Since 2016, you’ve been able to request an upgrade for Qantas Classic Flight Reward bookings (i.e. reward seat bookings you’ve already made with your Qantas Points), by using even more Qantas Points.
This ability to upgrade Classic Flight Rewards has introduced another layer of complexity when looking to redeem your points, but it’s also a great opportunity to extract some value from your hard-earned frequent flyer balance.
Here’s how it works, and how it stacks up against redeeming for a premium cabin flight outright.
What is a Classic Upgrade Reward?
‘Classic Upgrade Rewards’ is fancy-speak for the ability to upgrade your Qantas flights using Qantas Points. Both cash fares and reward seat bookings are covered under the same system.
The points needed to upgrade varies on the type of fare. For example, cheaper fares will need more points to upgrade than flexible fares. Classic Flight Reward fares command the highest upgrade rate, as you haven’t paid for a cash fare in the first place.
For an Economy to Business Class upgrade, here’s what you can expect:
- Economy Flex fares: lowest points upgrade cost
- Economy Red e-Deal fares: medium points upgrade cost
- Economy Classic Reward fare: highest points upgrade cost
It’s important to remember that you’ll use more points booking a Classic Flight Reward in a lower class and later upgrading it, compared to booking a Classic Flight Reward in the higher class outright.
Qantas has published two tables for flight upgrades – Domestic and International. These tables list the points needed to upgrade across a variety of cabin classes for both cash fares and Classic Flight Rewards.
The points cost are shown below. These tables highlight the total cost in points of upgrading a Classic Flight Reward ticket against using your points to book directly into the higher cabin class outright.
How many points do I need to upgrade a Qantas Domestic flight?
There are two Qantas Domestic tables available, one for upgrades to Premium Economy and the other to Business.
While domestic aircraft do not include a Premium Economy cabin, the former is used for domestic segments of international flights that offer Premium Economy (such as QF9/10 between London, Perth and Melbourne).
| Zone | One-way miles | Original Economy Cost | Cost to upgrade to Premium Economy | Total Cost of upgraded flight | Cost of outright Premium Economy redemption | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 0-600 | 8,000 | 8,700 | 16,700 | 13,800 | 2,900 |
| 2 | 601-1,200 | 12,000 | 13,000 | 25,000 | 20,600 | 4,400 |
| 3 | 1,201-2,400 | 18,000 | 19,600 | 37,600 | 31,000 | 6,600 |
| 4 | 2,401-3,600 | 20,300 | 28,300 | 48,600 | 42,200 | 6,400 |
| Zone | One-way miles | Original Economy Cost | Cost to upgrade to Business | Total Cost of upgraded flight | Cost of outright Business redemption | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 0-600 | 8,000 | 13,000 | 21,000 | 18,400 | 2,600 |
| 2 | 601-1,200 | 12,000 | 19,600 | 31,600 | 27,600 | 4,000 |
| 3 | 1,201-2,400 | 18,000 | 28,300 | 46,300 | 41,500 | 4,800 |
| 4 | 2,401-3,600 | 20,300 | 38,100 | 58,400 | 57,000 | 1,400 |
You’re definitely wasting more points booking a Classic Flight Reward in a lower cabin and then upgrading, compared to booking into the higher cabin directly as a reward seat.
Therefore, If you are looking to redeem points for a flight and have an inkling that you may wish to travel in a premium class, make sure to redeem for the premium class seat directly.
Remember that Qantas domestic reward flights are upgraded instantly where reward availability exists. Therefore, if you find yourself regretting your Economy redemption and looking to upgrade, it may be smarter to pay the relevant change/cancellation fee to re-book in the higher class, rather than upgrade.
How many points do I need to upgrade a Qantas International flight?
Qantas makes available four upgrade charts for International travel, which cover the following upgrades:
- Economy to Premium Economy
- Economy to Business
- Premium Economy to Business
- Business to First
As Classic Flight Reward upgrades from Business to First are only available on cash fares (and hence, not Classic Flight Rewards with points), we have split these up into three tables below.
The points cost for each are shown in the tables below, and again highlight the total cost in points of upgrading a Classic Flight Reward ticket against an outright redemption into the higher class.
