QANTAS: Details of Classic Reward redemption downgrades

Qantas announced significant changes to its Frequent Flyer program on 22 January 2025. Most changes were adverse for frequent flyers, including an increase in the number of points needed to redeem Classic Reward seats. Upgrades also require more points, and carrier charges on some routes increased from August 5, 2025.

One example is the rise in points required for a Business Class seat from Sydney to London, from 144,600 to 166,300.

For carrier charges, a Classic Reward Business Class seat on Qantas‘ Sydney-London route will rise from $473 to $648, an increase of more than 35%.

As partial compensation, Qantas is claiming that it will ass one million reward seats across over 100 national routes, plus providing redemptions on more partner airlines like Finnair, Air France, KLM, Iberia, and Hawaiian Airlines.

In addition, from the second half of 2025, Frequent Flyer members will earn up to 25% extra points on domestic flights.

At the announcement late last year, we didn’t have all the details. Now we have charts!

Classic Reward redemptions increase

Commencing on 5 August, 2025 the points cost of redemptions for Classic Rewards – the best value seats will increase between 5 and 20%. Plus, the cash fees also increase. Below is an extract from the Qantas Fact Sheet.

New Qantas Frequent Flyer Classic Reward charts

Here is the new Classic Flight Reward chart, covering flights on Qantas, Emirates, Fiji Airways, and American Airlines, which applies for tickets booked from August 5, 2025.

You can see the changes when you compare them with the pre-August 4, 2025 redemption chart below.

Qantas Frequent Flyer discounting on Jetstar

On the same date, Qantas Frequent Flyer redemptions will be offered on Jetstar, their ‘low-cost’ subsidiary. Awards start at just 5,700 points. This is good news, since Jetstar fares, all things considered are sometimes close to Qantas full-service fares, just without the drinking, dining, baggage and seating choice options.

Here is a screen grab of the Qantas award chart for Jetstar flights.

Partner award availability using Qantas Frequent Flyer points is being increased

From October 2025, Qantas will increase the number of partner frequent flyer award options accessible by members. The claim is that one million extra international Classic Reward seats will be available annually. This includes premium economy awards on Air France, Finnair, Iberia, and KLM. Up until then, the premium economy cabin was not available to be booked using Qantas Frequent Flyer points redemptions.

Hawaiian Airlines – soon to be part of Alaska Airlines will also be available for redemption fares to Hawaii.

Points earning increase

July 2025 will see Qantas Frequent Flyer earning more points in two ways. The earn rate on domestic flights will increase by up to 25%, and there will no longer be a limit on the number of bonus status points you can earn on premium cabins. Qantas claims that this will make available around four billion more points each year.

2PAXfly Takeout

Broadly, this is a pretty shitty deal for Qantas Frequent Flyers. It’s a substantial reduction in the value of Qantas points, with a couple of chicken bones thrown down to distract. Qantas claims it has not significantly changed its program for six years. Ahem, what about the effective increase in redemption prices with Classic Plus Rewards?

Why do we always have to see a devaluation as part of every change? Wouldn’t seeing an upward valuation of Qantas Frequent Flyer points be nice? I know, I’m dreaming!

These changes make the Qantas frequent flyer scheme even worse than it already was.

Making premium seats more expensive for Classic Rewards redemption, when they are almost non-existent anyway, is a program turn-off. And when the increased availability of seats on partner airlines should be an advantage, they are still more expensive to redeem using Qantas points than using other frequent flyer redemption programs. So that’s shit too.

The main advantage of these changes is to Qantas. It has effectively increased the points pool by four billion points. It’s like a government printing money. And we all know what that leads to—hyper inflation, with money, or in this case, points, being worth less.

I suppose we Australians, stuck in the frequent flyer mouse wheel of earning Qantas points, will just have to bathe in the slightly positive news of more partner rewards and cheaper redemptions on Jetstar.