QANTAS: Launch of Classic Plus points redemptions brought forward to Monday 8 April

It looks like Qantas will unveil the latest change, ‘Classic Plus‘ flight redemptions to its Frequent Flyer scheme, on Monday. The change will provide a third tier of flight redemptions pitched between Classic Rewards (the best use of points) and ‘Points Plus Pay,’ which requires the most points for flight redemptions.

According to ET, a mid-morning event has been booked at Qantas Sydney offices for new Loyalty CEO Andrew Glance and Qantas Group CEO Vanessa Hudson to address the media. It’s expected that the new Classic Plus rewards tier will be launched then.

Ayesha de Kretser of the Australian Financial Review first reported last week on the proposed changes. She had sighted internal Qantas documents.

Don’t get too excited

This does not mean that suddenly, there will be acres of Classic Rewards available. Indications are that Qantas has no intention of increasing the speculated 5 million Classic Rewards tickets it offers each year. Instead, this new Classic Plus scheme targets Frequent Flyers who gain vast amounts of points through methods other than flying. That’s usually by spending on credit cards. These customers have squadrons of points but may not be able to catch Classic Rewards 353 days out when they become available to premium frequent flyer members.

The limit on Classic Plus redemptions has yet to be announced. I am presuming that there will be some limit—probably by number. Otherwise, it would just cannibalise the more expensive (in terms of Frequent Flyer points) Points-plus-pay scheme.

It is expected that Classic Plus will enable redemptions for tickets on the basis that a point is worth 1¢ for economy seats and 1.5¢ for business. No current leak as to the ‘price’ of First Class or Premium Economy seats’. The ‘price’ of seats will also fluctuate according to the dollar cost of seats. So, for instance, during sales, the points cost could also come down if there are Classic Plus seats available. It is expected that these Classic Plus seat redemptions will be available 353 days out, as current Classic Rewards are for premium Frequent Flyer scheme members.

What we ‘know’

Compiling all the commentary, it looks like the new Classic Plus scheme will have the following characteristics

• Classic Plus is a new scheme to redeem points for cash tickets
• It will value points at AU1¢ per point for Economy and AU1.5¢ for Business redemption seats
• You will need roughly double the points required for classic rewards but a third less than for Points-plus-pay
• Classic Plus redemptions will be available 353 days in advance
• Details will be announced on Monday, 8 April, with implementation soon after – guessed at sometime in April

What we don’t know

Well, really, the answer to that is everything since what we do know is only from leaked documents. But presuming the leaks are true, then we are still to find out:

• How many seats will be made available at Classic Plus rates?
• Will you be able to redeem Premium Economy and First Class tickets?
• Will the cost of Classic Plus tickets fluctuate with sale fares?
• Will Classic Plus fares be released 353 days out or at additional times of the year, say, during sales?

2PAXfly Takeout

Well, frequent flyer children, you will all have to sit back straight and fists on your knees until Monday mid-morning to find the answers to those questions.

Venessa will spin it by saying that it will help preserve the number of Classic Rewards. Still, it would seem that it is really a way of reducing those vast ‘points whales’ holdings of millions of frequent flyer points, which I presume sit on someone’s balance sheet as a liability.

What actual Frequent Flyers want is for more Classic Reward seats to be made available and for a more transparent system of seeing how many and when they are available. Having a transparent system for seeing where you are in an upgrade queue would also help.

Don’t get me wrong—adding a tier that is cheaper than Points-plus-pay is a great idea. However, it doesn’t quite meet my ‘pain point’, which is that there are just not enough premium tickets available for Classic Rewards.