Have you ever been frustrated when you can’t use your Qantas Points for the date, route and/or class of travel that you’re aiming for? You are not alone.
To help save you time and narrow your searches for award availability, I’ve compiled a list of the best (and worst) international routes for releasing award seats on Qantas flights.
As you’ll see, the number of routes that it is hard to find open seats on is more than double the easy ones. Hopefully, Qantas takes notice and becomes more generous in releasing award seats to its loyal frequent flyers.
The test
I’ve focussed mainly on Business Class award availability on international routes, given that is what most of our readers are aiming for. However, First and Premium Economy Class seat availability has also been taken into account.
Economy Class redemptions are not included in this test, given that you can usually find open seats in that cabin, especially during off-peak travel periods. However, redeeming Qantas Points for Economy flights usually does not provide very good value.
I’ve also restricted this test to Qantas-operated flights, not those serviced by partners like Emirates and Cathay Pacific.
Easiest international routes to find Qantas award availability on
It’s easiest to pick up an award seat when travelling on Qantas within the Asia-Pacific region.
| Sydney/Melbourne/Brisbane – Auckland/Christchurch/Wellington |
| Sydney/Melbourne/Brisbane/Perth – Singapore |
| Sydney/Melbourne/Brisbane – Hong Kong |
| Sydney – Beijing |
| Sydney – Manila |
| Sydney – Osaka |
Hardest international routes to find Qantas award availability on
It’s most difficult to use your Qantas Points for premium cabin redemptions to North and South America, Europe and South Africa (Qantas’ longest flights).
| Sydney/Melbourne/Brisbane – US |
| Sydney/Melbourne/Brisbane – Tokyo |
| Sydney/Melbourne/Brisbane – Queenstown |
| Sydney – Bangkok |
| Sydney – Honolulu |
| Sydney – Santiago |
| Sydney – Vancouver |
| Perth – London |
| Singapore – London (as an extension of Sydney/Melbourne – Singapore) |
| Sydney/Brisbane – Lord Howe Island (not technically international) |
Ways to increase your chances of securing Qantas award availability
Preference for premium cabin award availability on long-haul Qantas flights is given to those with elite status. As such, if you are a:
- Gold, Platinum or Platinum One member: book 353 days before departure
- Bronze or Silver member: you won’t get access to those seats until 297 days before departure, by which stage they are often already gone
You can increase your chances of securing an award seat using Qantas Points by:
- booking right when the award calendar opens for your status level
- being flexible with your dates, especially by avoiding travel during school holidays
- being flexible with your routes—out of the three Australian departure airports for Qantas flights to the US and Japan, Brisbane tends to offer the most award availability, followed by Melbourne and then Sydney; for flights to the US, it is easier to find seats to/from San Francisco than Los Angeles
- considering award travel on partner airlines—redemptions on carriers such as Emirates and American Airlines are cheaper than those on Cathay Pacific and Japan Airlines; also, you’ll save fees when flying American Airlines or Fiji Airways to the US (rather than Qantas)
Summing up
Qantas is not the most generous airline when it comes to releasing award seats to its frequent flyers. A major factor in this is a lack of competition in the Australian frequent flyer market.
As such, when you are looking to use your hard-earned Qantas Points for an award redemption in First, Business or Premium Economy Class, it helps to narrow your search down to the most available routes. These tend to be within the Asia-Pacific region.
If you want to fly further afield, to places like North and South America, Europe and South Africa, then try to book when the award calendar first opens.
Do you agree or disagree with the classifications above? Based on your personal experience, which Qantas routes offer the best (and worst) award availability?
I just tried to use FF points which I have accumulated over several years since before covid.
The QANTAS website tells me I need 216,800 points for Business Class Brisbane to Los Angeles.
That looks ok.
So, I go on line and attempt to book and Qantas wants 955,100 FF Points !!
Australians are being totally ripped off by Qantas !!
What a joke ! Australians must “TRY” to use Virgin or any other Airline because Qantas is a pure ripoff monolopy !!
I have burned over 2M QF FF points over the past 3 years or so, mainly to Europe, and if I recall correctly, QF metal only used once, on a HKG-SYD-BNE flight. Every other redemption has been EK, CX and CI more recently. The fees are ridiculous. I usually book via HKG for that reason, and award avail seems to be best out of there. If SQ had a range of good earning credit cards in Australia I (and many like me I am sure) would abandon QF rapidly. The CI redemptions recently introduced are good value. Even with Plat/Gold status I have found avail tough. If you like playing poker, redemption seats open up about a week out -but most people wont risk that. I have also.taken to buying J class fares on promo out of Asia using google flights -when you factor in fees,and cost of obtaining points, it is often good value. For example HKG-EUR return on EY recently bought for $2400 AUD. If you can be creative consider via DPS,CGK and MNL. And consider avoiding premium hubs in EUR like BCN. OSL, AMS, FCO, ARL often will provide much cheaper routings.
As a Qantas frequent flyer for 5 decades I find without status finding point redemptions to from USA and Europe in J area joke, then the massive fees on top are ridiculous compared to Asian airlines.
Even collection some 500K points which don’t come cheap makes no matter to finding seats. The secret is, get to ASIA anyway you can on daylight flight with possible points upgrade, then use the FF points to USA/Europe, a plethora of airlines and seats are there to choose from along with small fees.
So as a bronze qantas member who is stuck flying around school holidays I seem to be a bit stuck. I likely can’t access business class seats and economy is a bad use of points. What do you suggest I do with my points? I am thinking of just hoarding them until my kids grow up.
Hi Kelly
While it can be frustrating at the lack of availability for premium seats as a Bronze member, they do exist, but believe that trying to find them during school holidays is the bigger problem here.
While I can’t specifically advise you on what to do with your points, it appears from your question that you are looking to maximise the value of each point that you redeem. Therefore, I would recommend you do not just redeem your points for easier to obtain rewards that provide little value, like gift cards or short-haul Economy tickets. You may wish to hold onto them (hopefully not for an entire generation though!), as premium seats can become available on certain routes that are experiencing less demand than expected, or perhaps you may find yourself going to a higher status in the future that may make finding award availability easier.
The only risk of holding onto points for the long-term is that Qantas may devalue their program in the future, so you’ll need to balance this risk against redeeming for a low value redemption.
Totally agree. I’m wanting a holiday and have tried multiple European/UK/North American destinations with no luck. Often the longest leg only has economy QFF seats available. I’m flexible in when i can travel and how long i can be away, i have my own business and my children are adults so can pretty much travel whenever i like. So frustrating as I have more than 300,000 points now and cannot use them. It is making me consider looking at another rewards program.
It seems to me that Qantas make it difficult to locate seats on their web site. This coupled with the down grading of the Qantas Club facilities, ala Melbourne Domestic, I am fast losing interest in Qantas.
Cheers Matt! Would be great to get one of these for VA as well