G’day all. Today’s post is about Qantas Frequent Flyer again, because in late January they announced yet another raft of changes to the program, which seems to happen more frequently than ever. I wanted to have a quick look at them for you as Aussie Frequent Flyer programs have been a topic I have often visited on me blog!

It should be noted that these changes won’t come into effect until August, so if you want to book flights with points and are concerned with the changes (which basically is going to mean you require more points for rewards bookings) then you are best to book before August, if possible.

Firstly, in positive news, Qantas are announcing 1 million extra reward seats in 2025 with their European partners in Air France, KLM, Iberia and FinnAir. They are also adding Hawaiian Airlines to the partner list and what I am reading is that even though they won’t be a One World Partner until 2026, rewards seats will be available on them this year. We shall see. Hilariously I went to try and see if In could book a flight with Hawaiian Airlines in writing this post and when I did, I got directed to an error screen!

Other benefits coming into effect from August are flights from Australia to New Zealand for only 5,700 points on Jetstar and a 25% increase on the points earned on domestic flights. Overall, flights on Qantas’s budget arm will require LESS points to book.  However this is likely to mostly affect short flights restricting it to one ‘zone’ – for example Melbourne to Sydney, Sydney to Brisbane.

Remember when people earned points for Frequent Flyer Programs by FLYING? My first Frequent Flyer Program was for the now defunct ANSETT Australia, which disappeared after September 11 2001 (they were already in deep financial trouble prior to the terrorist attacks on the US, but couldn’t survive the repercussions for air travel afterwards). I had 25,000 points earnt from a round-the-world trip, which is not really that much when you consider I took 25 flights or more on that trip with partner airlines on a Star Alliance ticket. Never got to use any of them.

The biggest downside of the changes is the increase of points needed to redeem flights which seems to be up in general across the board. In some instances taxes are also increasing, but this is not the case for every flight. Qantas have released a list of flights to demonstrate the changes.

Airline/One-way trip	Before changes	After changes	Differences
JQ Economy SYD to OOL	6,400 + $35	5,700 + $35	-700 + $0
JQ Economy MEL to CNS	14,400 + $38	16,600 + $38	+2,200 + $0
QF Economy SYD to MEL	8,000 + $55	9,200 + $55	+1,200 + $0
QF Business SYD to MEL	18,400 + $55	19,300 + $76	+900 + $21
QF Economy SYD to DPS	20,300 + $147	23,300 + $147	+3,000 + $0
QF Economy SYD to LHR	55,200 + $263	63,500 + $263	+8,300 + $0
QF Business SYD to LHR	144,600 + $473	166,300 + $648	+21,700 + $175
BA Economy SYD to LHR	66,200 + $459	76,100 + $459	+9,900 + $0
EK Business SYD to LHR	159,000 + $1,187	156,300 + $1,187	+7,300 + $0

This was copied and pasted from the website point hacks. They have a more comprehensive article on the changes HERE – if you’re interested in changes/potential changes to Status Credits there’s a few thoughts on that there too. If you look at the last line on the table there is a clear error with the points which I believe should read 166,300 + $1,187 AFTER CHANGES. I mean that flight on Emirates is not easy to book anyway, availability tends to be super low on Emirates out of Australia and this also demonstrates the ridiculous amount of tax charged on Emirates flights by Qantas. The Qantas flight Sydney to London is going up by nearly 22,000 points and they’ve significantly increased their taxes too.

And of course, no international flights listed from Melbourne or indeed any other state capital other than Sydney, and keep in mind Melbourne is a very busy airport. Sydney saw 24 million passengers move through it in 2023 compared to Melbourne 23 million. Qantas’s use of Sydney as a hub for reward seat bookings (international) is hard to justify when the availability difference between the two appears to be so stark.

I’ll leave you all to decide what you think. The Point Hacks article does point out that increases are inevitable and there hasn’t been one like this for six years at Qantas. Each point does have a monetary value, so inflation effects their value too. Velocity last year had a points increase itself. At the end of the day this was bound to happen. As I said, book before August!

Thanks for popping by today! Take care wherever you are in the world and… May the Journey Never End!