Qantas Frequent Flyer Guide: Make the Most of Your Qantas Miles

When you’re a frequent traveler, it only makes sense that you investigate all opportunities to leverage rewards. If you regularly fly Qantas Airways, you might not want to ignore the Qantas Frequent Flyer Program. Qantas redemptions can offer good to great value on some Jetstar routes, and Qantas offers a round-the-world booking option with up to five stopovers permitted. Here’s what you need to know about Qantas Frequent Flyer.

In this article:

• What airlines can you book with Qantas Frequent Flyer points?
• Credit cards that belong to oneworld alliance members
• Where to search for rewards
• Rewards charts: How much do rewards cost?
• Rewards change and booking fees
• Options when you can’t find reward space
• Best reward values: Where to get the most from your miles
• Upgrades: How much do they cost?
• Stopover options
• Routing rules: How to piece together rewards across continents
• Alternative miles to book Qantas flights
• Hotel points that you can convert to Qantas
• Transferring miles to someone else
• Expiring miles: How to avoid losing them

What airlines can you book with Qantas Frequent Flyer points?

The oneworld alliance is a collaboration of 13 airlines. Qantas Frequent Flyer points can be used to book reward flights with all oneworld partners:

• American Airlines
• British Airways
• Cathay Pacific
• Finnair
• Iberia
• Japan Airlines
• LATAM
• Malaysia Airlines
• Qantas Airlines
• Qatar Airways
• Royal Jordanian Airlines
• S7 Airlines
• SriLankan Airlines

In addition, Qantas partners with other airlines that are not part of the oneworld alliance, including:

• Air New Zealand
• Jetstar
• Alaska Airlines
• Emirates
• Aer Niugini
• Air Vanuatu
• airnorth
• China Eastern
• El Al
• Fiji Airways
• WestJet

Credit cards that belong to oneworld alliance members

Since Qantas is a member of the oneworld Alliance, you can earn points that can be used to book Qantas flights as well as flights with other airline partners using certain travel-related credit cards. The following credit cards let you earn points that can be used with oneworld Alliance members.

• DUPLICATE AAdvantage® Aviator® Red World Elite Mastercard®
• American Airlines AAdvantage MileUp℠ Card
• Citi® / AAdvantage® Executive World Elite Mastercard®
• Citi® / AAdvantage® Platinum Select® World Elite Mastercard®
• Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card
• Chase Sapphire Reserve®
• Citi Prestige® Credit Card
• British Airways Visa Signature® Card
• The Platinum Card® from American Express

Where to search for rewards

Qantas offers one of the better reward search engines for oneworld flights. Most partners do show up on Qantas’ reward search engine. If a partner doesn’t show up in the search engine, you can contact the partner directly. If you want to use Qantas points to book an reward flight, we recommend first running your search on Qantas.com. If you don’t see flights that work for you, it is time to try searching for your flights segment-by-segment.

For example, if you want to fly from New York (JFK) to Prague (PRG) via London (LHR), you can run one search for reward flights from JFK-LHR and another search for flights from PRG to LHR. If you find flight options that work for both flights, you should be able to book them together as part of the same reward. If you can’t find anything, it’s possible that flights are not available for your desired dates and airports.

If you call into Qantas to find out about reward space or you need to search for space on a different website, you will also ultimately need to call to book that reward.

Reward charts: How much do rewards cost?

The easiest way to determine how much a Qantas reward costs is by using its points calculator. Qantas offers four different reward charts:

• Qantas classic flight rewards: For flights on Qantas and selected single individual partners
• oneworld classic flight rewards: For flights that combine at least two oneworld carriers other than Qantas. These rewards cannot combine partners that aren’t in oneworld.
• Partner classic flight rewards: For rewards on an individual partner.
• Jetstar classic flight rewards: For rewards on the budget carrier Jetstar.

Here are a few sample one-way price points for popular routes:

Route	Economy	Premium Economy	Business	First
Sydney-Los Angeles	41,900	81,300	108,400	162,800
Sydney-Dallas	51,200	94,900	126,500	189,800
Sydney-Tokyo (Haneda)	31,500	61,500	82,000	N/A
Sydney-Brisbane	8,000	N/A	18,400	N/A

Below are the full reward charts. Note that the appropriate chart depends on the airline or airlines being flown.

Qantas Classic Flight reward Chart for bookings on Qantas, Jetstar, Airnorth, Fiji Airways, Air Vanuatu, American Airlines and Emirates.

