Do classic flight rewards hold any value now?

[blu]

To clarify, I am just looking at Y. It wasn't coming up at 120K though - was coming at 150K for classic rewards

Is that a Qantas + China Eastern combination? I didn't get any QF direct flights for the few dates checked.

 

[JohnM]

I’ve found that using QF points for F and J redemptions on EK is great for both value and much better availability and destinations than QF. OK, surcharges are fairly high, but I redeem them in Dom etc. - even if it has compromised my journey through passport control .)

 

[craven morehead]

Classic awards can still be good value.

BNE-SYD 8,000 points + ~$42 instead of a $195 airfare.

Just booked the bride EMD-BNE (Y) & BNE-PER (J) 44k points + $80 great value in my opinion vs ~ $1800

 

[mrsterryn]

This week QFF released 2 F awards seats for us SYD-LHR for a flight departing in a couple of weeks.... pretty good value there!

Glad to hear you got them

 

[love_the_life]

This week QFF released 2 F awards seats for us SYD-LHR for a flight departing in a couple of weeks.... pretty good value there!

Good value for you, but most QFF members are not WP or WP1 and have no hope of this sort of service/outcome.

 

[amaroo]

Good value for you, but most QFF members are not WP or WP1 and have no hope of this sort of service/outcome.

True. That’s the real reason why QFF is great value!

 

[Aus ATC]

I find points redemptions good value (if you know where to look). I will use them for One World J Awards which nominally give a great cents/point return - or (as others have mentioned) an alternative to a domestic Y (or J) flight where the cents/point is above about 1.5 - any less I'll generally just pay for the Y seat.

I case of the One World J awards, I would never pay cash for these flights (I might pay for PE if the price was right). The value here for us is being up the front of the plane, rather than jammed in down the back.

 

[Kangol]

Good value for you, but most QFF members are not WP or WP1 and have no hope of this sort of service/outcome.

They have hope, just less than the higher tiers

 

[amaroo]

Just booked 2 x J SYD-MCY 16,000 + $42 pp vs $745pp ..... pretty good value IMO as it beats sitting in whY after arriving SQ suites from Paris

 

[Saltywings]

They have hope, just less than the higher tiers

In the same way that lottery ticket buyers have hope. I mean yeah, the chance of winning is technically non-zero...

 

[CaptJCool]

F &. J (international tics) win Hands Down!

However, with the current Premium Cabin Sale, i drummed up this little chart

My fav destinations plus home capitals of close family members (from Adel)

I didn’t convert the raw prices into points but rather the points into $







The challenge of course, is at the Last minute it’s unlikely classic Reward tics are available but where they are - Hallelujah. And I mirror @RichardMEL earlier points.

Any thoughts about this usefulness welcomed. It’s a MVP at the moment

 

[Matt_01]

Yes I think they still hold value but I do not use them on domestic routes. I have not yet booked the trip I posted about up thread as this is next months problem and with the QF changes it will cost a few more points, lets see what happens fees. However since my last post post I did get a bit carried away and booked x2 F rewards with EK for MrsM birthday next year. A month later x2 RTW OW rewards in F and at rack rate these 2 trips would have cost north of $50K. The fees and taxes for both trips were around $4K and somewhere between 1M-1.1M points, not to fussed about the points as there are plenty more where those came from.

There are also a couple of other trips I booked with SQ in J via VA and the taxes were lower.

 

[Silvia]

Domestic redemptions are not something that I'd tend to use my points for but I guess YMMV. We used some for a last minute booking for a family situation which was decent. Saved us about $1200 for the 2 of us.

Of course the upgrade lotto when securing PE or J to USA is always nice, so it depends what you are after in terms of value.

I'm doing QR J in 2 weeks (Qsuites and non Qsuites and EK F on the way back - got 2 awards 5 months from travel date) so in my view, there are still some good value on points redemptions.

 

[maia200]

Paid $295 for sale fare to Sydney from Brisbane last Sunday one way. Would have made a classic award booking if it was available instead of the above price@

 

[CaptJCool]

With some good luck, I snared a very late F redemption tonight to travel to Europe this coming Tuesday. For whatever reason, several mid-Sept dates for Bris, Syd and Melb turned up on Thursday (or maybe I wasn’t looking earlier)

Still some J from ADL for couple of dates next week

As for PER out of gas...

So A380 it is.

As for coming home, yet to book but favouring a svedish sheep cheap F at approx $8500 return with a return date in June 2020 (even if I don’t have 2020 vision...)

 

[CaptJCool]

[QUOTE="CaptJCool, post: 2002254, member: 39157"

So A380 it is.

As for coming home, yet to book but favouring a svedish sheep cheap F at approx $8500 return with a return date in June 2020 (even if I don’t have 2020 vision...)
[/QUOTE]

So MR Diners gave me the data point today.
Airfare was exactly on XE.COM rate so based on ex Aust flights that’s $2,700 less than the BEST ever F fare still available for the escape to Europe 2020 Sale.

Alas, 3% fee but I was willing to cop that.

It’s marginally higher than AA Redemptions and UA etc only because our XE rates with USA ARE so direly bad at 67-69 c to a dollar. And in those programs there’s no free tic while earn QF points and that runs into a FREEBIE - helpful for the roomies who are cash-strapped and doh didn’t plan ahead!