Qantas Frequent Flyer has introduced Classic Plus Flight Rewards in the biggest change to its frequent flyer program since 2019.

Sitting between Classic Flight Rewards and Points Plus Pay, Classic Plus Flight Rewards are priced dynamically with Qantas converting the cost of a commercial airfare to points at a fixed rate.

This new type of Qantas flight reward is designed to address one of the key complaints from Qantas Frequent Flyer members over recent years: A lack of reward seat availability. They’re available on significantly more flights than Classic Reward seats. The trade-off is that they will often – though not always – cost more Qantas points than a Classic Reward seat.

Our comprehensive guide explains how the new Qantas Classic Plus Flight Rewards work…

Qantas Classic Plus pricing

Qantas prices Classic Plus Flight Rewards dynamically, based on the cost of the cheapest available commercial airfare on the flight at the time of booking.

When booking a Classic Plus reward in Economy, you’ll generally be getting around one cent of value out of each Qantas point used. When booking a Classic Plus flight in Premium Economy, Business or First Class, your points will effectively be converted to money at a rate of around 1.5 cents each.

You’ll still need to pay taxes, fees and carrier charges on Classic Plus Flight Reward bookings using money. When booking a seat in Business or First Class, the co-payment will actually be a bit higher than what it would be on a Classic Flight Reward booking. However, Qantas takes all of these taxes, fees and carrier charges off the airfare price when converting it into points.

The reason that Qantas has increased the carrier charge payable on Business and First bookings is to reduce the number of points payable. This accounts for the fact that Business and First Class fares on international routes are often very high.

As Qantas ties the pricing to the cost of commercial airfares, the number of points required for Classic Plus rewards will change as airfares change. This means that the number of points will drop when a flight goes on sale.

Comparing prices of different Qantas flight redemptions

With Qantas now offering three different reward flight options, we compared the cost of different types of bookings on the Sydney-Dallas/Fort Worth route on a random off-peak date. These prices are for a round-trip booking:

Clearly, Points Plus Pay is now a poor option as these rewards require the most points and are generally the least flexible. However, Points Plus Pay could be the only redemption option if you don’t have enough points to fully cover a Classic Reward booking, or if you want to book Qantas codeshare flights on certain partner airlines.

One-way flights may be more expensive than return flights

Since international airfares are often more expensive when booking one-way tickets, the same logic applies to Classic Plus rewards.

For example, we searched for reward seats from Sydney to London on QF1. On a one-way booking for a random date, Qantas offered a Business Class “Plus” reward for 501,300 Qantas points + $636. But when adding a return flight to the same booking, the cost of that same outbound flight in Business reduced to 276,900 Qantas points + $636.

You do have the option to mix and match different types of fares or reward types onto the same booking. So, you could access the lower points pricing on the outbound flight by booking a return flight on the same booking – even if booking the return flight using money. (If doing this, the most restrictive fare rules will apply to the whole booking.)

Combining Classic & Classic Plus rewards

It is possible to combine Classic and Classic Plus reward availability onto a single ticket. However, the number of points required will be calculated as the sum of the two individual components.

Currently, when booking a Classic Reward ticket that includes travel on Qantas, Jetstar, American Airlines and/or Fiji Airways, the price is just based on the total distance flown. But if combining a Qantas Classic Plus Reward with an American Airlines Classic Reward, for example, you’d need to pay for the individual segments.

Qantas Classic Plus seat availability

Classic Plus seats will be available to book on most Qantas flights, in all cabins. They are not currently available to book on any partner airlines, although Qantas Frequent Flyer may look to roll out this option onto Jetstar flights in the future.

The availability of Classic Plus Flight Rewards is tied to commercial fare class inventory. They will be available as long as there are seats for sale in the following specific commercial RBDs (Reservation Booking Designators):

But Qantas won’t release every seat as a Classic Plus Reward. For example, these rewards may not be available on flights that are close to selling out.

There are also a small number of Qantas routes where Classic Plus Flight Rewards will never be released. These include charter flights and routes with hard-block codeshares where Qantas may not have access to commercial inventory.

However, the airline expects to have around 20 million seats available to book as Classic Plus Rewards once the rollout is completed. That’s much more than the current 5 million seats available to book per year across both Qantas and all of its partner airlines.

How to book Qantas Classic Plus Rewards

Booking a Classic Plus Reward seat on the Qantas website is the same as the current procedure for booking traditional Classic Rewards.

When searching for flights online, select the “Rewards” option to view flights that are available to book using Qantas points:

You can also view an overview of availability when selecting a date, before you start your search:

When viewing flights, the Qantas website by default will always show the option that requires the lowest number of points. This will usually be a traditional Classic Flight Reward, if there is availability.

