LTG Life Time Gold - who actually uses this?

[juddles]

Hi all,

there has always been much discussion surrounding this benefit / goal within QF's program. Many have attained it, still many more are actively seeking it. But who here actually uses it?

What I am trying to understand is who has either dropped back to LTG and now enjoys using its benefits, or gained the qualification and swapped programs but make use of it.

I love having the "security" of never losing some sort of lounge access whilst QF and One World exist, but I also have the opinion that most people who have suffered so much travel that they gained it, would probably rarely, if ever, fly less than J in their future anyway.

I suspect it is a brilliant marketing tool that QF has used to sway our travel spend decisions to successfully get every last drop out of us.

Am I wrong?

 

[sudoer]

Agree if you are going to fly paid J for the rest of your life LTG holds little value, but for those who fly Y or have a large stash of points for upgrades and awards, I think LTG does have significant benefits.

 

[opusman]

Good for short flights in Europe or the Americas where you can cope in Y for an hour or two but still want lounges and priority boarding I guess.

 

[JohnK]

Lifetime Gold will be good when you're not flying that often but can still access the lounges and complimentary seating.

 

[Steady]

My home port doesn't have J so I have no choice but to fly whY for those sectors - so LTG will be very beneficial to me

 

[Deleted member]

I was beginning to wonder about the benefit myself. I have LTQP and plan on fly less often in the future, but will still,fly J (long haul) when I do

 

[Basalt]

I'm seriously starting to wonder about the utility of it too. In my mid-40's but only got onto the QFF bus a few years ago so only have 2500-ish SCs, gaining SG every year looks to continue indefinitely, so by the time I gain LTG in about 18 years at the current rate SWMBO and I will be in a position to afford paid J all the time. On a purely objective level, can't really ever see us needing LTG, unless we stop flying Oneworld in the future or Oneworld breaks up.

 

[RooFlyer]

Add others have said, ideal for short haul economy flights, domestic or international. Even though I like my J, I think it's ludicrous to pay an extra $1k for an hour's flight.

 

[juddles]

Has anyone done any sort of calculation on roughly what total spend is required with QF to attain those 14,000 SC? I know that many choices for spend I have made were influenced by the whole status credit game with QF. I suspect over the time/spend required to get LTG, choices made on BFOD would have saved tens of thousands of dollars.

 

[Matt_01]

I have LTG so only time will tell what it will mean to me. I will most likely remain P1 to some time mid 2020 maybe 2021 so it could be 2022 or 2023 before LTG comes into play. That also assumes I do not retain WP ongoing for a while.

 

[mrsterryn]

Only started with points and all their ramifications a couple of years ago (I didn't read enough when I started )
We are LTS and moving towards LTG. Even now we don't always fly Business.. short flights, for example Asia , are premium or economy.
On occasions when I am having a quick trip to LA I again will.have PE or economy . So LTG down the track will be handy when I finally lose platinum status

 

[Pleb Status]

I qualified QF LTG numerous years ago and now sit just a few hundred SC short of the mythical LTP...

I fell back to SG/LTG from WP for the first time last year and so far I have not had to use my LTG status at all as the few QF/EK/OW flights I have taken since then have all been in J or F.

Unless some significant changes occur in the FF landscape in the short to medium term, any future flights will be award travel in cabins where my LTG status will not be required and/or useless.

In the very long term (hopefully >20 years), I may get some use of LTG status. However, by then, QF may have enhanced SG/LTG to a level that it may be effectively useless anyway.

If QF introduced LTP at 28,000 LTSC (a major change to the FF landscape), the above would be significantly different...

 

[sudoer]

any future flights will be award travel in cabins where my LTG status will not be required and/or useless.

LTG does help with F/J QF award availability though so perhaps not entirely useless?

 

[serfty]

Has anyone done any sort of calculation on roughly what total spend is required with QF to attain those 14,000 SC? I know that many choices for spend I have made were influenced by the whole status credit game with QF. I suspect over the time/spend required to get LTG, choices made on BFOD would have saved tens of thousands of dollars.

When P! was introduced in 2011 I did a rough estimate and came up with a minimum figure of around $10k to attain.

So, at that time LT SG if starting from scratch would take nearly four P1 qualifying years and cost at least $39,000.

WP (re)qualification can be earned from around $4000 by mainly getting used to AA premium domestic cabins, so that's 12 years or $48000

(None of this take Double SC promotions into account.)

 

[Basalt]

Has anyone done any sort of calculation on roughly what total spend is required with QF to attain those 14,000 SC? I know that many choices for spend I have made were influenced by the whole status credit game with QF. I suspect over the time/spend required to get LTG, choices made on BFOD would have saved tens of thousands of dollars.

