Author: Matt Graham
Emirates Massively Raises Carrier Charges
Emirates has massively increased the carrier charges that Qantas Frequent Flyer members need to pay when redeeming a reward seat, without warning. This is the airline-imposed surcharge that needs to be paid in addition to airport and government-levied fees and taxes when booking a Classic Reward flight. For a round-trip Emirates Business Class reward flight … Continued
1,000 Free Etihad Miles + Win a Trip to Abu Dhabi
Etihad Airways is giving away 100 all-expenses-paid trips to Abu Dhabi for Australian members of its Etihad Guest frequent flyer program. A special “members flight” from Sydney to Abu Dhabi will depart on 2 April 2022, taking 100 lucky competition winners and their “plus ones” on a four-night trip to the United Arab Emirates capital. … Continued
Podcast #79: Loyalty Learnings from a 25+ Year Career
Phil Hawkins has worked with loyalty programs since 1993, finishing his career recently as the Chief Operating Officer for Flybuys in Australia. With this amount of experience, Phil knows what makes a good (or bad!) loyalty program and what mistakes to avoid when designing loyalty programs and promotional offers. Ever wondered why retail loyalty programs … Continued
Loyalty Learnings from a 25+ Year Career – AIR079
Phil Hawkins has worked in loyalty programs for 25 years, and was most recently the Chief Operating Officer at Flybuys in Australia. In this episode, Matt chats to Phil about some of the things he’s learned during his career in loyalty. Find out what happens behind the scenes, what makes a good (or bad) … Continued
Virgin Boosts Status Credits Until 30 June 2022
Virgin Australia will now give 45-100% more Velocity status credits on all flights taken from October 2021 until June 2022, following a 3-month extension to this promotion which was previously due to expire at the end of March. This offer is available to all Velocity Frequent Flyer members and will even be applied retrospectively to … Continued
Qantas Frequent Flyers Blocked from Redeeming Qatar Qsuites
Update (25 March 2022): There have been some changes to the Qatar Airways award seat access given to Qantas Frequent Flyer members. Qatar Airways Business Class is popular with many Australian frequent flyers, especially as all flights to Australia will soon feature the airline’s award winning Qsuites product at the front of the plane. Qatar … Continued
Qantas Forces Customer to Pay for Unnecessary COVID Test
A Qantas passenger is $79 out of pocket after staff refused to let her check-in without a COVID test certificate that she didn’t actually need. The passenger, who is the wife of AFF member gidxg03, was travelling with Qantas from Melbourne to London via Darwin, with an onward connection to Ireland. At the time of … Continued
Is a Travel Agent Renaissance Coming?
The coronavirus pandemic has sadly forced many bricks-and-mortar travel agencies to close, putting many skilled travel agents out of jobs. To make matters worse for surviving travel agencies, airlines everywhere are now trying to bolster their own recoveries by slashing commissions paid to travel agents. Yet, as international travel slowly rebounds, experienced travel agents are … Continued
Good Qantas Business Reward Availability to Delhi
Classic Flight Reward availability on Qantas long-haul flights in Business Class has been rather limited lately, with seats unavailable on many of Qantas’ popular international routes. But one Qantas route with ample award availability at the moment in Business Class is Melbourne-Delhi, a route that Qantas started flying in December 2021. Qantas currently flies 4x … Continued