Qantas to unveil new plan for points
Qantas will unveil a much anticipated change to its frequent flyer program on Monday, in a move designed to appease members struggling to redeem points in the way they most want.
High-status frequent flyers are among those invited to the announcement at the Qantas head office in Mascot, where CEO Vanessa Hudson will join new Loyalty boss Andrew Glance.
The development of a new flight rewards product to sit alongside “classic rewards” comes after widespread frustration with a 15 million member loyalty scheme, aired during parliamentary hearings last year.
Scores of submissions from frequent flyers expressed anger and disappointment at having worked to accumulate thousands of points, only to find they were almost impossible to use.
In February, then Loyalty CEO Olivia Wirth acknowledged members’ “biggest bugbear” was the difficulty in getting premium cabin seats on popular routes internationally.
“That’s a problem we’ve really been looking at over the past 12 months of how do we solve this, how do we ensure we keep our member engagement high?” Ms Wirth told an investor briefing, shortly before she left Qantas.
“Today we can indicate there will be an announcement a few weeks down the track which will help solve this pain point and introduce a new flight rewards product.”
Since then, Qantas has confirmed the new product, expected to be known as “classic plus” would be in addition to the existing classic rewards scheme and points plus pay. The positioning meant frequent flyers would pay fewer points for “classic plus” seats than points plus pay, but more than for classic rewards.
The cost of a “classic plus” seat would be dependent on the fare, with economy travellers paying about one point for a cent, and business class a point for 1.5 cents.
It means a $1500 economy Sydney-LA fare might be available for 150,000 frequent flyer points.