QANTAS: 20 million Classic Plus flight rewards available

Qantas doubles the points required for the new Classic Plus rewards redemption tier. But it quadruples the number of seats available.

As previously reported, Qantas has introduced a new tier for flight redemption by frequent flyers using their accumulated points. The airline claims the change is ‘the biggest ever expansion of the Qantas Frequent Flyer program in its 35-year history.’

The new Classic Plus tier will provide 20 million additional award seats compared to the estimated 5 million award seats available for the ‘cheapest’ Classic Rewards tier redemptions. But you will have to ‘spend’ more of your hard-earned points to get those Classic Plus rewards, but a lot less than to redeem for fares under the Points-Plus-Pay tier.

Book from today for flights from 1 July

From today, you can book seats in Economy and Business on international flights out of Australia using the Classic Plus reward tier. You can book for travel from 1 July 2024. Bookings can be made on the Qantas website.

Other international flights, cabin classes like First and Premium Economy and domestic fares will be rolled out over the rest of 2024. You will need to wait until the beginning of 2025 to access the estimated 20 million new Classic Plus reward seats across all classes. Classic Plus rewards will only be made available on Qantas flights, not partner or codeshare flights.

“The widespread availability of Classic Plus means that frequent flyers have more options to fly where they want, when they want and more often, using their points.

“The new type of reward seat will usually require more points than the highly sought after existing Classic seats, and will be available to all destinations on the Qantas international and domestic network, across First, Business, Premium Economy and Economy cabins.

Andrew Glance, Qantas Loyalty CEO

Classic rewards remain

The Classic Plus redemptions will be available in addition to the 5 million or more Classic reward seats. Classic rewards are available on Qantas, Jetstar and their 45 partner airlines. The points required will remain the same as when set in the last increase back in 2019

2PAXfly Takeout

This is a redemptions increase. Classic Plus rewards for Business fares cost around double those required for a Classic rewards redemption. It’s a way of increasing the cost of redemptions without appearing to.

It’s a smart move by Qantas. They can’t be accused of increasing the cost of points redemption tickets, because Classic rewards cost the same. But by introducing four times the tickets available under Classic rewards, at double the cost, they effectively increase the cost of redemptions.

This innovation is second best in my view. Best would have been to make 20 million additional Classic rewards available at current redemption rates.