I’d imagine that the majority of Qantas frequent flyers usually use their points to redeem award travel for simple one-way or return tickets to Europe, the US, Asia or domestically.
However, there is a great value points redemption that allows for up to 15 flights with Qantas and oneworld partner airlines—the oneworld Classic Flight Reward—which can be used for up to 35,000 miles of travel, in Economy, Premium Economy, Business or First Class.
In this guide, we outline how Qantas oneworld Classic Rewards work as a great way to maximise the value of your Qantas Points for round-the-world (RTW) trips.
Do note that these awards do not technically have to go around the world, but this is the most common use for them. See FAQs later on for more information.
We have a supplementary guide specifically for travellers in Perth and Adelaide.
And there is a RTW guide using KrisFlyer miles or Velocity points.
Why does Qantas have four different award tables?
- Qantas Classic Flight Rewards: the cheapest price table for Qantas and its preferred partners of Airnorth, Air Vanuatu, American Airlines, Emirates and Fiji Airways
- Jetstar Classic Flight Rewards: for Jetstar flights only; this is 20% less than the Qantas Classic price
- Partner Classic Flight Rewards : for travel on one and only one of Qantas oneworld partner airlines
- oneworld Classic Flight Rewards: for itineraries including two or more oneworld airlines; the focus of this guide
The key uses for the oneworld Classic Flight Reward are to fly:
- further (i.e. RTW)
- on more carriers
- on more flights
compared to redeeming an award using one of the other three tables.
With an extensive network and modern product on its A350, A380 and 787 aircraft, you might aim to include a Qatar Airways Business Class flight as part of your trip
Why does a Qantas oneworld RTW redemption represent good value?
A RTW itinerary booked as a oneworld Classic Flight Reward is one of the best ways to maximise the value of your Qantas Points.
The RTW ticket allows you to explore the world and stopover in up to five cities over a 12-month period, provided there is award availability and the total distance is kept under 35,000 miles.
If you bought a RTW ticket with cash, retail fares usually start from $3,000 in Economy, $11,000 in Business and upwards of $20,000 in First. We know that RTW Business Class itineraries are very popular with couples and with this guide, some of our readers have saved between $20,000-$35,000 in out-of-pocket costs.
With this award, you can choose from over 1,000 destinations in more than 150 countries covered by the oneworld alliance:
- Aer Lingus (rejoining sometime in 2017)
- American Airlines
- British Airways
- Cathay Pacific
- Finnair
- Iberia
- Japan Airlines
- LATAM
- Malaysia Airlines
- Qantas
- Qatar Airways
- Royal Jordanian
- S7 Airlines
- Sri Lankan Airlines
Emirates is not part of the oneworld alliance and, therefore, cannot be included in this itinerary.
Although its a great airline to fly, you cannot include Emirates flights in this award
Comparing the different long-haul Qantas Point redemption options
If you analyse the table below, you can see that tacking on a significant amount of extra flying comes with only minimal additional points cost.
| Cabin | Melbourne to London return on Qantas or Emirates | Melbourne to London return on Qatar Airways | oneworld Classic Flight Reward |
|---|---|---|---|
| Economy | 120,000 | 150,000 | 140,000 |
| Premium Economy | 192,000 | 225,000 | 210,000 |
| Business Class | 256,000 | 278,000 | 280,000 |
| First Class | 384,000 | 406,000 | 420,000 |
| Miles travelled | 21,007 | 21,007 | Up to 35,000 |
Say you want to fly return to Europe on Qantas or Emirates (which is a preferred partner). You’ll be up for 256,000 points in Business Class or 392,000 in First, plus taxes and fees of $500-1000.
Or you could fly one of their non-preferred oneworld partners like Qatar Airways, Cathay Pacific or British Airways for 278,000 in Business or 406,000 in First.
By comparison, you could fly almost double the distance (up to 35,000 miles) and have stopovers in five cities for just 2,000 points more in Business Class or 14,000 more in First Class.
If you’d rather use your points for a trip in Economy or Premium Economy, you’ll actually save 10-15,000 points by doing a RTW itinerary compared to flying with one of Qantas’ non-preferred partners. Crazy, right?
Just note that not all oneworld carriers operate a Premium Economy cabin, so you’d want to target British Airways, Cathay Pacific and Qantas flights—other flights would be in Economy.