For bookings created on or after Sept. 18, 2019:

Zone	One-Way Mileage	Economy	Premium Economy	Business	First
1	0-600	8,000	13,800	18,400	27,600
2	601-1,200	12,000	20,600	27,600	41,500
3	1,201-2,400	18,000	31,000	41,500	62,200
4	2,401-3,600	20,300	42,200	57,000	85,500
5	3,601-4,800	25,200	51,300	68,400	102,600
6	4,801-5,800	31,500	61,500	82,000	123,100
7	5,801-7,000	37,600	71,100	94,900	142,300
8	7,001-8,400	41,900	81,300	108,400	162,800
9	8,401-9,600	51,200	94,900	126,500	189,800
10	9,601-15,000	55,200	108,400	144,600	216,900

Jetstar Classic Flight reward Chart for bookings on Jetstar, Jetstar Asia, Jetstar Japan and Jetstar Pacific (flights cannot be used with any airlines from the above chart).

For bookings created on or after Sept. 18, 2019:

Zone	One-Way Mileage	Economy	Business
1	0-600	6,400	13,800
2	601-1,200	9,600	20,600
3	1,201-2,400	14,400	31,000
4	2,401-3,600	18,000	42,200
5	3,601-4,800	21,500	51,300
6	4,801-5,800	26,000	61,500
7	5,801-7,000	32,000	71,100
8	7,001-8,400	35,600	81,300
9	8,401-9,600	43,500	94,900
10	9,601-15,000	46,900	108,400

Partner Classic Flight reward chart for flights on Air Niugini, Alaska Airlines, British Airways, Cathay Pacific/Cathay Dragon, China Airlines, China Eastern, El Al, Finnair, Iberia, Japan Airlines, LATAM, Malaysia Airlines, Qatar Airways, Royal Jordanian, S7 Airlines and SriLankan Airlines.

For bookings created on or after Sept. 18, 2019:

Zone	One-Way Mileage	Economy	Premium Economy	Business	First
1	0-600	10,000	15,800	20,000	29,000
2	601-1,200	14,000	23,700	30,000	43,500
3	1,201-2,400	20,000	34,500	43,800	64,500
4	2,401-3,600	24,500	48,500	61,200	89,800
5	3,601-4,800	30,200	59,000	75,000	107,700
6	4,801-5,800	37,800	70,800	90,000	129,300
7	5,801-7,000	45,000	81,800	104,500	149,800
8	7,001-8,400	50,3000	93,500	119,200	170,800
9	8,401-9,600	61,500	109,000	139,200	199,300
10	9,601-15,000	66,200	124,800	159,000	227,500

Oneworld Classic Flight reward Chart — to use this chart you must travel on at least two different oneworld Alliance airlines other than Qantas and you cannot travel on any airline that is not a oneworld member airline. Also, flights operated by Jetstar cannot be included.

For bookings created on or after Sept. 18, 2019:

Zone	Return Miles	Economy	Premium Economy	Business	First
1	0 – 1,200	20,000	31,600	40,000	58,000
2	1,201 – 2,400	28,000	47,500	60,000	87,000
3	2,401 – 4,800	40,000	69,000	87,600	129,000
4	4,801 – 7,200	49,000	97,000	122,400	179,600
5	7,201 – 9,600	60,400	118,000	150,000	215,500
6	9,601 – 11,600	75,600	141,600	180,000	258,600
7	11,601 – 14,000	90,000	163,600	209,000	299,600
8	14,001 – 16,800	100,600	187,000	238,400	341,600
9	16,801 – 19,200	123,000	218,000	278,400	398,600
10	19,201 – 35,000	132,400	249,600	318,000	455,000

Reward change and booking fees

Qantas is somewhat unique in that it quotes fees in terms of points. The following fees apply to reward reservations:

Fee Type	Fee
Reward Assistance Fee (Phone Bookings)	International: 6,000 points per passenger
	Other: 3,500 points per passenger
Cancellation Refund Fee	6,000 points per passenger
Change fee	5,000 points per passenger

Options when you can’t find reward space

When Classic rewards aren’t available, Qantas makes its own flights plus Jetstar flights available for booking with points using points and cash fares, so the only time a flight won’t be available for booking is if it is completely sold out. If you don’t want to spend the points for a points and cash fare, you can consider other partners that are available for the route you are interested in flying, or look into other mileage options to use instead.

