Free Qantas Seat Selection (With a Catch)

All Qantas Frequent Flyer members can now select a seat for free when booking any Qantas domestic or international flight departing from Australia – but only when booking directly on Qantas.com.

Until recently, Qantas charged a fee for standard seat selection when booking an international Economy Sale fare. This charge ranged from $15 for a one-way international flight to Fiji, up to $45 per passenger for long-haul flights to the United States.

This Qantas seat selection fee was previously only charged on Economy Sale fares (with complimentary seat selection available when booking an Economy Saver, Flex or Classic Reward ticket), and was already being waived for Silver, Gold, Platinum and Platinum One frequent flyers. It will now also be waived for Bronze frequent flyers booked on an Economy Sale ticket.

But Qantas will still charge for standard seat selection if you don’t have a Qantas Frequent Flyer number linked to your booking. This means you may not be able to access this benefit if you’re not a Qantas Frequent Flyer member or if you’ve linked an account with a different frequent flyer program to your ticket. The fee waiver also does not apply to international tickets booked from outside of Australia.

To further encourage customers to book direct (removing the need for Qantas to pay a commission to travel agents), and to sign up to the airline’s loyalty program, Qantas is also now removing the $99.50 Qantas Frequent Flyer joining fee if you sign up when making a flight booking on the Qantas website. (That said, there are already lots of other ways to avoid paying the Qantas Frequent Flyer join fee – so you shouldn’t be paying this ridiculous fee anyway!)

Exit row seats still attract a fee – if available

Extra legroom seats and some “preferred” seats still attract additional charges, except for Platinum One frequent flyer members.

However, exit row seats are not currently available for selection on Qantas’ Airbus A330 or Boeing 787 flights anyway. Many Economy and Premium Economy exit row seats are also currently being blocked on the Airbus A380, which recently returned to service on the Sydney-Los Angeles route.

The reason for this is social distancing and to protect the cabin crew. Most of these exit row seats are directly adjacent to rear-facing jump seats where flight attendants sit during take-off, landing and sometimes also mid-flight if there is turbulence.

Therefore, not only is Qantas not selling these extra legroom seats for the time being, but they’re being completely blocked off as “unserviceable” and are not available for passenger use at all. That’s unfortunate for tall Qantas passengers travelling in Economy.

Other new benefits of booking on Qantas.com

Qantas has also added the ability for customers booking flights departing from Australia to cancel for any reason within 24 hours of booking. This applies when booking at least 30 days in advance on the Qantas website, but not if you’ve used a flight credit to make the booking. If eligible, you’ll receive a refund back to the original form of payment.

This new guarantee operates alongside Qantas’ existing Same Day, No Mistake policy which allows you to make corrections to bookings until midnight on the day of booking (e.g. if you spelt your name incorrectly or booked for the wrong date).

“These changes mean frequent flyers who book their flights directly through the Qantas website receive additional benefits, making it easier to plan their trips and in some cases cheaper,” a Qantas spokesperson said.

Qantas also advertises the ability to self-manage flight bookings and its Price Promise as benefits of booking directly with the airline. But the Price Promise now has so many conditions attached that it’s extremely difficult to get a claim approved.

And as many Qantas customers have recently discovered, there are many things that can’t be done on the Qantas website (even things that should be simple like changing the date of your flight or redeeming a flight credit, in some cases). This requires a call to the Qantas call centre, which, well… good luck with that if you’re not a Platinum or Platinum One frequent flyer!

So, there are still some benefits of booking with a good travel agent…

Join the discussion on the Australian Frequent Flyer forum: New QFF benefits for booking with Qantas directly

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.