Article: Qantas Points “The Envy of the World”? Absolutely Not!

[Human]

what is unique about upgrading classic awards with points is that this unlocks the ability to use points accrued from multiple frequent flyer programs to book a QF award. For instance, you could use BA Avios points to book an economy award on QF then use QF points to upgrade the "classic award" up to J.

-RooFlyer88

I have done this. An overseas relative with Emirates Skywards points used them to book an economy Qantas flight for me, which I then upgraded using my own Qantas points.

 

[Anna]

You've always been able to do a points upgrade on classic award bookings

You may be using a different definition of 'always'. My 'always' with QFF started circa 1992 when the lowest tier cards were white.

 

[kangarooflyer88]

You may be using a different definition of 'always'. My 'always' with QFF started circa 1992 when the lowest tier cards were white.

You mean there was a time when Uncle Alan our benevolent leader wasn't running the flying Roo? Say it ain't so!

 

[serfty]

You mean there was a time when Uncle Alan our benevolent leader wasn't running the flying Roo? Say it ain't so!

Actually, I believe the ability to upgrade awards happened under the watch of the current Qantas management.

 

[SYD]

Actually, I believe the ability to upgrade awards happened under the watch of the current Qantas management.

“Bid now” came in 2015. I might be wrong but I believe upgrading existing reward bookings was introduced not long after?

 

[serfty]

“Bid now” came in 2015. I might be wrong but I believe upgrading existing reward bookings was introduced not long after?

Seems earlyish 2016:

Now possible to upgrade award seats.

Qantas: business class upgrades on frequent flyer reward bookings I haven't seen this covered under the other changes. I would imagine this will result in them selling even more upgrades, and mean even fewer opups.

www.australianfrequentflyer.com.au

 

[Berlin]

This is generally my approach with Qantas now:

I’m not as flexible date wise anymore as I was in my EasyJet days, work commitments in Australia and also often “set dates” in my destination (holidays, birthdays, pre-booked events or cruises and the likes) simply don’t allow the “search for the rare date with awards seats” game.

So- I instead book and pay outright much cheaper J class tickets on other OW carriers or sometimes even stray outside of OW to see what’s out there. J class on JAL to the US coming up in April and then I’ve just booked a flight to Germany in July going AA via the US (7k, hilariously flying QF for most of the way and including a nice little stop over in LA to see friends on the way back) which will easily sort my Platinum status for another year.

Then all the QF points earned will go into Domestic flights or Domestic upgrades within Australia which is hardly never an issue availability wise. The occasional inner-European connector flight on IB or FY is also on the cards with this strategy as there’s also ample award seats available for those.

Neat. This way I pay my 15k-ish per year, never have to set foot into the smelly back of a plane and get pretty good flexibility in terms of dates, routes and airlines. It’s a tick tick tick for me, even in the current times with high airfares and difficult award availability.

 

[PERLHR]

Had a laugh this morning...qantas say between 750,000 to a million points for Oct 23 from Perth to Hanoi!! They really are rubbish!! Oh and that was in economy while AA offer same trip for their own mileage programme on the exact same aircraft for 40,000 AA points. Go figure QF. Sitting on a flight credit also that we frankly just don't know how best to use. I've bundled a few trips using BA Avios at very low points and cash from Perth to MEL where QF want many thousands of points. Also while looking at QF to fly to CHC from PER they say business sale....oh that looks ok says my ever hopeful wife Perth to Sydney then onward to NZ or Perth to MEL then onward to NZ and low and behold when you move through its announces "proudly". Your flight between Perth and Sydney (or Melbourne) willbe economy so the biz sector is just the NZ sector. Just awful.

 

[SYD]

Had a laugh this morning...qantas say between 750,000 to a million points for Oct 23 from Perth to Hanoi!! They really are rubbish!! Oh and that was in economy while AA offer same trip for their own mileage programme on the exact same aircraft for 40,000 AA points.

750k pts will be an “any seat award“ where you just use points to pay for a revenue fare instead of cash.

What airline are those flights on and did you select “rewards” only in the search? If you can see it on AA, then there‘s a reasonable chance it’s bookable on QF.

 

[drron]

I can certainly see awards on AA at low cost but not on QFF for CX and JAL.

 

[Pete98765432]

I can certainly see classic rewards on QF for CX and MH.

 

[PERLHR]

It's was on Qantas operated flights for both AA (with reasonable.poubts) and on Qantas web for ridiculous high amount of points.

 

[Pete98765432]

Searching the AA site, I see the routing is PER - SYD - HKG (QF) then HKG - HAN (CX).

This is also available on QF (one way) for 37600 points (PER - HKG) then 10000 points for HKG - HAN.

The multi-city search won’t permit Hanoi to be selected as a destination so I had to add it as a separate booking.

 

[PERLHR]

Searching the AA site, I see the routing is PER - SYD - HKG (QF) then HKG - HAN (CX).

This is also available on QF (one way) for 37600 points (PER - HKG) then 10000 points for HKG - HAN.

The multi-city search won’t permit Hanoi to be selected as a destination so I had to add it as a separate booking.

Thanks for that.