How about this for a base line:
700 Red e deals SYD-BNE-SYD = $196,000 for 14,000 SC (assuming cheapest standard red e deal of $140)
700 Red e deals MEL-SYD-MEL = $252,000 for 14,000 SC (assuming cheapest standard red e deal of $180)

Then one could do all sorts of other best case 'baselines'
e.g. 44 trans-Tasman J return booked on sale is ~ $1,200 = $105,600 or $52,800 if one managed to get DSCs

 

[dk4]

I think the "All About Me" approach to life is best graphed as an inverted bell curve. We start out as infants, children and teenagers high up on the left, and as we move through life we swoop down to the bottom of the curve, where life gets to the point of being about all sorts of things other than yourself. Then as you go past mid-life, the curve starts to swing up again, thinking "damn it - time to make it more about me again".

So I agree, with only a couple of thousand points to go myself until QFF LTG, I have ditched a lot of QF flying for far better alternatives (in the right now) on other airlines (mostly J & F).

For domestic flights, I try to spend as little time in airports as possible, so lounge access on very short flights (where I might still fly Y) isn't really a huge priority... PLUS, ever since the collapse of AN / airport privatisation, retail in Australian domestic terminals has come forward in leaps and bounds IMO - as I walk past some of the nice coffee shops or bars in them these days, I think to myself "they might actually be better places to find a seat for a quick pre-flight drink, than the crowded zoos many lounges have become".

 

[levelnine]

as I walk past some of the nice coffee shops or bars in them these days, I think to myself "they might actually be better places to find a seat for a quick pre-flight drink, than the crowded zoos many lounges have become".

That is certainly the case in Melbourne at the moment.

 

[RichardMEL]

In my mid 40's(ish ) I have LTG. Sure, I'm P1, so even if I stopped flying and with assumed soft landings I could stop flying today and not "need" it ntil late 2020 probably.

So not something that, hopefully, will personally affect me for awhile. However it's an interesting conversation.

On the one hand, let's say I stoip flying now, well then whatever status I have is irrelevant because I won't use it.

However, what if I stopped flying now, but for some reason or other come back in 2023? Well, at least that base status is there. That is assuming QFF hasn't been totally "enhanced" away (which obviously is an issue when they say "Lifetime" status it means EITHER the member or the program ).

Realistically I think LT status (I am a few years away from LTG with United, which would provide *G for "life") offers a "cushion" for the future.

Let's say someone does a lot of busiiness travl which props up their status, paid J etc... but they retre, or go to a different job and that stops? Then hey, there's something.. and obviously useful for leisure travel.. even if it's MEL-OOL.. pop into the QC for a few drinks why not?

I figure the idea of LT status was designed with the idea that most folks who get there would be older (I know there are very young high status pax out there) and it's seen as a "little bonus" for "life after work" type thig... when you may only want to take a once a year trip to hawaii or europe or whatever... you wouldn't fly enough to gain status but having that OWS can be very very helpful.

Of course nothing is guaranteed... loyalty program policies can and do change, and it's not something to fully rely on in future, but for now it's kind of nice to know that say I was grounded for say 5 years for medical stuff (I have previously) I could come back and potentially at least have a base that has some tangible benefits.

Many people say they think SG is the "sweet spot" of the QF program, so LTG at the very least is hardly a negative to have, even if perhaps one never fully uses it in reality.

Though I imagine over the next few years there will be many more lifetimers taking odd flights here and there.

I'm also near 28k LTSC and yeah, would be nice to have LTP, but totally NOT holding my breath!

 

[DavidFlynn]

Interesting discussion pont, Juddles. I'm in agreement with (and probably same boat as) those here who describe LTG as a 'cushion' for the future. I hit LTG quite a few years back after a lot of travel as a technology journo (thankfully in the days when there was a lot of that to Asia, USA and Europe and almost all of it was in J, that's not the case these days) and while I still work to retain Platinum each year, that won't be the case when I retire, but at least then I'll have LTG in my back pocket for the decades to follow.

 

[MEL_Traveller]

When P! was introduced in 2011 I did a rough estimate and came up with a minimum figure of around $10k to attain.

So, at that time LT SG if starting from scratch would take nearly four P1 qualifying years and cost at least $39,000.

WP (re)qualification can be earned from around $4000 by mainly getting used to AA premium domestic cabins, so that's 12 years or $48000

(None of this take Double SC promotions into account.)

It was a lot easier back in the early 2000s with F credits for US flights. I think I was getting platinum back then for around AUD2000.