What's your favourite airline?

lmao, so you pay thousands on airfares and think that giving the crew lollies will get you better service? they're not children (with exception of ryanair attendants)

everyone has different standards. and it likely wouldn't have made a difference whether you gave them the lollies or not. you just seem to be easily pleased. zing! another wrongful accusation

depends, flipside is having to move (getting woken up) with someone that needs to go to toilet regularly (or two in a 3x config), getting hit by drinks cart (or having to move legs/elbows in anticipation).

jumping up to get your bag is pointless and you usually need to queue and wait (sometimes ages) for the doors to open anyway. then there's time waiting for bags anyway (can be up to an hour). or immigration (better off profiling and switching lines according to nationality sometimes). ie, don't line up with gypsies, syrian immigrants, indians etc.

oh and then there's the 'could you please get my bag too?' potential situation, when it's an old short asian lady with prawn crackers and multiple boxes of dried salty snacks, and of course, you comply (because it'd be rude not to), and don't even get a thank you or acknowledging smile for the favour. maybe i should've packed some fantales....

 

Most public interaction is thoughtless automation. It takes very little to be elevated above the faceless crowd and get priority attention. Small kind gestures can make a world of difference to how individuals treat you.

What a crew member certainly doesn't care a whit about, is how much you paid in airfares to help make their bosses richer.

 

therein lies the problem.

 

Went Royal Brunei on my last international flight.

+ Cheap way into Europe (Heathrow)
+ Fresh Dreamliners
+ Friendly service

- In flight entertainment
- Brunei airport
- Also stops in Dubai so it splits the trip into 3 ~8 hour flights. I didn't mind it, but might put off some
- No alcohol on board (but you can BYO)

Also flown on Qatar and would pick them over RB if they were only $100 - $200 more.

 

try it some day , it's simply about bringing some unexpected niceness to a job which i personally would dread . The fact you can't see the effect my simple gesture has i think is lost on you . We also used to travel with kids from birth and would always carry a few little lolly bags with some earplugs and note from the bub to hand out to those around us , again the difference that made to ppl's attitude made everyones flight enjoyable .

 

These little things do, indeed, make a difference.

We are currently having work done in our apartment, tiles being lifted, new floors, cabinets - lots of stuff... We bought a bottle of wine (about $15) for each neighbour around us (left, right and below). Total cost - $75, with a personally apology for the noise we were about to make.

They have all been brilliant, not a peep or complaint from any of them. When they see us, they smile, and ask how it's going, and ask if they can take a peek when it's all done.

Z..

 

Thought I'd post here as opposed to starting a new thread.

I've never paid a great deal of attention to frequent flyer memberships, however got a membership with Qantas during the recent promotion where it was free.

There is an offer for an Qantas Ultimate Amex card with 100,000 points at the moment. The missus and are I heading to Europe next May (2018), would somebody be able to give me a rundown on the best way to snag two seats in business class? From the reading I've done, you book a flexible economy ticket and then use points to upgrade. Is this correct? And if so, roughly how many points would that cost per person?

Any insight would be great.

 

Refer her get her to sign up too so she gets another 100k points + bonuses.

Also read here, https://www.ausbt.com.au/the-smartest-ways-to-spend-50-000-qantas-frequent-flyer-points

 

100k probably just enough to do 1 way business for 1 of you if you get a cheaper flight. You going to need more points

 

what type of fare did you buy ?

it will cost around 72,000 points per person per leg

 

Yep, being nice to workers anywhere tends to get much better results than tips or otherwise paying extra though I find kind words and smiles to be just as effective but completely free.

My main route is MEL-BKK (about 10-12 return trips per year) and are handled by Emirates/Qantas/Jetstar/Cathay Pacific and Malaysian Airlines for One World carriers.

CX is excellent but the time wasted getting foot massages at the Hong Kong First lounge could be better spent now that Qantas gives considerably fewer status credits for routes they do themselves.

MH is good too but same problem, it's indirect and QFF gives less status credits.

Jetstar's J tickets are not flexible enough for me (after losing a return ticket entirely for a no-show I realised I can't use them as I need complete flexibility even though they go straight from MEL-BKK which is so convenient). Jetstar flight attendants are quite pleasant and tend to be more racially diverse than Qantas (which is a plus imho) but their seats are uncomfortable (I have a bad cervical spine so an upright seat means an extra day of recovery plus a trip to the physio).

Qantas/Emirates are via SYD and are the main ones I use, I like Emirates seats/services/flight attendants better - they tend to be more pleasant and happy while the Qantas ones tend to be more mixed (you get really good ones who actually go that extra mile to make you comfortable but you often get these unhappy ones particularly on domestic which take a bit of coaxing which can be difficult after a long connection). Emirates also has a first class cabin and usually an oversold business cabin so I got op-up'd more than half the time (QFF WP) but my last flight with them was in an A380 which had a massive (and half empty) J cabin so I suspect this may not be the norm in future.

