Sydney to UK/Paris/Amsterdam/Belgium using Classic Rewards

[Jarrard Scott]

I've been trying to search for some Classic Rewards ticket purchases to UK/Paris/Amsterdam or Belgium around mid august (15th or around there) next year but noticed on the calendars that August has got nearly nothing on classic rewards, or even point purchased tickets to any of these locations.

July and September have a load but August has very little.

I'm a bronze status member. Does anybody know if there's been a change from Qantas in the number of classic reward seats released?

Any recommendations on how best I can find what i'm looking for?

 

[levelnine]

I'm a bronze status member. Does anybody know if there's been a change from Qantas in the number of classic reward seats released?

Any recommendations on how best I can find what i'm looking for?

Qantas no longer release award seats on premium routes (ie routes to Europe, the US, South Africa & South America) on a regular, predictable basis. They release them sporadically in batches. So you'll need to keep checking every day for new releases or find routes on other carriers, which can be difficult as availability on many Qantas partners has significantly reduced since COVID.

Obviously, there's more availability if you are 1 passenger (you don't specify how many seats) and in economy (you don't specify your class of travel).

Eg on 19 August

 

[dsotm]

Very difficult to get flights in premium. I'm a bronze too. I got 2 x J for CDG/LHR/SIN connecting with business class on BA11 (horrible seating in J) but it was all I could get. Then had to get 2 x PE awards seats on Krisflyer back into Melbourne. This is for late September.

 

[yaziyo]

I'm a bronze and echo the difficulty of doing this, but it is possible. I wanted to get business seats (which I managed) but Economy or even PE should be a lot easier. I'm not sure what class you were trying for. My comment below is mostly based on my experiences finding business tickets to Europe.

Firstly forget about travelling on Qantas itself on one of flagship direct Australia-Europe routes, they make pretty much nothing available.

You're going to have to try partner airlines and unusual routes using the Qantas multi-city tool. I haven't checked your dates but when I was doing this a while ago I found:

• JAL had pretty decent availability (They fly to London, Frankfurt, Paris and I think a couple other European stops. This is how I booked Sydney to London for March next year). At the time Japan was closed so I don't know if availability is no longer easy for JAL.
• It seemed pretty easy to get Malaysian air tickets from Australia to Kuala Lumpur on business
• It seemed pretty easy to get Qantas tickets from Australia to Jakarta on business
• It seemed pretty easy to get Qantas tickets from Australia to Bengaluru on business, and then find availability on other airlines to BLR to to Europe (e.g. BA). You might need an Indian Visa if you do this but an overnight in India could be an interesting option.
• Finn Air had a few routes from Asia to Helsinki which had fair availability.

Qatar and Qantas hate each other's guts now so availability is limited, and Emirates has insane carrier charges to the point where it's not worth it, so you're unlikely to get there through the Arabian gulf.

The flightconnections.com website is really handy. Check flight maps for JAL, Finn Air, BA, Malaysian as your main ones. Cathay Pacific seems to be starting to come back online now too. Qantas also partners with Air France and KLM but availability also seems pretty limited to Asia whenever I check. Theoretically you might also be able to get something with Royal Jordanian or El Al (Israeli) but I haven't tried those routes from Asia to Europe, similar with Sri Lankan Air.

Depending on how much you value your time, when looking for my dates I was even able to scratch together a whacky SYD-KUL, KUL-HKT, HKT-HEL, HEL-LHR option.

Using the points is definitely not as easy as earning the points!

 

[dsotm]

I found the Finn Air, Cathay and JAL routings horrendous in flight times and layovers when I was looking at getting out of CDG/LHR back to Oz. You can definitely get J on these routes but it may be like the Supertramp song, "Take the long way home".

 

[Jarrard Scott]

Man, a few years ago you could just look up on qantas website and it would show all partner airlines. It also used to be bugged where if the flight wasnt available it would show you a calendar and give you availability extending out to the platinum dates. (I managed in the past to get business return on Qatar to Italy).

I don't have enough points at the moment for anything more than premium economy.

So sounds like i'll just have to keep checking, on the other note, how do I check partner airlines and utilize my QFF points on that now?

 

[snabbu]

Qantas no longer release award seats on premium routes (ie routes to Europe, the US, South Africa & South America) on a regular, predictable basis. They release them sporadically in batches.

Interesting, i must have missed this memo. It makes sense though as over the last couple of months I've been checking at 353 days out for J availability on any QF route to US and I've seen almost nothing released.

Do we know when this came into effect?

 

[dsotm]

Man, a few years ago you could just look up on qantas website and it would show all partner airlines. It also used to be bugged where if the flight wasnt available it would show you a calendar and give you availability extending out to the platinum dates. (I managed in the past to get business return on Qatar to Italy).

I don't have enough points at the moment for anything more than premium economy.

So sounds like i'll just have to keep checking, on the other note, how do I check partner airlines and utilize my QFF points on that now?

Use the Multi-city option and check "flexible dates" and you will see the old calendar.

 

[Jarrard Scott]

Use the Multi-city option and check "flexible dates" and you will see the old calendar.

discovered this last night actually! funnily enough its broken as anything. it'll say there's rewards available on a date, you click it and it either errors out or says there's no flights available.

Very unreliable.

might try out expert flyer or something.

 

[Spizz]

Qatar and Qantas hate each other's guts now so availability is limited, and Emirates has insane carrier charges to the point where it's not worth it, so you're unlikely to get there through the Arabian gulf.

Good post about thinking outside the box when booking award tickets.

A shame about Qatar and Qantas and luckily I have a stash of Velocity points so have made 2 QSuites Award bookings to Europe next year as Virgin seem to have good availability for Premium Qatar Award seats. Virgin Velocity also has decent availability via Singapore Airlines in Business class as well for Europe.

Emirates I haven't seen any Premium Award seats on Qantas at all a year out so it looks like they aren't making any/few available to partners.

Currently my large stash of Qantas points are near useless for my usage case so will just await for things to eventually go back to normal. Just pushing more point earn towards Virgin during the interim.

The ticketing woes with Qantas currently also don't instill much faith, even when you don't change an award booking.