Economy to Premium Economy
| Zone | One-way miles | Original Economy Cost | Cost to upgrade to Premium Economy | Total Cost of upgraded flight | Cost of outright Premium Economy redemption | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 0-600 | 8,000 | 8,700 | 16,700 | 13,800 | 2,900 |
| 2 | 601-1,200 | 12,000 | 13,000 | 25,000 | 20,600 | 4,400 |
| 3 | 1,201-2,400 | 18,000 | 19,600 | 37,600 | 31,000 | 6,600 |
| 4 | 2,401-3,600 | 20,300 | 28,300 | 48,600 | 42,200 | 6,400 |
| 5 | 3,601-4,800 | 25,200 | 41,400 | 66,600 | 51,300 | 15,300 |
| 6 | 4,801-5,800 | 31,500 | 52,300 | 83,800 | 61,500 | 22,300 |
| 7 | 5,801-7,000 | 37,600 | 61,000 | 98,600 | 71,100 | 27,500 |
| 8 | 7,001-8,400 | 41,900 | 76,300 | 118,200 | 81,300 | 36,900 |
| 9 | 8,401-9,600 | 51,200 | 87,200 | 138,400 | 94,900 | 43,500 |
| 10 | 9,601-15,000 | 55,200 | 98,100 | 153,300 | 108,400 | 44,900 |
Economy to Business
| Zone | One-way miles | Original Economy Cost | Cost to upgrade to Business | Total Cost of upgraded flight | Cost of outright Business redemption | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 0-600 | 8,000 | 13,000 | 21,000 | 18,400 | 2,600 |
| 2 | 601-1,200 | 12,000 | 19,600 | 31,600 | 27,600 | 4,000 |
| 3 | 1,201-2,400 | 18,000 | 28,300 | 46,300 | 41,500 | 5,200 |
| 4 | 2,401-3,600 | 20,300 | 38,100 | 58,400 | 57,000 | 1,400 |
| 5 | 3,601-4,800 | 25,200 | 58,800 | 84,000 | 68,400 | 15,600 |
| 6 | 4,801-5,800 | 31,500 | 69,700 | 101,200 | 82,000 | 19,200 |
| 7 | 5,801-7,000 | 37,600 | 87,200 | 124,800 | 94,900 | 29,900 |
| 8 | 7,001-8,400 | 41,900 | 109,000 | 150,900 | 108,400 | 42,500 |
| 9 | 8,401-9,600 | 51,200 | 119,900 | 171,100 | 126,500 | 44,600 |
| 10 | 9,601-15,000 | 55,200 | 135,100 | 190,300 | 144,600 | 45,700 |
Premium Economy to Business
| Zone | One-way miles | Original Premium Economy Cost | Cost to upgrade to Business | Total Cost of upgraded flight | Cost of outright Business redemption | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 0-600 | 13,800 | 7,600 | 21,400 | 18,400 | 3,000 |
| 2 | 601-1,200 | 20,600 | 11,400 | 32,000 | 27,600 | 4,400 |
| 3 | 1,201-2,400 | 31,000 | 17,400 | 38,400 | 41,500 | 3,100 |
| 4 | 2401-3,600 | 42,200 | 24,500 | 66,700 | 57,000 | 9,700 |
| 5 | 3,601-4,800 | 51,300 | 39,200 | 90,500 | 68,400 | 22,100 |
| 6 | 4,801-5,800 | 61,500 | 43,600 | 105,100 | 82,000 | 23,100 |
| 7 | 5,801-7,000 | 71,100 | 58,800 | 129,900 | 94,900 | 35,000 |
| 8 | 7,001-8,400 | 81,300 | 73,500 | 154,800 | 108,400 | 46,400 |
| 9 | 8,401-9,600 | 94,900 | 81,700 | 176,600 | 126,500 | 50,100 |
| 10 | 9,601-15,000 | 108,400 | 92,600 | 201,000 | 144,600 | 56,400 |
As was the case with Domestic upgrades, there is a premium attached to upgrading your seat via a lower class reward redemption that booking a Classic Flight Reward directly into the upgraded cabin of choice.
A thing to consider with International upgrades is that upgrades are not awarded immediately — instead, it follows a wait-listing system. Therefore, you may not get the upgrade anyway.