Best reward values: Where to get the most from your miles

If you already have a number of Qantas points, it probably makes sense to use them. Here are some sample offerings:

• Fly from the U.S. East Coast (New York) to Dubai for 75,200 points round trip in economy or 168,000 points round trip in business class.
• Fly from the U.S. East Coast (Washington, D.C.) to Western Europe (London) for 60,400 points round trip in economy or 130,000 points round trip in business class.
• Fly from the U.S. East Coast (Boston) to Australia (Melbourne) for 121,600 points round trip in economy or 256,000 points round trip in business class on Qantas.

Upgrades: How much do they cost?

You can use your Qantas points to upgrade eligible Classic Flight Reward bookings to a higher class of service. Upgrades from economy to premium economy, upgrades from economy to business and upgrades from premium economy to business are all permitted, if there is availability.

You can use the Upgrade Calculator to calculate the cost of the upgrade you are interested in. To give you an idea of the costs, here are the one-way upgrade prices to upgrade Classic Flight Rewards for a few popular routes:

Route	Economy to Premium Economy	Economy to Business	Premium Economy to Business
Sydney-Los Angeles	56,500	90,000	45,000
Sydney-Dallas	62,500	100,000	50,000
Sydney-Tokyo	37,500	60,000	30,000
Sydney-Brisbane	N/A	12,000	N/A

Stopover options

Flights booked using oneworld Classic Flight Rewards – for trips made using at least two different oneworld Alliance airlines other than Qantas – allow up to five free stopovers.

Stopovers aren’t allowed on Qantas Classic Flight rewards, for those flights booked on Qantas, Jetstar, Airnorth, Fiji Airways, Air Vanuatu, American Airlines and Emirates.

But since Qantas has a distance-based reward chart, you can sometimes build in a stopover for only a few additional points. In order to do this, you would need to book your trip as two separate tickets: one ticket to the intermediate point and one ticket to the final destination.

For example, if you wanted to fly from Los Angeles to Singapore with a stop in Hong Kong, you could book one ticket from Los Angeles to Hong Kong and a separate ticket from Hong Kong to Singapore.

Routing rules: How to piece together rewards across continents

Qantas also allows round-the-world (RTW) bookings. Since Qantas’ reward chart is distance based, using the oneworld RTW chart above makes more sense than breaking up your trip into separate rewards – as long as you follow the one major routing rule: backtracking between continents is not allowed, though you are allowed to backtrack within a continent.

If you are planning to book a RTW ticket with Qantas, note that you cannot fly partners that are not part of oneworld (like Emirates). You can make up to five stopovers on your RTW booking. The pricing for RTW bookings is based off the pricing for the oneworld Classic Flight reward chart (the fourth chart listed above), and the price is best determined by using the reward Pricing Calculator.

Alternative miles to book Qantas flights

If your goal is to book a Qantas flight, but you don’t have any Qantas Frequent Flyer miles, you’re still in luck. It’s possible to book Qantas flights with Alaska Airlines and all oneworld partners, including American Airlines and British Airways.

Hotel points that you can convert to Qantas

If you have hotel points lying around, it could make sense to transfer them to Qantas. As a general rule, hotel points are more valuable if used for hotel nights, but depending on your needs, you could transfer them in order to top off toward a reward. The following hotel programs offer transfers to Qantas.

• Le Club Accorhotels
• Choice Privileges
• Hilton
• Hyatt
• Marriott
• IHG

Transferring miles to someone else

You can redeem rewards for family members using your Qantas Frequent Flyer miles directly from your account. Family members are defined as:

• husband/wife
• parent/step-parent
• domestic partner/de facto
• child (including foster and step-child)
• brother/sister
• half- brother/sister
• grandparent
• grandchild
• son/daughter-in-law
• brother/sister-in-law
• father/mother-in-law
• uncle/aunt
• nephew/niece
• first cousin

Similarly, you can only transfer miles to the same family members with a minimum of 5,000 miles transferred and a maximum of 600,000. It is free to do so online, while there is a charge of $28 USD over the phone.

Expiring miles: How to avoid losing them

Miles expire in 18 months if there isn’t earning or redemption activity on the account. Point transfers to family members do not count as redemption or earning activity.

The information related to the British Airways Visa Signature® Card has been independently collected by CompareCards and has not been reviewed or provided by the issuer of this card prior to publication.