Example 1: 32,000 miles in Business Class for 280,000 Qantas Points
The following basic Business Class itinerary totals 26,000 miles flown, well within the 35,000-mile maximum:
- Sydney to Johannesburg with Qantas
- Johannesburg to London with British Airways
- London to New York with American Airlines or British Airways
- New York to Hong Kong with Cathay Pacific
- Hong Kong to Sydney with Qantas or Cathay Pacific
If you want to check the mileage of a range of flights, I recommend inputting the airport codes into Great Circle Mapper to get the total distance, ensuring you are keeping it under the 35,000-mile maximum.
Because the Qantas RTW reward allows you to have up to 15 connections, you do not necessarily have to fly the most direct route, as above. This is handy when there are no seats available on the most direct route and you have to fly to your destination via a different city.
Another benefit is that you can also stop in cities for under 24 hours. As long as it 23 hours and 59 minutes, it is considered a ‘transit’ rather than a stopover.
The sample itinerary above only has five connections, so let’s tweak it slightly and add more connections
- Sydney to Johannesburg with Qantas
- Johannesburg to London via Doha with Qatar Airways
- London to New York with British Airways or American Airlines
- New York to Hong Kong via Los Angeles and Tokyo with American Airlines, Japan Airlines and Cathay Pacific
- Hong Kong to Sydney with Qantas or Cathay Pacific
This sample itinerary now comes in at a little under 32,000 miles.
You don’t have to tack on long flights, of course. Adding on a number of smaller flights to reach non-hub cities, if that is where you want to go, is also a very useful way to get value from this award.
Example 2: 34,000 miles in Economy Class for 140,000 Qantas Points
Point Hacks reader Mark shared his round-the-world journey to South America, Europe and South Africa in the comments below, costing him 140,000 points in Economy. The same journey in Business Class would have cost 280,000, or 420,000 in First.
When drawing his map on Great Circle Mapper, I can see that the total distance flown was 34,343 miles, within the 35,000-mile limit:
How to research and book a Qantas oneworld Classic Flight Reward
Like other award redemptions, seats are subject to availability and there is a decent chance you would not be able to fly on the date you desire, so you need to be flexible on dates and routes (as always when using points to travel).
To kick things off, you can use the qantas.com search engine to find most award availability, with the British Airways search engine providing results for Japan Airlines, which does not show up on the Qantas website. You can read more about searching for award space on Qantas partners here.
Once you are ready to book, the simplest way to find reward seats for a RTW itinerary is to search one flight at a time. It can be time-consuming, so have a notepad handy to write down the:
- Date of travel (e.g. 4 July 2017)
- Departure and arrival cities (Adelaide to Doha)
- Flight number (QR 915)
- Departure and arrival times (10:25pm – 5:30am)
Keep repeating this for each city, bearing in mind that sometimes you might need to connect via an intermediary city.
Then book online through the Qantas website or, if you need help and/or want to book a seat on a partner that doesn’t show up on the Qantas website, then call Qantas Frequent Flyer.
Frequently Asked Questions
This guide is one of our most-read and has a long comments thread below, so we’ve picked out the most common questions to save you some time.
Please read carefully to see if your question has already been answered in the FAQ or comments section.
Routing
Do I have to go around the world?
No, not necessarily. The award is calculated on total mileage and doesn’t have to go in one direction.
Is backtracking permitted?
Technically, yes, however, some phone agents may apply geographical sense to your itinerary and prevent you from doing so. If so, hang up and call back.
Are transit cities calculated in the total mileage?
Yes, so if you are flying from Sydney to Johannesburg via Hong Kong, you will need to include the two segments, not the direct distance between Sydney and Johannesburg.
Are surface sectors counted?
Yes. A surface sector is when you fly into one airport, make your way on the ground (or a cheap airfare) to another airport to fly out of. For example, if you fly into Berlin, catch a train or bus to Paris, and fly out of Paris, then the mileage between Berlin and Paris will be calculated as part of this award.
Do I need to return to the same airport?
Yes. If you are flying out of Melbourne on a RTW trip, you need to return to Melbourne at the end of it.
Can I travel more than 35,000 miles?
No. Once you go even one mile more, it will recalculate as separate awards and be much more expensive.
Pricing
How do I add segments?
