Over recent years, many airlines have changed the way they release reward seats. Rather than consistently releasing seats on each flight up to a year in advance, airlines are now more likely to sporadically release seats on less popular flights, closer to the departure time.

If you’re flying off-peak, this means it could make sense to wait for seats to open up a few months before you want to travel. But if you want to travel during a peak period – especially if you want to fly Business Class – it’s still a very good idea to book whatever you can find as far in advance as possible.

With most frequent flyer programs, you can always change or cancel your booking later for a modest fee if something better comes along later.

Airlines are starting to release Europe 2025 summer seats now

Perhaps the most difficult reward seats to find out of Australia are flights to Europe during the northern hemisphere’s summer. Many Aussies love travelling to Europe during the winter school holidays in Australia. This is the middle of summer in Europe, and it’s an extremely popular time to visit. Unfortunately, this also means that flights can be very expensive and most reward seats sell out fast.

Most airlines start to release reward seats 11-12 months in advance. As a result, if you want to use points to fly to Europe this time next year, now is the time to start looking for flights.

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Find Seats

You won’t necessarily find reward seats to Europe on every airline this far in advance (or at all). For example, Qantas doesn’t appear to be releasing any Classic Reward seats on its flights to London, Paris or Rome at the moment when those flights go on sale.

But there are Qantas partner airlines that do have some seats. And if you have points in other frequent flyer programs – or better, a flexible points currency like Amex Membership Rewards or PayRewards points – you’ll have a lot more options!

Here are some of the airlines that are currently releasing seats – including in Business Class – for travel to Europe in June and early July 2025…

Qatar Airways using Avios

Qatar Airways is fairly consistently releasing up to two Business Class reward seats (and Economy seats, as well) on its flights from Adelaide to Doha when these flights go on sale 360 days before departure.

For example, we recently found plenty of flights in late June and early July 2025 with two Business Class reward seats from Adelaide to Berlin. The cost is 90,000 Avios + $386.54 per passenger, one-way. These seats are available to book through Qatar Airways Privilege Club on the Qatar Airways website.

You might also be able to find seats using Avios on Qatar Airways flights out of Perth (including in First Class) or Auckland, New Zealand.

British Airways using Avios

British Airways guarantees that it will release at least four Club World (Business) reward seats to members of its Executive Club program on every flight.

That’s very useful if you want to fly from Sydney to London, a route that British Airways serves daily, and are able to book when seats are released 355 days in advance. But you need to get in quick as the seats often don’t last long.

Note that this guarantee is only for British Airways Executive Club members, and doesn’t apply when redeeming points with other Oneworld airlines for BA flights.

Singapore Airlines using KrisFlyer miles

If you have access to Singapore Airlines KrisFlyer miles, you might find Singapore Airlines flights from Australia to Europe (via Singapore) on with multiple Saver award seats available in Economy, Premium Economy and Business.

Singapore Airlines typically releases up to four Business Saver seats per flight to KrisFlyer members. But some flights out of Sydney and Melbourne, to places like Paris, London or Frankfurt, may even have as many as six Business Saver seats.

For example, we found the below itinerary from Melbourne to Paris with six Business Saver seats at a one-way cost of 130,500 KrisFlyer miles + $114.82 in taxes per adult passenger. (The taxes for children would only be $44.82 because children don’t pay Australia’s $70 departure tax.)

Singapore Airlines offers flights from Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth, Adelaide, Cairns and Darwin.

Emirates using Skywards miles

You can also find some Business and First Class reward seats on Emirates flights from Australia to Europe (via Dubai) when seats go on sale up to 360 days before departure. The airline currently serves Perth, Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane. Emirates will also resume flights out of Adelaide in October 2024.

This could be worth considering if you can’t find seats elsewhere – and flying Emirates is a usually great experience. But there is a major downside: the notoriously high fuel surcharges.

It would cost you 405,000 Emirates Skywards miles and $3,775 for a return Classic Reward booking in Business Class from Melbourne to Frankfurt in Germany. That’s right, the co-payment is almost $2,000 in each direction.

Etihad Airways using Etihad Guest miles

At the time of writing, Etihad Airways has a surprisingly large number of GuestSeats available out of Sydney and Melbourne to Abu Dhabi – with easy onward connections available to major European cities. These seats are only available to book through the Etihad Guest program, which recently underwent a major overhaul.

