH, BA's Executive Club Bronze offers tangible and real benefits to Bronze (QFF Silver) irrespective  the lack of an LTS.

Last editedby kimshep at Mar 16, 2017, 02:08 PM.

Steve987

Member since 23 Feb 2015

Total posts 268

My point here is mainly that there is an untapped win win available and that Qantas would be smart to tap it.


My suggestions of giving an extra 3 lounge passes per annum and giving Gold level baggage allowances to LTS would cost Qantas next to nothing to deliver but would, I imagine, be highly valued and would generate additional flight sales by people who have clearly are used to flying Qantas over an extended period.

My suggestion for LTG (relative to annual Gold) would be Platinum level baggage allowances and access to international First Class check in counters (with all the perks that comes with). They would only have access to qclub/international business lounges and not F lounges, just to be clear!

trevor

Member since 22 Jun 2013

Total posts 90

One benefit that would add greatly to LTS is if LTSs were always above standard Silvers in the upgrade request system, regardless of time. Whereas at the moment, given this is not a published benefit, one assumes that a LTS and standard Silver are differentiated merely by when the upgrade request was made. Just a thought...

Steve987

Member since 23 Feb 2015

Total posts 268

Upgrade priority for LT v Annual (both Silver and Gold) is another easy and inexpensive benefit they could give away Trevor, agreed.

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