qantas or emirates? the little things

[Ken Gargett]

imagine qantas doing something better than emirates!

it really is the little things.

have a trip to europe later in the year. had booked flights on points - oneworld so qantas, emirates, finnair. but ran out of points (in the good old days, i never went below half a mill points in the bank). so booked going across via my agent, who is terrific (and chosen, not as rob used to do, on ability, not appearance).

i do the extra leg room on long flights. so had done that on a couple of emirates flights and others. but chatting to my agent, we realised that the cost of the one way return was effectively not much less than a full return ticket. and when i cancelled my points trips, the refund of taxes meant the two were so close to identical. plus i got 85,000 points back. so a no brainer.

i have done the leg room where i can as well. 

qantas were fantastic in sorting out cancellations and refunds. very helpful.

emirates? even though i had deliberately specified emirates flights where i could (in the past, they have been good, but never again), they could not have cared less. the legroom seats? even though i had transferred to other emirates flights and paid the legroom there, bugger off. 

the actual amount is tiny in the scheme of things, and perhaps if i had not transferred to other emirates flights i would not be so pissed, but it has left such a bad taste as to the way they dealt with this that next time, the instructions will be to find flights other than emirates. i'm sure they'll survive without my very sporadic business but they will forever have someone whose recommendation will be to avoid them.

yes, it is a little thing but sometimes, they are the things that count. 

[99call]

1 hour ago, Ken Gargett said:

 but it has left such a bad taste

I had recently flown with Emirates Long haul to Melbourne. I usually fly with Singapore Airlines if going long haul, as I've always been massively impressed. 

With loads of mates recommending Emirates as a genuinely top class carrier, I was happy to book............Jeese, It was so bog standard. The food was like 1960 Britain, hostesses just basically ignored anyone popping the light on, until they got up to self serve. I'm 6ft 2 and Bernie Ecclestone would struggle not to get his kneecaps shredded on the opposite seats. 

I remember travelling for work on Christmas day a few years ago with Singapore.  There were golden festive wreaths decorating the plane, gorgeous food (well as gorgeous as in flight food can be), even a little individual chocolate log for pudding!. that and the hostess seemed on a mission to get everyone as wasted as possible.   Great stuff

[Duxnutz]

Well...... EK (Emirates) ARE known as the slave ship, staff fleeing left and right not to mention the very recent alleged suicide by a flight attendant jumping from the aircraft at the start of a flight. No real surprises the service is suffering. 

QF have had a recent run in the media - 787 Perth to London for instance. You’d hardly know the aircraft has been in service with many airlines for years already. 

Qatar (also a slave ship), Etihad, Singapore seem to still be leaders of the pack. 

 

[Lotusguy]

You're lucky - I'm still stuck with United Airlines

[Fuzz AI]

18 hours ago, Lotusguy said:

You're lucky - I'm still stuck with United Airlines

8 years ago my bro flew home from the States via UA first class (he had a bucket load of points after living years in the US). I kid you not, when they asked him if he wanted to choose his  inflight entertainment, they presented him with video tapes!