Except for the shortest of routes, you’ll definitely be better off paying the relevant change or cancellation fee and re-booking directly into the higher class of travel, where reward seats are available.
Summing Up
Although the points cost to upgrade Classic Flight Reward bookings is higher compared to redeeming those same points for the upgraded cabin class straight up, having this option is still welcome.
There are probably instances where you may have booked a non-upgradeable Economy ticket and wished we had just spent that little more so you could upgrade the flight. With Classic Flight Reward redemptions, this option is at least always open.
As shown above, however, in nearly all cases, you are better off bypassing this option and proceed to change or cancel your original Classic Flight Reward to upgrade to a higher class. The sole exception is a single-sector booking on the shortest routes, where using the upgrade process will cost you slightly fewer points.
Case Study: read how Natasha used Qantas Points to upgrade to Business Class on a flight to the USA
This article was originally written by Jason Belcher and updated by Daniel Scibberas.
I’m not sure what is the best way to use them. I’d be happy for premium economy but business one way would be great.
Any feedback would be greatly appreciated
Regards Cameron
Thanks for your message. It is hard for us to assist you here, as you know more than we do how much extra value you place on flying in Business rather than Premium Economy. Clearly, flying the former is a much more premium experience (including lie-flat beds), but will cost you more in points.
Note that the points requirements for each person return on the MEL-LHR route are as follows:
Business – 289,200 (867,600 for 3)
Premium Economy – 216,800 (650,400)
You can find further information on costs using points from the Qantas Calculator page https://www.qantas.com/au/en/frequent-flyer/calculators.html#/usepoints.
I’ve recently had an experience trying to upgrade to J of the same flight by “changing” the booking, and the system cancelled the entire booking including onwards connection, which took forever to resolve.
Making changesto flights is defined as changing either the date or time of the flight while keeping the same routing. If you need to change the route that you are flying, then this will require a cancellation of the ticket and a reissue.
However, if you are simply looking at changing the fare class on the sameflight, then this would also require a cancellation and reissue of the ticket, as you would not be technically changing your flight, given that you are staying on the same flight and the flight details are therefore also the same.
Has anyone else had this issue? Do you know a workaround?
I would give Qantas a call and see if they can make the change for you. Make sure to advise them that you tried to do this online, but the Premium Economy availability was not showing up in order to hopefully avoid the customer service fee.
If you are only a bronze QFF member, you can no longer see any J availability on any international route on QF in 2017. Availability for J award flights literally disappeared over night following this announcement. Only partner airline award space is visible.
Is this some unannounced policy change to significantly limit bronze member award availability and increase availability for elite tier point upgrades? Elites did previously have a “little” more availability but never this much of a difference.
I have been a higher QFF tier in the past but I no longer travel for work and as such have been moved down to bronze. I also have enough QFF points for 2 business OW awards.
Prior to the announcement there was quite a lot of availability on these routes for Jan and Feb 2017. However, after this announcement they all disappeared literally overnight. I then started checking other routes and behold, no QF availability for any international sector in business. When you search using a bronze account you only see the odd business seat but these are on CX and QR. Using a Gold account, you see ‘normal’ amount of QF award seating which is basically half the month available.
I have also been discussing it on AFF.
You’re right. It looks like all paid fares on Domestic can be upgraded, but the cheapest of the cheap (so probably classed as sale fares) International ones can’t.
As far as the extra , that’s the standard change fee (in points, not dollars) to change or cancel a Qantas redemption booking. In nearly every case if there is a redemption seat available in the class you want to upgrade to, you would be better off changing (or cancelling and rebooking) your flight and paying the 5000 point fee, than using this upgrade system because the difference will be more than 5000 points.
This was an error. The total cost to upgrade to Business from an Economy Classic Flight Reward redemption is 46,300 points and not 36,300 points. This has now been updated.
Thanks for pointing this out to us.
Happy New Year!
We still can’t upgrade from a sale fare that’s what I would love to utilise.
Also what did you mean pay the extra 5k to change your flight. I get it would he more advantageous but after you’ve paid the difference does that mean you now pay the rest of the business fare for example with cash?