Some kudos to Qantas in relation to a recent experience redeeming frequent flier points.
I recently wanted to fly MEL - ADL return in the first week of the new year and wanted to book with perhaps a week's notice, i.e. shortly after Christmas. As it's a busy time of the year, I was not surprised when looking on travel.com.au to find all airlines were charging upwards of $150-$200 one way, and the cheaper flights were at the more antisocial times. I baulked at paying about $800 for 2 returns on one of the shorter internal Australian routes.
I looked at redeeming some QF freq. flier points and to my surprise found that I could book a couple of seats each way on some flights on the desired days. I was able to get 2 seats each way on reasonably timed flights, also the web site told me which flights offered point-redeemable seats, so I didn't have to try to book on every flight till I got lucky! All in all, very easy and subsequently we were treated like 'normal' passengers (seat allocation, baggage allowance, free on-board muffin or whatever).
I had also looked on the Virgin website to see if I could redeem points there, but they did not offer any suitable flights where points could be redeemed. I can only assume that it was too close in time to the proposed flights, which were probably already heavily booked, so Virgin decided it was better to get hard cash rather than giving away any seats.
In brief, my experiences and conclusions from this instance:
- QF frequent flier points can be redeemed for flights at short notice, even at busy times. Virgin not so generous.
- the QF freq. flier web site pages were helpful in determining easily which flights on the chosen route offered FF seats
- cost was 32K points + $117 taxes - better than about $800 cash. Say about 2c / point, which is OK for me.
Don't know if this is a temporary aberration or whether it is a ray of hope for the future, but I may try this tactic again in busy (= expensive) periods.
I recently wanted to fly MEL - ADL return in the first week of the new year and wanted to book with perhaps a week's notice, i.e. shortly after Christmas. As it's a busy time of the year, I was not surprised when looking on travel.com.au to find all airlines were charging upwards of $150-$200 one way, and the cheaper flights were at the more antisocial times. I baulked at paying about $800 for 2 returns on one of the shorter internal Australian routes.
I looked at redeeming some QF freq. flier points and to my surprise found that I could book a couple of seats each way on some flights on the desired days. I was able to get 2 seats each way on reasonably timed flights, also the web site told me which flights offered point-redeemable seats, so I didn't have to try to book on every flight till I got lucky! All in all, very easy and subsequently we were treated like 'normal' passengers (seat allocation, baggage allowance, free on-board muffin or whatever).
I had also looked on the Virgin website to see if I could redeem points there, but they did not offer any suitable flights where points could be redeemed. I can only assume that it was too close in time to the proposed flights, which were probably already heavily booked, so Virgin decided it was better to get hard cash rather than giving away any seats.
In brief, my experiences and conclusions from this instance:
- QF frequent flier points can be redeemed for flights at short notice, even at busy times. Virgin not so generous.
- the QF freq. flier web site pages were helpful in determining easily which flights on the chosen route offered FF seats
- cost was 32K points + $117 taxes - better than about $800 cash. Say about 2c / point, which is OK for me.
Don't know if this is a temporary aberration or whether it is a ray of hope for the future, but I may try this tactic again in busy (= expensive) periods.