You can add segments for most airline partners (except Japan Airlines) online, but note that you’ll be charged a 5,000-point change fee each time you alter your itinerary, so try to lock down as many flights and dates as you can at the start.
If you need to phone the call centre to make a change and are flying in Economy or Premium Economy, you’ll be charged an extra 8,000-point service fee; premium cabins do not attract this fee.
Can I mix cabins, e.g. fly Business Class for most segments and First Class for one or two?
The award is calculated on the rate for the highest cabin, which means that even if you have one First Class flight and the rest are in Business, you will be charged 420,000 points instead of 280,000. This means you’re best to stick to the same cabin the whole way.
How are infant and child fares calculated?
If you have a child under two years of age, then you just pay the taxes, no points. If a child is two years of age of older, then they are charged the full adult rate for points redemptions.
Why should I avoid flying British Airways?
Because they charge high fuel surcharges. Read more in our guide to airlines and frequent flyer programs that charge the lowest fuel surcharges.
Why should I avoid flying out of the UK?
Because departing flights from the UK are charged the Air Passenger Duty. However, if your transit through the UK is less than 24 hours, then your departing flight won’t be charged the APD. Read more in our guide to cities and countries to aim for to minimise taxes and fees.
Booking
Can I book this award online?
Yes, you can, and we recommend it. Remember to use the multi-city search tool on the Qantas website, not the round-the-world tool on the oneworld website.
The only exception is that if you include Japan Airlines in your itinerary, you’ll need to phone Qantas. And be prepared for potential long wait times.
Can I include Emirates in my itinerary?
No, Emirates is not part of the oneworld alliance, therefore it is not eligible for this award.
What should I do if the phone agent doesn’t seem to know what they’re doing?
Hang up and call back.
Summing up
Qantas oneworld Classic Flight Rewards require a lot of points comparatively to redeem simple one-way redemptions but you can get a hell of a lot of travel squeezed into one itinerary.
You’ll be able to see at least five cities and, if you’re clever, add overnight stops of up to 24 hours in connecting cities too.
Just remember to keep your total distance flown to under 35,000 miles and try to book as many of the flights as you can at the start so you’re not slugged with change and service fees.
Have you successfully redeemed your Qantas Points for a RTW award and, if so, where did you go?
Hi Nelson,
Great article!
I’m hoping you can answer something for me. Can you return to your home city and have it count as a stopover? I haven’t been able to find any info on this.
I’d like to split up my travel throughout the year and visit Japan early in the year, head home, then head to the UK a few months later.
My plan is ADL-NRT-ADL then a few months later ADL-LHR-ADL. With transits it comes in under 32k miles. Although it may not be the most efficient use of a RTW redemption it still seems a lot better value than separate return redemptions.
Thank you.
Great article Nelson! So helpful, along with the comments.
Can anyone see why this itinerary would not price at 140,000 QFF points?
PER-HKG-JFK-ground leg-LGA-YYZ
stop Toronto
YYZ-LHR-HEL
stop Helsinki
HEL-ICN
stop Seoul
ICN-HKG-PER
It’s not even 30,000 miles, and the stops are all on different continents with no transits more than 8 hours all the way along. Any help?!
Thanks for your help Nelson. Just one more question (I hope ). I cannot get any flights from UK or Madrid to Havana. Any ideas why? When I look on Skyscanner there are loads of options.
Hi Rachel, probably the airlines don’t release any award seats for that route.
The only airline that I ever looked at to fly to Havana on award points was Virgin Atlantic. I never looked at the One World alliance partners.
Hey guys,
As others have said – this article is very informative.
I’ve been trying to work out a way to book my itinerary on the Qantas multi-city tool but it literally crashes every time I try to work it. Wondering if anyone has done something similar to my idea.
I’m wanting to visit all the wonders of the world (excluding Great Wall as I’ve already been there). I know there are too many stops – but surely it can be achieved with a little magic. I think it would be amazing if I could pull it off.
The example itinerary is follows:
SYD – Cancun
Cancun – Lima
Lima – Rio
Rio – Rome
Rome – Amman
Amman – Cairo
Cairo – Delhi
Delhi – Syd
Is anyone able to lend their expertise re the above? Perhaps I could leave Amman & Cairo out and do this externally?
