QANTAS: Loyalty program opens new online shopping ‘Marketplace’ portal. Use your points wisely

Although little to do with actual flying, the Qantas loyalty program is the biggest earner in the group other than domestic flying. Its no surprise that it gets lots of attention from the company, and rolls out improvements regularly.

Now, let’s start by saying that spending your loyalty in this portal is a very bad use of your well-earned Qantas points. A much better use is to catch yourself some Classic Rewards seats on Qantas and partner flights, or even better use them to upgrade to premium cabins. On the earn front, it can be a good way to add to your points, especially if you are actually buying things that you would have anyway, and they cost the same here on the Marketplace as they do elsewhere.

Having said that, what is this ‘Marketplace’ innovation all about?

The Qantas Marketplace

The new online shopping ‘experience’ replaces the former Qantas Rewards store and allows Frequent Flyers to earn and burn Qantas Points on 900 ‘premium’ and other brands covering more than 20,000 products.

Qantas is hailing this as the biggest expansion of this online store with ‘premium’ (don’t get that confused with ‘luxury’) brands including in no particular order:

• Scanlan Theodore
• Rebecca Vallance
• bassike
• Jac + Jack
• Viktoria & Woods
• BEC + BRIDGE
• Country Road
• Kirrikin
• MCM House
• Dinosaur Designs
• Peloton

Earn and Burn

You can use Points Plus Pay and earn 3 Qantas points for each AU Dollar, which is a 33% increase from the former 2 points per dollar you could earn in the old store.

Incentives for Points Club and Points Club Plus members

If you are a member of either of these levels of Points Club, then there is an introductory earn rate of six points per dollar spent until 30 June 2023. Points Club Plus members will also get a continuing 10% discount, while Points Club members get a lowlier 5%.

Collaborations

Qantas is planning some future collaborations with designers, and has launched this program with a collab between Qantas – using its signature red colour and designer brand Michael Lo Sordo to create a dress available on the site.

2PAXfly Takeout

Just remember that the marketplace.qantas.com is different from Qantas Shopping which is a portal to different online shopping outlets and different earn rules apply.

Although I don’t in the main think that the new portal offers good redemption value compared to redeeming points for flights, there are personal circumstances where it can be advantageous. On the other hand, the earn rates can be good, but do the maths first – work out how much you are paying per point compared to say purchasing an airfare before you make your purchase decision.

Ooooo! look they have those Dinosaur Designs green salad servers I always wanted. Said I, never.