Qantas American Express Ultimate - how does the free domestic flight work?

Hi Pointhacks,

I am looking at getting the QANTAS American Express Ultimate card but I noticed in the terms and conditions that the free domestic return flight only gets added to your account after an initial purchase of ‘Selected Qantas products and services’ which ‘are: (a) Qantas passenger flights with a QF flight number purchased on the Qantas merchant account i.e. directly with Qantas or some travel agents or (b) purchases from Qantas Travel shops. Excludes: Qantas Holidays, Qantas Freight, Jetstar and Qantas branded non-airfare products operated by third parties e.g. Qantas Box Office.’

Do you have any advice on what the best/cheapest option is to qualify for this? I don’t want to have to buy a flight to get the free flight. Unsure if a purchase from a Qantas travel shop includes things from the Qantas store etc.

Qantas travel shops are their physical travel agents. so i understand this condition means buying an actual airfare not goods like from the online qantas store.  the card is pitched at people who fly qantas regularly so not sure why you wouldn't buy at least one qantas flight a year .

This is untested by me personally, but I understand that purchases from Qantas Epiqure and Qantas Carbon Offsets are both processed by Qantas directly and could count as a transaction that would trigger the benefit and the signup bonus points for Qantas spend.

The carbon offsets are at https://www.qantasfutureplanet.com.au and I think doing one of $1 or more could work - they have done so to trigger the lounge passes included with other cards that require a Qantas transaction. If you test and have success, please report back!