QF v EK 'Agreement'
 

How (and why) on earth does Qantas get any business through their agreement with EK?

I've just been doing my homework to book a flight for my wife, in business class, to London. Obviously, I looked at all the airlines serving the route but my gob has been well and truly smacked by the QF price and I'd like to know if any of our learned colleagues can argue QF's corner.

Emirates flights = $7876
QF, using either QF or EK flight numbers on exactly the same flights as above e.g EK421 or QF8421 = $11977.

$4101 difference, on the same flights, just to use the QF website :eek:

Why would anyone pay $4100 more to book through QF and, given that, how is QF making any money on the routes?

It's no secret that I can't stand QF and had the greatest pleasure in telling Mr Joyce where he could stick my Platinum One card but this is not a QF 'digging' session; I just can't help but wonder where this sort of agreement is going to lead for Australian aviation and those employed by the biggest Oz player :uhoh:

What are the travel dates?

QF load factors SYD-DXB are supposed to be high, so SOMEONE is travelling on them.

the higher the price the more frequent flyer points the upgrades have to use, I would suggest Qantas plan is to reduce the burden on the billions of points they owe at minimum cost.thats why employees are hard pressed at finding an empty J class seat over the last year. Maybe!

A few months ago I had to book a seat from Dubai to Sydney using points. EK Business with QF points - 96,000.

I then looked at booking PER-BNE for a family member at the same time. Economy - 120,000!

I'm not seeing logic there, but hey if they're giving away cheap Emirates business class seats and giving me Qantas points, I'm all for it!

morno

Not unusual where code shares are concerned, it can be cheaper on the airline that actually operates the flight or it can be cheaper booking through the code share partner, which is where the search engines such as Kayak come in.

Be aware that if you book through a partner you may not get the tier/status miles in the FFP program which is worth considering if you need the points to maintain your current level or are close to moving up a notch. You should get the normal miles though.

The other day watched the screen at a departure gate as it cycled through nine different flight numbers and airlines sharing the same aircraft. I wonder if any two people on board actually paid the same price for their tickets.

A few suggestions of frequent flyer reasons for the difference but I can't imagine even QF believe their FF program is THAT good (which it's not). Morno, you'd get the QF FF points if you booked through EK and lodged your QF number but you wouldn't get the status points; the only way to get those is to book through QF (as Metro pointed out). However, $4100 is a LOT to pay for some status points and it would take a great many lounge visits to justify that money.

I've basically given up trying to use the points of any of the airlines. I did have a couple of successful attempts with QF but normally it was 'computer says no', even when I was talking to the 'personal assistants' in Platinum One. Singapore Airlines want about 500 trillion points, plus $$s just to waitlist you and, to be honest, we don't have enough EK or EY points to make much difference.

When this agreement first came into being I was trying to do the same thing as now. Initially I was going to use QF points but then I had it pointed out to me by the Missus that LHR-HEL-SIN-MEL-PER was not the best way to get her back from the UK, so I switched to paying for a normal ticket. Again, using exactly the same flights but with an '8' in front of it to make it QF, there was a $300 difference. The QF lady said they were in the process of re-alligning the prices so they would be the same and, as it was early days, I believed her. Time has passed and $300 has turned into $4100.....that's a different kind of 'aligning' to what I'd expect :hmm:

I did have a sensible PM asking if I'd got the dollar types correct, as a mix up with AU$ and US$ could account for the difference and would be the type of cock-up I'd make but, no. I re-visited the EK website and checked that everything was in AU$ and the difference still remains.

I guess EK will be getting the business even though I'd rather buy Australian :bored:

Edited to add:

Curiouser and curiouser. I've just been looking at one of those cheap flights-type websites and the same flights as above come out as $7418 with EK and $7443 with QF. Obviously MUCH closer to each other than the original case but now one wonders how the QF flights are $4500 cheaper than if booked direct with QF. My brain hurts.

Pontius,
Did you get right to the end of the booking process?
About 18 months ago I was trying to book Mrs. 441 on the Emirates website for a flight that operates as QF52 from Singapore to Brissy, as Emirates appeared significantly cheaper.

I was astonished at the difference in price until I came to the 'confirm' page where an additional charge appeared in the fine print which took the fare up to within dollars of the Qantas fare. I can't remember the exact figures but it was of the order of QF fare $3500, Emirates fare $2200 at first glance, then $3500 with the fine print 'additions' on the confirm page. Had I not been in Singapore when booking it, I would have taken it up with the appropriate consumer advocate as it was quite deceptive.

She flew home with Etihad for $2000!

Hi C441,

Just to make sure I'm being fair and to see that I didn't get the same result as you, I just went through the whole EK process without actually pressing the 'pay' button. The price remained the same throughout and still beats QF by $4100 on the same itinerary.

Delete cookies and try again. Use icognito/pr0n mode for these websites

Can you explain what icognito/pr0n is?
Thanks

Well some one has to pay for those pilots exorbitant wages. :E

What they mean is use a different browser to book with after you have done your comparisons. The site keeps a record of your visits and figures out that you are now committed to buying so it jacks the price up a bit. Crafty sods.

Crafty alright. Does it have anything to do with your location when you book?

Morno You are using points to buy a commercial ticket not a Classic Award

Yes to a point but mostly referring to tracking cookies stored on your computer. Go to browser privacy settings and delete cookies then try again. If you is a 'private' browsing mode such as. Chome's "incognito" mode this will prevent these cookies tracking your use of the website and potentially adjusting prices based on your searching. May or may not make a difference...
Since these private modes dont record browser history some jokingly refer to them as 'porn' (sic; pr0n) modes. These modes dont mask anything but stop cookie/tracker storage etc.

Rex.
Let's say there's 4 X 15 man-hours for the SYD - DXB bit and 3 X 8 man-hours for the DXB - LHR bit , plus a bit of overtime. That would be around 100 hours pay to be paid to the pilots. Then let's say the average for the crew is $250/hr - it would be comfortably less than that, but let's just use that.

Total crew cost for the 2 legs would be $25000. Now lets say all of the other airline's crew costs are half of that.:roll eyes:

If there's 400 punters on the jet, Qantas therefore is shelling out about $31/passenger in additional crew costs. Not quite $4100....

I don't think it's crew costs that produce the discrepancy.

Ticket prices vary greatly according to location, business class tickets bought in Bangkok or Cairo are much cheaper than those bought in London for similar routes.

Economy ticket prices from Singapore are kept down by the sheer number of airlines operating through there. There would be around twenty different airlines offering one stop connections to cities in Europe and there is almost always a sale on with one or more of them.

Airfares bought in Dubai are quite expensive due to the dominant position of EK in the market and the cashed up local and expat population who have little choice.

A BNE - DXB return ticket is about the same price as BNE -LHR return ticket, the reason being if you are going to DXB you are going there for a specific purpose whereas if you are going to London you can easily go on another airline.

Emirates seats have always been incredibly cheap if you book them early, then there are their special discount programs which also occur frequently.

I can't imaging buying the same seat via QF entitles you to the same benefits even if they are supposedly the "same" company. I'm guessing QF are quoting the full retail price.

Joyce obvioulsy runs a different model which is probably based on other people doing the hard work and favours for him.

C441- I was only taking the piss. :ugh: