Yahoo Finance Qantas frequent flyer overhaul: 'Act now' or miss out on new deals
"Most of the availability is in economy, but that's still a solid way to use your points."
Qantas is making changes to its frequent flyer program, including how many seats its 15 million members are offered on international flights, and a new upgrades deal.
The airline giant is in the process of rebuilding customer trust after its reputation was trashed when it announced a super-sized $2.47 billion profit as customer service and the value of its offerings suffered.
Some of the customer “pain points” it vowed to use $80 million from its profits to address included an improved customer-care process, more “generous” offerings when operational issues arose, and an increase in the number of seats that could be redeemed with frequent flyer points.
Have you had issues with Qantas? Contact belinda.grantgeary@yahooinc.com
Members have now been sent an email advising of the 6,000 rewards seats being added to flights during the European summer peak. There will now be business and economy classic flight reward seats on every flight to London and Rome between June and August next year.
“These new seats are in addition to the 5 million reward seats currently available across Qantas, Jetstar and its other 45 partner airlines, including Emirates, American Airlines, Cathay Pacific, British Airways, LATAM and Japan Airlines,” Qantas said.
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Frequent flyer expert Angus Kidman welcomed the move and said using points on international flights was much better value for consumers.
"Qantas is usually stingy with frequent flyer seats to Europe, especially in summer, so it's good to see more seats available,” the Finder personal finance expert told Yahoo Finance.
"Most of the availability is in economy, but that's still a solid way to use your points, especially with fares to Europe always being higher during that period.
Kidman has valued each Qantas point spent on an economy classic reward as being about 2.1 cents with this deal, and reminded members to always try to get at least $20 of value from every 1,000 points used.
“It is a good-value outcome. It's certainly better than using your points to buy an air fryer,” he said.
Frequent flyers wanting to use their points to travel in premium cabins for international flights are also being offered a five-day “points plus pay” sale.
The number of points needed to book a first, business or economy seat will be halved until Friday.
To claim, you need to make sure the international flight (starts with QF) is on qantas.com and that it’s not a reward seat. But be careful because these are being snapped up quickly.
"Many people want business seats, but those always go quickly – we saw loads of them disappear as soon as this deal was announced,” Kidman said.
More information about how Qantas is going to improve customer experience with that $80 million will be announced in “coming weeks”.
Best ways to use your points
1. Flight upgrades: 2 to 8 cents per point
2. Business class flights: 3.5 to 6.5 cents per point
3. Premium flights: 3 to 4 cents per point
4. Economy flights: 1.3 to 2.5 cents per point
5. Hotels or car rentals: 0.65 to 0.85 cents per point
6. Gift cards or products: 0.3 to 0.6 cents per point
7. Charity donations: 0.7 to 0.8 cents per point
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