Redeeming British Airways Avios for domestic Qantas flights can be great value. That’s because domestic airfares in Australia can be quite expensive, especially in Business Class and on regional routes. But the number of Avios required for short-haul flights under 2,000 miles is relatively low.

You can buy Avios, the currency of the British Airways Executive Club program, relatively cheaply by taking advantage of the regular bonuses and discounts. You could even purchase an Avios subscription to receive a monthly allotment of Avios at a very reasonable price.

When it comes to redeeming those Avios, award seats on Qantas and most other Oneworld partner airlines can easily be booked on the British Airways website. But for some reason, award flights operated by QantasLink do not appear at all on British Airways’ website.

This is problematic if you want to redeem Avios to or from a regional airport that is only served by QantasLink. With QantasLink also now operating many jet services to larger cities such as Canberra, Hobart, Adelaide, Darwin and Townsville, this can make it difficult to redeem Avios in Australia.

For example, on the Brisbane-Canberra route, only one of the five daily flights is currently operated by Qantas. The rest are on QantasLink aircraft, and therefore don’t show up when trying to make an Avios booking on the British Airways website.

To get around this, you could search for reward seat availability using the Qantas website (search for Classic Flight Reward seats) or the website of another Oneworld alliance member such as Japan Airlines or American Airlines.

Then, if you can see award availability on a QantasLink flight that you wish to book, call British Airways Executive Club. From Australia, you can call 1300 767 177. You’ll most likely get through to British Airways’ call centre in India.

Transferring Avios to other programs

As an alternative to calling up, you could theoretically transfer Avios from your British Airways Executive Club account to Iberia Plus or Qatar Airways Privilege Club. You can transfer Avios between any of these programs at a 1:1 rate. As Iberia and Qatar Airways are both Oneworld airlines, you could also redeem through their programs for QantasLink flights.

However, this is not really a good solution. Iberia Plus award pricing is the same as with British Airways Executive Club, but the Iberia website is much worse.

Iberia’s website won’t even let you search for award seats on any QantasLink route. It does let you search for flights between major Australian cities, but only Economy award seats are displayed. And on routes like Sydney-Melbourne where there are many daily flights, only the first six flights each day are displayed – meaning you have a choice of flights departing between 6-8am only.

We also searched for QantasLink award seats on the Qatar Airways website. We were able to see all of the available flights on the Brisbane-Canberra route, including those operated by QantasLink:

However, booking through Qatar Airways Privilege Club is not straightforward either.

The Qatar Airways website simply shows all available flights, rather than real-time award availability. So, some of the flights shown above may not actually be available to book on points. If you wanted to make a booking, you’d need to select your preferred flight then submit an online form and wait for somebody at Qatar Airways to contact you to advise whether it will be possible to book a seat using your Avios.

Qatar Airways also charges significantly more Avios than British Airways for the same flights. On the Brisbane-Canberra route, British Airways charges 6,000 Avios for a one-way Economy award seat or 12,500 Avios for Business Class. But Qatar Airways charges 15,000 and 30,000 Avios for Economy and Business Class respectively.

You can leave a comment or discuss this topic on the Australian Frequent Flyer forum.

Matt Graham

The editor of Australian Frequent Flyer, Matt's passion for travel has taken him to over 90 countries… with the help of frequent flyer points, of course!
Matt's favourite destinations (so far) are Germany, Brazil & Kazakhstan. His interests include aviation, economics & foreign languages, and he has a soft spot for good food and red wine.

You can connect with Matt by posting on the Australian Frequent Flyer community forum and tagging @AFF Editor.