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The Qantas Frequent Flyer program is one of the most popular loyalty programs in Australia, offering members numerous ways to earn and redeem points. With an extensive network of domestic and international routes, as well as a strong partnership with the Oneworld alliance, Qantas provides both Australian and US travelers with significant opportunity to maximize the value of their points. This guide will explore how to earn Qantas Points, highlight valuable redemption options, explain the program’s expiration policy, and discuss how to earn elite status and the nuances of Qantas' award pricing.
How to Earn Qantas Points
Flying on Qantas Airlines
The easiest way to earn Qantas miles is by flying on Qantas. However, it is not easy to determine how many miles you’ll earn without using their mileage calculator. They have an extraordinarily complicated chart system to define the mileage earning across every single route combination you can imagine.
Flying On Oneworld Partners
Qantas is a part of the Oneworld alliance, meaning you can also earn points when flying with other Oneworld member airlines, such as American Airlines, British Airways, and Cathay Pacific. Unfortunately, Qantas continues its trend of overcomplicating things by having another immensely complicated chart. Again, the easiest way to determine your earning is to just use the Qantas miles calculator.
Credit Card Transfer Partners
Qantas has a few US transfer partners that you can leverage to quickly accumulate its frequent flyer points:
Here are some of our favorite cards you can get to gain access to easy Qantas points.
Buy Qantas Points
Through the Qantas website, you have the ability to also purchase “top off” points. You can buy up to 150,000 points per purchase, with a maximum of 4 top-offs per year. Unfortunately, it is not typically a good deal to get Qantas points this way, as it can be an expensive endeavor.
Do Qantas Points Expire?
Qantas Points expire if there is no activity on your account for 18 months. To keep your points active, you need to earn or redeem points at least once within this period. Activities that count towards keeping your account active include flying with Qantas or partner airlines, using a Qantas credit card, and earning points through partners. In theory, it shouldn’t be too hard to keep your Qantas points alive, so keep a close eye on them as needed.
How To Earn Qantas Elite Status
To qualify for elite status, you need to earn Status Credits by flying on Qantas, Jetstar, or partner airlines. Status Credits are earned based on the distance flown and fare class. The qualification requirements are based on the following chart:
Unfortunately, it is difficult to determine how many status points you’ll earn on an individual flight segment without using the Qantas status calculator. The earnings chart is a little bit too difficult to use in these cases.
Qantas status confers a variety of awesome benefits, including accelerated points earning, complimentary seating, upgrades, priority check-in/security, free checked bags, and more.
Who Are Qantas’ Partners?
Qantas is part of the Oneworld alliance, meaning you can earn/redeem points on partner airlines like Alaska, American, British, or Cathay Pacific while also receiving reciprocal perks with your Qantas status.
The Australian airline also has a variety of non alliance partners, including the likes of EL-AL, IndiGo, LATAM, WestJet, Emirates, and more. With these external partners, benefits definitely vary on a case to case basis, but I’ve seen some airlines offer reciprocal status benefits, lounge access, or interline baggage check.
How Qantas Prices Its Award Flights
Qantas Points can be redeemed for award flights on Qantas and its partner airlines. The number of points required for a Qantas, Jetstar, Fiji Airways, Air Vanuatu, and American Airlines flight is based on a region-based award chart, which makes it relatively straightforward to understand the cost in points.
Qantas then uses a different chart altogether for partner award flights. This is also a pretty simple chart to understand/digest (and you may even start noticing some high value sweet spots).
Qantas Sweet Spot Redemptions 2024
Although Qantas is based in Australia, as a Oneworld partner, there are still ample high value redemption opportunities if you look closely enough. You can also use Roame to easily find Qantas results anytime within the next 365 days.
Qantas First Class LAX <> SYD For 162,800 Qantas Points One Way
Before you look at that pricetag and turn away, there’s a few reason why this is considered a sweet spot.
Firstly, LAX <> SYD is a very long flight—about 7,500 miles. First class for a route this long is definitely going to be expensive. Additionally, Qantas typically releases just 1 first class award seat on that route. Finally, when considering award release availability, Qantas releases its own award seats to its own program ahead of partners. For example, while Qantas releases award seats 353 days in advance, American only releases booking space 331 days. So if you’re trying to scoop that exclusive Qantas first class seat, your best bet is to go directly through Qantas.
Fly EL-AL Business Class East Coast US <> Tel Aviv For 90,000 Qantas Points One Way
Qantas and EL-AL airlines are partners and you can use Qantas points to book EL-AL flights. Based on Qantas’ partner award chart, flights flying 4,801-5,800 miles will cost just 90,000 Qantas points in each direction. What makes this redemption particularly exciting is that there are not many other good ways to get cheap EL-AL business class flights, so this Qantas redemption stands out for sure.
Hop On Fiji Airways Business Class West Coast US <> Fiji For 82,000 Points One Way
Qantas and Fiji Airways have a special partnership with one another, meaning you actually use the Qantas-specific chart when calculating the cost of Fiji Airways flights. You may notice that these flights are really competitively priced for their distance (~5,500 miles), which also falls just under the next distance band.
Qantas Award Cancellation Policy
Qantas has a relatively flexible cancellation policy for award tickets. You can cancel and redeposit your points for a fee, which varies depending on the type of award and the class of service. Unfortunately, they do not make it clear how much that fee is, so you’ll have to ask an agent to find out directly for your specific situation.
Conclusion
The Qantas Frequent Flyer program is a versatile and valuable loyalty program for both Australian and US based fliers. Understanding how to maximize this program is an important tool in your frequent flyer arsenal as you travel the world with points.
