If you’re new to the world of frequent flyer points, it’s quite easy to get confused. Especially so when it’s time to turn those hard-earned points into a flight. For a fair while now, the Qantas website hadn’t been the easiest place to book a Classic Reward flight – but that’s now changed.
Before the rejig, finding Qantas’ best-value reward seats was a multi-step process. You’d have to tick ‘use points’ just to get started. And when, on the results page, you’d have to refine the results to only show Qantas’ Classic Reward flights. Skip that step, and you’d mainly see figures for ‘points plus pay’ instead, which doesn’t have quite the same value.
Fast-forward to today, and ‘points plus pay’ takes a back seat. It’s still there, but it’s not in the way. And in its place, those best-value Classic Reward results take pride of place. Here’s why that makes your next reward flight easier to find and book.
Qantas puts Classic Reward flights front and centre
Let’s say you’re browsing for a Classic Reward flight on the Qantas website. Ticking the ‘use points’ box really is ‘job done’. When choosing your travel date(s), the tool now highlights – very clearly – the dates with Classic Reward seats available.
Previously, you might have seen a small ribbon in the corner: but you had to know what this meant. Now, it’s very clear. Once you’ve chosen your date, you can still browse through other departure options via the next screen. This function was available before, but you’ll no longer see those inflated ‘points plus pay’ figures here.
When it comes to choosing your specific flight, there’s also no need to refine the results to remove those ‘points plus pay’ alternatives. You’ll simply see a list of flights, along with the options for booking as a Classic Reward, if available.
After that, the process of booking your Qantas Classic Reward flight is the same as before. Click through the process, enter your details, select your seats and complete check-out. Done!
What about ‘points plus pay’?
To reiterate, when booking a Qantas flight, Classic Reward seats provide the best-value option. They offer a fixed redemption price based on availability, where you pay only the taxes, fees and any carrier charges alongside that set booking cost.
Qantas American Express Ultimate
- Sign-up Bonus:
- Up to 100,000 bonus Qantas Points¹
- Rewards Earn Rate:
- 1.25 Qantas Points earned per $1 on eligible everyday purchases. 2.25 Qantas Points per $1 spent on selected Qantas products and services in Australia. 0.5 Qantas Point per $1 at government bodies in Australia. After a total of 100,000 Qantas Points is earned in a calendar year, the everyday earn rate will change from 1.25 to 1 Qantas Point per $1 spent.
- Annual Fee:
- $450 p.a.
- Offer expires
- 5 May 2026
- Earn 70,000 bonus Qantas Points when you spend $5,000 in the first 3 months, plus an additional 30,000 Qantas Points when you spend a minimum of $1 on your Card within 90 days of paying your second year annual Card Fee¹. (Offer ends 5 May 2026. New Amex Card Members only. T&Cs apply.) This card includes an annual $450 Qantas Travel Credit, two Qantas Club Complimentary Lounge Invitations after eligible Qantas spend each year, complimentary international travel insurance, and Qantas Wine Premium Membership (valued at $99). Earn 1.25 Qantas Points per $1 on everyday spend, 2.25 on Qantas purchases, and 0.5 on government payments. The annual fee is $450.
‘Points plus pay’, on the other hand, is all about using points towards purchasing a cash fare. This means you can use points to book any seat on any Qantas flight, as long as there’s still a ticket available for sale using dollars. Because of the dynamic nature of fare prices, and the relatively low value assigned to Qantas Points using this method, it’s not usually the best way to spend your points.
For instance, I’ve just browsed for a one-way flight from Sydney to Melbourne. I could have booked the same seat on the same flight in one of three ways:
- Using cash to buy a ticket for $159 outright.
- By spending Qantas Points as a Classic Reward. This costs 8,000 points plus $45 in taxes, fees and charges. Compared to the cash fare price, that gives a value of 1.425 cents per Qantas Point redeemed.
- By selecting the $159 fare, but using the ‘points plus pay’ tool (now found on the final checkout page) to offset the cost. I’d need 26,501 Qantas Points to offset the $159 fare, giving a value of around 0.6 cents per point redeemed.
As you can see, even when paid fare prices are relatively low, you can still get more than two times as much value per Qantas Point by booking a Classic Reward rather than using ‘points plus pay’. Of course, ‘points plus pay’ still has its place. Perhaps you have a very high balance of points but are conserving your cash – and you can’t find any Classic Reward availability. You might prefer to reduce your points balance rather than your bank balance.
It’s great to still have that option, but even better than Qantas’ best-value bookings are now clearer and easier to find.
Also read: Why I happily spend (some of) my points on domestic Economy
Featured photo by Chris Chamberlin. Booking screenshots generated by Point Hacks.
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Still no ability to search by airline. Sydney to Bali shows a rewards flight almost everyday but mostly on Jetstar. Still need to cycle each and every day to find a Qantas operated flight.
Absolutely useless.
No Award seating Sydney/Tokyo return from Nov 27 onward thru to Dec 31, 2024. Nothing in January 2025. Looking for economy award seating for family of 6. Admittedly that’s a handful but splitting it two made no difference.
When selecting flights and attempting to confirm, the Error page is the way forward?? Rinse & repeat, rinse & repeat ad nauseum. Spoke with Qantas, described problem, asked that they forward on my message.
Was advised Qantas was probably aware of the problem and attempting to fix it. The ‘fixers’ obviously on holidays for the past week or more as situation unchanged.
A very helpful article but interesting that commentators are saying so few J or F class seats available.
They simply must increase availability for premium cabins on international flights DRAMATICALLY if they want the loyalty program to survive.
I am also one leaving the Qantas program because of complete lack or reward flight availability.
Qantas Frequent Flyer Program is useless internationally since COVID. Through my business, I get around 5 Million points per year and I travel internationally regularly with points. I have now had to change to AMEX points so that I can travel on other airlines as they always have award seats available. An example is for this Christmas 2024 I need to fly my family (4 people) to London. I easily found award fairs on Singapore and Emirates. Nothing on Qantas. On top of that, I am highly likely to be upgraded to first on Emirates. I have also just tested the new upgraded award seat system on Qantas. It is a lot better however it does not filter for business class. I just now tried BNE to LAX and selected business seats. It showed on the calendar a few days with award seats however when I selected them they were economy. I am very pleased I made the change to AMEX points 2 years ago however I have around 5 Million qantas points I can only slowly use for domestic flights.
its no even easier to see that that qantas have zero business or first available to europe or the US for the whole year 🙂
It was always ridiculous. About time “common sense” was used by Qantas.
Now if only Qantas would ACTUALLY RELEASE some BUSINESS REWARD SEATS from MEL to LAX
About time, and thank goodness. Getting rid of these multiple layers of confusion and wasted time was such an EASY fix for QF….it makes you wonder why they don’t go after more ‘low-hanging fruit’ like this..doesn’t cost them anything, but it means A LOT to us long-suffering customers.
I’ve just been searching on the Qantas App. It definitely is easier to see reward flights, however even after selecting business class, I’m finding that it nearly always only shows economy reward seats in the search results? Is there are way to prevent this from happening, and have it only show reward seats that are actually business class?
Just such a shame that availability for anything is so poor, all the time