I’ve been a Qantas FF for many years, with all my corporate travel and points accumulating to this program. When travelling for personal reasons, I try to use my Qantas points for upgrades or classic rewards bookings.
In my new job, we are required to travel Virgin for all domestic travel (I travel fortnightly and am almost platinum on Velocity). As a result of the change to Virgin, I am rolling down through the tiers in Qantas, and will lose my gold status in eight months.
For international travel for work, we can use any airline for travel to Washington in business class (with the added perk of going first class if choosing Etihad).
I am trying to work out which airline I should direct my international travel towards. The option of first class is very appealing, but wondering if I should do two business trips with Qantas to maintain my gold status (to help with future upgrade requests / classic reward bookings).
If you fly frequently with Qantas for leisure on routes where Qantas operates their own aircraft, it may well be a good idea to push some of your business trips through Qantas/partners to maintain your status. If your company pays or if the fare is essentially the same that is; I wouldn’t pay considerably more for the same fare out of my own pocket. Bronze and Silver grunts have a slim to nil chance of nailing upgrades and classic flight award availability is generally poor, so definitely worth maintaining the status if it doesn’t cost you more to do so.
I’m just thinking, if your work says you fly VA for domestic but Etihad’s an option for first upgrades if you go with them to Washington, might it not be better to align yourself with Etihad other than Virgin? I’m just thinking because domestic business is eh… like if you’re flying an hour and a half to Melbourne, who cares if you can snag an upgrade? The long haul is where it gets interesting. Given their cross-accrual relationship I would be putting your Etihad guest on your VA bookings rather than Velocity, because in the long run the status and points with Etihad are surely more useful if you plan on flying them long haul and snagging a first upgrade.
You can credit your revenue flights to the FF program to best suit your needs.
For etihad first class, you could possibly credit it to a One World Airline to maintain your one world status.
Also check out statusmatcher.com to see whether the new FF program of choice offers status match from Qantas.
If you are still keen to maintain Qantas Gold, you can look on AFF or other relevant websites for ideas of cheap status runs or do business class for your upcoming travel in the next 8 months.
Yes, think about Airberlin. I don’t know what their earn and burn rates are like, but status with them will be recognised by all OneWorld airlines (including QF), Etihad and Virgin Australia.
Last time I checked, both Virgin Australia and Qantas flights earned redeemable points with them, but only the latter earned status. I presume Etihad flights earn status, though you might want to check. Lastly, you might want to check if you need to fly some sectors on their metal to qualify.