Author: Matt Graham
South America and Back… The Long Way
This week’s trip report takes us to South America and the Pacific islands, as our member RooFlyer flies, drives and cruises around Chile, Argentina and French Polynesia! The trip began with a flight to Santiago on LATAM Airlines. This flight was direct but our member would be doing some “island hopping” on the way home, stopping in … Continued
Qantas Phasing Out Lounge Passes
Qantas is phasing out the card-sized Qantas Club lounge passes that come with certain credit cards and are given out to Qantas flyers with Silver-level status. These physical passes will instead by replaced by digital passes that can be accessed online. The reason for the change would appear to be to combat the sale of lounge … Continued
Qantas Platinum Status Shortcut
Qantas has begun offering its frequent flyers the option to “purchase” Platinum status using their frequent flyer points. Multiple AFF members have been contacted by Qantas over the phone with the targeted offer. The asking price? 100,000 Qantas points. In each case, the contacted member had already held Platinum status for several years but had … Continued
Northbound to Alaska
It was a trip five years in the making and it certainly did not disappoint! Dog sledding, the Northern Lights, a train trip through the wilderness and a flight north of the Arctic Circle were all highlights as our member Justinf travelled with his sister to Alaska. So I just returned from a two week … Continued
Virgin Boosts Extra-Legroom Seats
Virgin Australia will re-brand its extra-legroom Economy seats as “Economy X”, adding additional benefits including priority boarding and dedicated overhead locker space for Economy X passengers. As part of the new product launch, Virgin will reconfigure its Boeing 737 aircraft to offer three rows of extra-legroom seating at the front of the cabin. This is … Continued
Qantas Tipping Scam Returns
The tipping scam plaguing Qantas’ Los Angeles lounge appears to have returned, with Qantas flyers reporting falling victim to the scam as recently as last month. The scam, which was first reported on AFF two years ago, involves the showers in Qantas’ First and Business class lounges in Los Angeles. When showing lounge guests to … Continued
737 Business Class: Qantas vs Virgin Australia
How do Qantas and Virgin Australia’s domestic 737 Business class products compare? Our members have previously posted comparative reviews of Qantas & Virgin’s A330 Business class, which is offered on longer domestic flights between Perth and the east coast of Australia. This week, AFF veteran swanning_it has posted an informative review comparing the short-haul Boeing … Continued
Virgin Launches Melbourne-Hong Kong Flights
Virgin Australia is expanding into Asia with the launch of 5x weekly flights between Melbourne and Hong Kong. The flights will operate to a rather bizarre schedule with the first flight departing for Hong Kong on 5 July, 2017. VA87 will depart Melbourne for Hong Kong at 10.25am on Mondays and 9.40am on Wednesdays, while … Continued
Status Matches for Virgin Australia Frequent Flyers
Status matches are a great way to gain status with another airline for free, simply by leveraging your existing status. From time to time, airlines will try to attract the frequent flyers of other airlines by offering a complimentary status match. Sometimes such status matches are promoted by the airline, while at other times it … Continued