However, if no Classic Flight Reward seats are available – or it just so happens that Classic Plus costs fewer points – the only option would be to book a Classic Plus Reward.

In the example above, Classic Plus seats are showing on the two direct Sydney-Wellington flights. These flights happen to be on sale right now, so the Classic Plus options are actually cheaper than Classic. (Classic Rewards on this route would cost 18,000 points one-way in Economy or 41,500 points in Business, plus taxes & charges.)

If you use the multi-city booking engine on the Qantas website, Classic Plus options won’t appear.

When will Qantas complete the roll out of Classic Plus Rewards?

You can already redeem your Qantas points to book Classic Plus Reward seats on one-way or return international bookings departing from Australia. These are available for travel dates from 1 July 2024.

Qantas will open up Classic Plus options on international flights departing from other countries over the next few months. The airline expects to roll out Classic Plus onto the domestic Australian network later in 2024.

Qantas has also flagged that it will continue to enhance the booking flow on its website throughout this year. This will include a new availability calendar on qantas.com.

Changing or cancelling a Classic Plus reward booking

Just like with Classic Flight Rewards, you can cancel Classic Plus bookings for a fee of 6,000 Qantas points, per passenger.

Qantas Frequent Flyer is also allowing changes to Classic Plus bookings for the same 5,000-point fee. However, when changing a Classic Plus booking, you’ll need to pay any difference in fare between the old and new flight using money.

You can upgrade a Classic Plus ticket using Qantas points

All Classic Plus bookings are eligible to request an upgrade using Qantas points. This includes bookings in Business Class. (You can’t upgrade a Classic Flight Reward booked in Business.)

Classic Upgrade Rewards from Classic Plus bookings cost the same number of Qantas points as upgrades from Classic Flight Reward bookings. However, Classic Plus bookings will have priority in the upgrade queue over Classic.

Points Club members earn status credits on Classic Plus rewards

As is the case with Classic Flight Rewards, you won’t earn any points or status credits when booking Classic Plus reward flights.

However, Points Club and Points Club Plus members will still earn status credits on Classic Plus Rewards at the same rate as Classic Flight Rewards.

No changes to Classic Flight Rewards

Qantas says that this new reward option is simply an addition to its existing flight reward options. It will not replace fixed-price Classic Flight Rewards, which are here to stay.

“Classic Rewards are and will continue to be a very important part of our program. That will continue to remain” Qantas Loyalty CEO Andrew Glance said.

The airline ruled out changing Classic Flight Reward pricing this year. It also said it had no current plans to increase Classic Reward rates, but would always give notice to members before making any such changes in the future.

Qantas Platinum and Platinum One members will still be able to call up to request the release of additional Classic Reward seats. These will still be priced at the same Classic Reward rates.

Are Qantas Classic Plus Rewards good value?

Classic Plus Flight Rewards could benefit Qantas Frequent Flyer members with large points balances, who just want to be able to use their points to fly when and where they want. That’s because there are so many more seats available to book as “Plus” rewards.

But with Economy Class rewards worth a fixed value of around one cent per Qantas points, and premium cabin rewards valuing points at 1.5 cents each, these rewards aren’t providing top value.

This is certainly not the worst way to redeem Qantas points. You’d get less value than this when redeeming Qantas points for just about any type of reward that doesn’t involve flying!

But the fact is that Classic Flight Rewards remain better value in the vast majority of cases – particularly in premium cabins on long-haul international flights. This is something that Qantas openly acknowledges.

When redeeming points for Classic Flight Rewards, you can often get well over two cents per point worth of value – and sometimes even as much as five cents.

The trade-off, of course, is that Classic Flight Reward seats will remain harder to find. So, to benefit from the lower points pricing, you’ll need to be flexible or look harder for availability – or enlist the help of a service like Frequent Flyer Concierge to search for you.

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I personally can’t see many circumstances where I would choose to book a Classic Plus flight on Qantas. If I couldn’t find Classic Flight Reward availability – or the cash fare for a flight I wanted was so low that the Classic Plus rate was actually cheaper – I would probably just pay money for that flight and save my points for another reward.

That said, I could see the advantage of booking a Classic Plus seat if there was no Classic seat and I needed flexibility. That’s because the 6,000-point penalty to cancel a Classic Plus ticket for a refund is significantly lower than the cost to cancel most commercial Qantas tickets.

What do you think about this change?

There has been a lot of feedback about this change on the Australian Frequent Flyer forum. Some AFF members have found good use cases for this new type of reward, but the majority of frequent flyers appear to be underwhelmed.

You can share your thoughts and join the lively discussion on our forum:

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.