Qantas Frequent Flyer members have booked more than 80,000 Classic Plus redemption seats in the first three months since Qantas launched its new reward type. The airline is now looking at expanding the range of reward options for members even further.

According to Qantas, between 8 April and 1 July 2024, Qantas Frequent Flyer members redeemed a record 10.7 billion points on Qantas-operated international flights. That’s a third more than before the launch of Classic Plus – although the higher number of points required for most Classic Plus redemptions may account for some of that increase.

Opinions about Classic Plus on the Australian Frequent Flyer forum remain very much divided, with many of our members lamenting that these rewards offer poor value. Nonetheless, Qantas says it’s pleased with how things are going so far.

“Our members are booking nine reward seats every minute. Classic Plus has been a game changer, making it even easier for them to use their points for what matters most – which we know is travel,” Qantas Loyalty CEO Andrew Glance said.

“The Frequent Flyer program has always been about rewarding our members for their loyalty, with unforgettable travel experiences at the heart of that, and we’re incredibly pleased with the feedback we’ve had from our members so far.”

Around two-thirds of Classic Plus bookings made so far have been for Economy Class, where frequent flyers get around 1 cent per Qantas point worth of value. But Qantas has also seen Classic Plus bookings in Premium Economy, Business and First Class, with members effectively redeeming their points for 1.5 cents each.

So far, the most popular destinations for Classic Plus redemptions include Tokyo, London, Singapore, Queenstown and Bali.

Members have noticed more availability with Classic Plus

As well as increasing the number of redemption bookings – albeit in many cases at a higher points cost compared to Classic Flight Rewards – Classic Plus has helped to alleviate some of the criticisms in mainstream media about the Qantas Frequent Flyer program.

Over recent years, many Qantas customers complained that they couldn’t use their points for the flights they wanted.

It can still be quite difficult to find the lower-priced Classic Reward seats on key international routes, especially at peak times and in premium cabins. At least, now, Qantas Frequent Flyer members have another option if they want to use their points to get to, say, Europe over the northern summer.

There are currently plenty of Classic Plus seats available to London, Rome and Paris for next year. This includes in Business and Premium Economy. The trade-off is that they are more expensive than Classic Reward seats, which remain few and far between.

Before Classic Plus, members would often search for long-haul reward seats on Qantas.com and be confronted with Points Plus Pay seats costing over a million points. The introduction of Classic Plus – and moving Points Plus Pay to the payment page – removes that sticker shock.

Qantas is acutely aware that members need to feel they’re getting value from the loyalty program which has become a bit of “golden goose” for the airline. It wants to ensure members have options to redeem their points on rewards that they value – especially flights, which remain the most popular type of redemption.

Expanding the range of flight rewards

Realistically, Qantas Frequent Flyer is somewhat limited in the number of reward flight seats it can offer. Although the loyalty program might like the airline’s revenue managers to release more redemption seats, they may be reluctant to do this on flights that are selling well.

For an airline, the marginal cost of releasing a seat that would have otherwise flown empty is fairly low. But there’s a huge opportunity cost in “giving away” a seat to someone using points or upgrading, if the airline could have filled that seat with a full-fare paying passenger.

Classic Plus is designed to fill some of that gap. By tying the Classic Plus prices to commercial airfares – meaning flights in higher demand will cost more points with Classic Plus – Qantas can afford to release more seats for points bookings at Classic Plus rates.

The flying kangaroo will expand Classic Plus onto domestic routes later this year, opening up even more redemption availability.

But of the five million traditional Classic Flight Reward seats available each year, many of those are on partner airlines. Short of negotiating with those partners, Qantas can’t control how many redemption seats those partners release for Qantas Frequent Flyers to book. Indeed, a partner airline could even suddenly decide to stop giving Qantas access to certain inventory – as Qatar Airways did.

One thing that Qantas can do, though, is add new partner airlines. Australian Frequent Flyer understands there may be some news coming soon on that front.

Making non-flight redemptions more appealing

With limited ability to add many more flight rewards, Qantas is also looking at more ways to offer valuable redemptions on the ground.

Traditionally, well-informed frequent flyers have steered clear of non-flight rewards because they have offered relatively poor value. For example, you might be able to get around five cents of value from points redeemed for Business Class flights. But rewards like gift cards or toasters might only get you a nominal value of 0.5 cents per point.

But non-flight redemptions are starting to become a bit more valuable.

Two years ago, Qantas reduced the amount of points required for hotel redemptions by 30% and for holiday bookings by 45%.

Qantas also recently bought TripADeal. You can burn points with TripADeal for better than a cent per point. In fact, you can get 1.5 cents per point worth of value on TripADeal redemptions during the current Ultimate Qantas Points Sale until 5 August 2024. That’s the same value you’d get booking a Classic Plus reward in Business or First Class.

You can also get 33% off the points required on other tour bookings made using Qantas points until the same date.

Ticketek redemptions have proven popular

In March 2024, Qantas Frequent Flyer also launched a new partnership with Ticketek allowing members to redeem points towards concert, sport and event tickets. This has become a surprisingly popular way to use points.

When using points towards a Ticketek purchase, Qantas Frequent Flyer members are effectively getting 0.7 cents in value for each point. That’s not up there with most flight redemptions. But it’s still noticeably better than redeeming on gift cards or coffee machines.

One reason that Ticketek redemptions have been so popular could be that it’s so simple. You can easily click “Use Qantas points” on Ticketek’s payment page, log into your account and choose how many points you want to spend. It just needs to be at least 2,000 points.

Another reason could be that these kinds of “lifestyle” redemptions – where you’re getting an experience – feel very much on-brand for Qantas.

Future redemption opportunities

Qantas Frequent Flyer sees even more opportunities to work with other travel and lifestyle brands to increase the range of redemptions available in the future.

For example, the loyalty program could work with hotels, train operators, cruise lines or other businesses that sell event tickets to make distressed inventory available as “Classic” redemptions at fixed point amounts.

Such rewards could even offer similar value to Classic Flight Rewards, while allowing the operators to fill seats or rooms that may otherwise go unsold. Qantas Loyalty too would make its own margin. That would genuinely be a win-win for everyone involved.

Matt Graham

The editor of Australian Frequent Flyer, Matt's passion for travel has taken him to over 80 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.