These can be reasonable value when booking through Etihad Guest – and the availability is pretty good at the moment. For example, you could fly one-way from Melbourne to Rome in Etihad Business Class for 180,000 Etihad Guest miles plus $125 in taxes.

Unfortunately, Etihad appears to have recently switched to dynamic award pricing. GuestSeat bookings on some dates now seem to randomly cost 40% more than the amounts published in Etihad Guest’s award chart. Etihad Guest also has a draconian new reward booking cancellation policy where you may end up having to forfeit a large percentage of your miles if you cancel.

If transferring Amex Membership Rewards points to Etihad Guest, beware that your Etihad miles may take up to a week to arrive.

Cathay Pacific using Asia Miles (Economy only)

If you’re just looking for Economy reward seats, you might also consider using Cathay Asia Miles to book Cathay Pacific flights from Australia to Europe via Hong Kong. There’s reasonable availability and pricing, including over the European summer holidays.

Cathay Pacific Economy Class recently won “world’s best Economy Class” at the 2024 Skytrax Awards.

Reward seat release times

Of the airlines featured above, Qatar Airways, British Airways, Emirates, Etihad and Cathay Pacific tend to release seats up to 360 days in advance. This means that, as of today, you could book reward flights for travel to Europe up to around 5 July 2025.

Singapore Airlines releases award seats to its own KrisFlyer members up to 355 days in advance.

See our guide to award seat release times for other airlines.

Even if your return flights are not yet available, you could book your outbound trip now and then your flights back once they become available.

Most frequent flyer programs don’t penalise you for booking one-way reward flights, although there are some exceptions. For example, Emirates Skywards may only offer higher “Flex Plus” pricing on one-way Classic Rewards. And Singapore Airlines only allows a free stopover on Saver awards booked as a round-trip.

All of these programs are Amex transfer partners

All of the frequent flyer programs we’ve mentioned so far, except British Airways Executive Club, is a partner of American Express in Australia. This means that you can transfer Amex Membership Rewards points into these programs.

In the case of British Airways, you could convert Amex points into Qatar Airways Privilege Club Avios. Then, simply convert your Qatar Airways Avios into British Airways Avios at a 1:1 rate.

Only got Velocity points?

As it happens, Velocity Frequent Flyer partners with Singapore Airlines, Qatar Airways and Etihad Airways – three of the airlines featured above. However, there are limitations to using Velocity points on flights where reward seats are likely to get snapped up quickly.

Unfortunately, it’s not possible to book flights using Velocity points more than 330 days in advance. This means that Qatar Airways Privilege Club members get a 30-day head-start on all the Qatar Airways reward availability.

KrisFlyer members get a 25-day head-start over Velocity members. In any case, Singapore Airlines does also release more reward seats to KrisFlyer members than it does to Velocity members.

Annoyingly, Etihad has also stopped releasing Business and First Class reward seats to members of partner airlines – including Velocity members – until 30 days before departure.

If you’re willing to wait until the 330-day mark, you may still get lucky. But if you don’t want to wait, you can convert your Velocity points into KrisFlyer miles at a 1.55:1 rate. This allows you to access the superior Singapore Airlines availability for KrisFlyer members, and also to book further out.

Only got Qantas points?

Only have Qantas Frequent Flyer points? You may be able to find Classic Reward flights to Europe for the summer of 2025 on a partner airline to Asia, with onward connections on Emirates or Finnair to Europe. But you’d probably need to break up your search using the Qantas multi-city booking tool. 😉

You might also get lucky with finding Japan Airlines Business or Cathay Pacific Premium Economy flights to Europe via Tokyo or Hong Kong. But this is far from wide open availability where you can easily find multiple seats on a choice of dates.

If you can’t find any Classic Flight Reward seats on Qantas or its partners, you could also consider booking Classic Plus seats. These are generally more expensive, but at least they’ll give you a chance to use your Qantas points to get to Europe during the busiest time of the year.

Where to get help booking flights with your frequent flyer points

If you’d like expert help to use your frequent flyer points, get in touch with the Frequent Flyer Concierge team. They’re experts at finding reward seats and can help you to get maximum value out of your points!

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.