QANTAS: Classic Reward Seats avalanche on Friday 24 February

The lack of premium classic reward redemption seats has been one of the major pandemic-associated complaints of Qantas frequent flyers. With premium airfares hitting the stratosphere, particularly on Qantas, value-seeking frequent flyers have looked to classic reward and upgrade seats to cash in their hard-earned points. The only problem is, unless you exercise your trigger finger to the second of release, you just can’t find a premium seat reward on virtually any international flight.

New points seats unleashed on Friday

According to a story in ET, a new set of ‘thousands’ of extra seats will be added to the available rewards inventory, in all cabins including business and First class suites across 30 international destinations

Start planning

With this heads up about the release, you can be assured that there will be plenty of people with the Qantas website open ready to swoop on any available classic rewards premium seats. So if you want any of these, you better be ready.

Start by doing the following:

• Choose your dates, but be flexible
• Don’t even think about getting more than 2 classic rewards seats in premium cabins. Booking one Classic Reward premium seat is excellent, getting two makes you a star since this is often the total number of seats that are available in First Class
• Choose your destination – but again have some alternatives if possible. Remember that London, Bali, Los Angeles, Singapore and Tokyo are the most popular routes for redemptions, so if possible avoid them.
• Decide which class you would prefer, and which you will be happy with. Aim for First, but be happy with Premium Economy?
• Check your points balance to see if you can ‘afford’ your desired fare.
• Transfer points between family members to make sure you have enough for your desired trip
• Transfer points from other earning channels – like credit cards to Qantas in readiness

Classic Rewards

Flights booked as Classic Rewards are the best use of frequent flyer points, other than upgrades. Classic Rewards will cost you the least number of frequent flyer points of any redemption. All others like Points plus Pay, or standard points redemptions reflect the dollar cost of the fare, and are waaaay – like more than three times – as expensive as Classic Rewards redemptions.

When can we fly?

Not sure about this. Classic Rewards seats are released at different times for flyers with different frequent flyer status according to commentators. So if you are a member of Chairman’s Lounge, Platinum One and Platinum and Gold, then you get to book 353 days out in premium cabins on most long-haul routes on Qantas planes. For Bronze and Silver members, Qantas reduces to 297 (Bronze) and 323 (Silver) days. On Jetstar, it’s 300 days, and for Emirates (booked through Qantas) between 330 and 339 days according to the Point Hacks website.

That should give you an idea of how far you can book using Classic Rewards.

Where can you go

Basically anywhere Qantas flies to internationally. Despite the advice above – here are the standard classic rewards points needed for a one-way trip from the East Coast of Australia to two of the most popular destinations

	Economy	Fees	Business	Fees	First	Fees
Los Angeles	41,900 points	~$208	108,400 points	~$333	162,800 points	?
London	55,200 points	~$230	144,600 points	~$440	216,900 points	?

You should use the Qantas Classic Rewards calculator to help you work out how many points you need.

2PAXfly Takeout

This is another timely reminder to wear your seatbelt when seated. Holding you close to your seat will protect you from the sort of injuries sustained on this flight, when unsecured passengers flew to the ceiling of the aircraft, and then came crashing down once the ‘drop’ ceased.

The hope will be that this is an anomaly – a ‘freak accident’ in casual parlance. If it is a systemic error either mechanical or electronic, then this is a larger concern for the airlines that fly Boeing Dreamliner 787 aircraft. Let’s hope it isn’t. If it is, it will pile on the woes to Boeing’s existing stack.