QANTAS: Loyalty changes: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly!

Ugggh! More changes to the Qantas loyalty scheme. These are rarely good. More like bad or ugly. What is presented as advantage, ends up having a very big downside. Lets have a look at the changes to the Qantas Frequent Flyer loyalty scheme announced today. Changes cover Qantas, Jetstar and their airline partners.

The Good

There is some good news in this announcement, so lets start there.

• Classic Reward bookings are available from 1 October, 2025 on all Hawaiian Airlines flights through the Qantas website. That’s about 800,000 seats, prior to Hawaiian joining OneWorld
• Jetstar Classic Rewards to require fewer points from 1 August, 2025
• Jetstar points based upgrades available on international Boeing 787 in Busiiness Class from February 2026
• From July, you can earn more points — up to 25% more on some domestic flights with Qantas
• Rewards redemptions on Jetstar to be cheaper
• More (about 200,000) Classic Reward seats in premium economy cabins on Air France, Finnair, Iberia and KLM in addition to Business Class and Economy from 1 October.

The Bad

What the right hand gives, the left hand takes away. Bad! From 5 August 2025, expect the following increases:

• Classic Rewards will cost more points — between 5 to 20% more according to route — on Qantas and partner airlines
• Classic Upgrades will also cost more points
• Carrier charges for international premium cabins — Business and First Class bookings to increase — to the same level as Classic Plus rates — a jump of ~35%

My advice is to book your Classic Rewards seats before the August increase. Remember, rewards are available up to 11 months out.

Qantas will also publish a full list of new points earnings as of May 2025

The Ugly

Redemption on Emirates flights will be the same as on the Qantas redemption table. That’s an increase in the number of Qantas Poiints you will need in premium travel, so from Premium Economy up, plus Emirates hugely high carrier charges — they don’t fall to even the level of the increased Qantas charges! Ugly.

2PAXfly Takeout

Changes to frequent flyer loyalty schemes are almost never good news for airline loyalists. This move by Qantas is no different. OK, they havn’t upped their points costs since before the pandemic, but that’s not really a justifiction.

You can read the full media release, along with some examples of how points earning and redemptions work on sample routes here. Or, download this handy Fact Sheet that Qantas has put together, biased to what they see as the positives of course.

These changes are nearly always dressed up as a response to customer feedback. Qantas has mercifully not persued that line with these change. We have to be thankful for small mercies.

What Qantas loyalists really want is more Classic Reward seats in premium cabins to be available, preferably 11 months out. Now that would really get praise from me.