Classic Flight Reward availability on Qantas long-haul flights in Business Class has been rather limited lately, with seats unavailable on many of Qantas’ popular international routes. But one Qantas route with ample award availability at the moment in Business Class is Melbourne-Delhi, a route that Qantas started flying in December 2021.

Qantas currently flies 4x weekly each from Melbourne and Sydney to Delhi, with the outbound flights stopping in Adelaide. These flights are operated by Airbus A330-200s with lie-flat Business Class seats.

The Sydney-Delhi service ends next month, but Qantas will retain year-round service on the Melbourne-Delhi route. From next April, some flights from Melbourne to Delhi will operate non-stop (instead of via Adelaide).

Unlike most Qantas international routes, award availability between Melbourne and Delhi is generally pretty good at the moment. Economy and Business Classic Reward seats are available on many dates, with up to two Business Class seats and as many as nine Economy reward seats per flight.

A round-trip Classic Flight Reward from Melbourne to Delhi (and back) would cost 75,200 Qantas points + $270.88 in taxes and carrier charges. A return Qantas Business Class ticket between Melbourne and Delhi costs 189,800 Qantas points + $370.88 in taxes & carrier charges.

If you have Qantas Gold, Platinum or Platinum One status, you can book Business Reward seats on this route up to 353 days in advance. In fact, there is currently reasonably good award availability for travel dates in January 2023.

But if you have Qantas Silver status, you’ll only get access to premium cabin reward seats on Qantas long-haul flights around 11 months in advance. Any remaining seats are typically released to Bronze frequent flyers around 10 months before the departure date. Bronze frequent flyers and members of other Oneworld frequent flyer programs can currently redeem points for Qantas Business Class seats on the Melbourne-Delhi route for travel dates up to mid-December 2022.

You can discuss Qantas’ flights to Delhi on the Australian Frequent Flyer forum: Qantas to fly to Delhi from Sydney & Melbourne

Connecting to/from Europe

If you’re struggling to redeem your Qantas points for flights to Europe, you could consider using the Melbourne-Delhi flight and connecting onwards on another Qantas partner airline, such as Qatar Airways, Emirates or British Airways.

In terms of connection times, this generally works better when travelling inbound from Europe to Australia. For example, you could redeem your points to book something like this using a combination of Emirates and Qantas flights:

Limited award availability on other Qantas international routes

Normally, Qantas releases at least some premium cabin Classic Reward seats on its long-haul international routes to Gold, Platinum and Platinum One frequent flyers when seats are initially released for sale around 353 days before departure. But at the moment, this is not happening consistently for travel dates in early 2023.

We recently searched for premium cabin Classic Rewards available to Gold, Platinum and Platinum One frequent flyers on Qantas long-haul routes 11.5 months from now. There were no premium cabin reward seats released at all on any Qantas flights from Australia to London, Bangkok, Johannesburg, Dallas/Fort Worth, Honolulu or Singapore.

Some Business Class reward seats were available to Qantas Frequent Flyer members with Gold or higher status, for travel in February 2023, on routes including Brisbane-Los Angeles, Sydney-Manila, Sydney-Jakarta, Sydney-Denpasar, Melbourne-Denpasar, Sydney-Hong Kong, Melbourne-Hong Kong and Sydney-Tokyo.

Economy Classic Reward seats were widely available on most Qantas routes, except for Sydney-Santiago.

Join the discussion on the Australian Frequent Flyer forum: Where are the awards?

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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 economics, aviation & 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.