Qantas I find has more compatible passengers, I almost always make friends on the plane/lounge when I fly Qantas but Emirates passengers tend to be less friendly or too friendly older ladies.

 

Fark me - what is the miles flown/point ratio for Qantas? That's bordering on first class one way on my miles program...

Z...

 

I've just done a Europe trip.

Qantas Q400 CBR-SYD
Emirates 380 SYD-DXB
Emirates 777 DXB-WAW
LOT E170 WAW-GDN

and

LOT Q400 GDN-WAW
Emirates 777 WAW-DXB
Qantas 380 DXB-SYD
Qantas Q400 SYD-CBR


Must say, being back to back, it's obvious Qantas cheaped out on cabin fitout on their planes compared to Emirates.

Work are cheap, so economy only for me.

The Emirates 380 had:
- better seats. After 14 hours, I felt better getting off of the EK380 than the QF380, I had a 12 hour layover in Dubai on the way back, so not comparing 14 hrs bum-in-seat vs. 20hrs bum-in-seat WAW-DXB-SYD
- the starlight roof panels and day/night lighting (which, while complete wank, is nice and shows they weren't being cheap even in cattle class)
- and better entertainment system and content (although forcing 5 minutes of ads before each show/movie was excessive - I'm flying cattle class I'm not going to be buying ultra-premium property in London or Dubai).


my recommendation, buy some good noise cancelling headphones, even with nothing playing, the quiet they provide is golden. I've got a pair of the new(ish) Sennheiser HXC550. Still can't sleep on a plane, but at least I don't leave with a headache form the drone.

 

very rough but pretty spot on , the points below are for international upgrades


https://www.qantas.com/fflyer/do/dyns/upgradeCalculator

Frequent Flyer CategoryUpgrade Travel ClassQantas points to upgrade (one way)
Classic Flight Reward Economy > Business124,000
Classic Flight Reward Economy > Premium Economy90,000
Economy> Business96,000
Economy > Premium Economy60,000
Flexible EconomyBusiness60,000
Flexible EconomyPremium Economy24,000
Classic Flight Reward Premium EconomyBusiness85,000
Premium Economy or Flexible Premium EconomyBusiness60,000
Business or Flexible BusinessFirst60,000

 

Had a chance to Travel in Emirates recently. The experience was really good, just one thing which annoyed me was the stay in between the flight.

Other than that, have traveled in Qatar Airways, Srilankan Airlines.

 

Flew QF F, AA J, SQ J latest trip around the world.

Felt QF F was pretty shit and nothing to right home about (MEL-LHR)- Food was ok but apart from that...

I'm normally a SQ flyer (to/from China 5-6 times a year) and absolutely loved the A350 in J SFO-SIN-MEL

A bloody long leg at 17hrs but great service and great seat. Wife agreed with me too

 

Malindo air (KUL-DMK)

Used to be a typical LCC but now fly out of KLIA1, feed you something decent, have inflight entertainment but still pretty low prices

 

Cathay
Emirates
Qantas
Air Asia
Air NZ
Virgin
Dragon
China South/Eastern/etc...
Air Malaysia
Jetstar
Tiger

I go to China about 4 times a year, domestic travel about 6 times a year, and try and have a holiday once a year.

 

Domestically i prefer Virgin over jetstar, pay more for Virgin but everything from service to food etc is a higher level, Qantas out of Launceston is only a little twin propeller plane so fuck that!

In 2011 flew EVA air Economy one year to Vancouver. Only went them as it was the cheapest price at the time in hindsight i would of payed extra to get a direct flight, 9 hours Brisbane to Taipei then 11 hours from Taipei to Vancouver with 1 day stopover!. EVA were pretty good, friendly staff the had a couple of options when it came to meal times, wasn't 1 meal fits all so that was good.

Probably a 7 out of 10 for those guys

End of 2014 flew Air Canada directly to Vancouver, by fuck its a long flight, 15 hours ish from Sydney, but getting off knowing that i didn't have go another 9 hours was rewarding haha, went economy also this time, food was pretty good also. Staff were alright also.


In November i'll will be venturing back over, but this time i'm looking at going premium economy, will be paying about 3400 compared to 2200 to standard economy, can anyone tell me, what i'm actually getting/what do you get that's not in the class below? is price difference compared to standard economy? is it worth it etc?

 

Here is a quick review, https://www.ausbt.com.au/review-air-canada-premium-economy-boeing-777-200lr-sydney-vancouver

Paying $25 for lounge sounds good for PE passengers