Any help to brainstorm is appreciated 🙂
Hi Kyah,
The engine crashes for a number of unknown reasons, I would write down the Error Code that it generates, and speak to a Qantas phone agent.
They should waive the phone booking fee if you prove to them that you made an effort to book online however the website keeps generating an error.
Question on AA domestic sectors. If I am arranging a business class RTW trip, what class can I book on 2 class (economy&’first’, i.e. 737’s) domestic sectors on AA?
Hi CR, that is one of the quirky things about USA airlines that they call their business class product “First”.
However, for the purposes of a Qantas redemption, as long as the flight you selected is listed under the Business column, then it will be classified as a business class redemption.
So the Qantas engine will not reprice the redemption as First Class.
Excellent article!
Trying to book our first RTW using multi city tool but the website doesn’t seems to recognize its RTW booking. Using Great Circle Mapper website our total miles is less 35K miles including surface sector. Can anyone please help what I’m doing wrong? Qantas wants me to charge 414K for business class
PER DOH 5,789 mi QATAR
DOH WAW 2,451 mi QATAR
WAW CDG 837 mi Surface Sector
CDG GRU 5,829 mi LATAM
GRU LIM 2,160 mi LATAM
LIM SCL 1,524 mi Surface Sector
SCL LAX 5,569 mi FIJI
LAX NAN 5,519 mi FIJI
NAN MEL 2,403 mi FIJI
MEL PER 1,681 m QANTAS
This is an easy one – you can only have 5 major stops. You have 9. What I did was use 5 main stops as bases and then pay for separate side trips or use other airlines points for flights.
Thanks for your quick response but I thought I only have less. It may look like I have more but those are just layover which is less than 24hrs. PER-DOH-WAW// Surface sector WAW-CDG// CDG-GRU-LIM//Surface Sector LIM-SCL// SCL-LAX-NAN//NAN-MEL-PER
Hi Nelson, thanks for the brilliant article!
I stumbled across this quite a while ago and decided that i would save up our points for my husband and i to do a business or first class RTW trip for my 40th which is in 2 years.
Even though it’s 2 years out i’m starting the planning (half the fun hey!) and had a few questions i was hoping you might be able to help with?
I have never flown business or first class, not even domestically, so for me part of the excitement of this trip is the actual flights, so i want to include the best airlines available to make it the trip of a lifetime.
I haven’t done too much research at this point as far as the exact legs but i think i would like to take in New York, London, France, Italy, Portugal & Spain.
Given that is too many stops, i was thinking about not flying to London and instead travelling there from perhaps France. Your advice on not flying out of London due to cost has been noted!. I would find other means of travelling between Spain & Portugal also.
Do you have any advice or reccommendations on the airlines that have the best business/first class experiences that i could start researching? And on what type of plane ?
I understand that some of the more premium airlines have higher taxes, but depending on cost, i think i’m willing to pay for the ‘experience’
As the flights is part of the experience i don’t mind getting to destinations in a round about manner to capitalise on flying with a great airline.
The idea of having an extra leg (under 24 hours) in a city to experience a little of it would be fun too.
I’ve had zero experience in booking reward flights as we’ve always paid for our overseas travel, so any tips, advice or ideas would be VERY much appreciated!!
Thanks Nelson, look forward to your expert input!
Cheers,
Cath
Hi Nelson,
Thanks for your great article. You have inspired me to start planning a trip for next year.
I’ve read most of the comments but can’t find the answer to my query so…. I know I can’t book Emirates but can I book a QF flight that is operated by Emirates or will that void the 280K points?
Thanks very much for your help,
Rachel
Hi Rachel,
Any flights Emirates, whether it is a codeshare with QF (so it has a QF flight number) in your itinerary will reprice the award and you’ll end up paying much more than 280k because the engine will price it as two or more awards.
Hi Cath, this is one of the best use of Qantas points. 280k points and you get to fly around the world in Business.
Most of the airlines in the One World alliance are great, Cathay Pacific, Japan Airlines, Qantas, Qatar, you can’t go wrong with them.
I have flown only first class on British Airways and I liked it, but their business class product looks really crap in my opinion, plus the taxes are high and British Airways charges you a fee, up to $120 to select your seat in Business!!! the audacity.
Planning these itineraries are frustrating but at the same time, exciting.
If you must fly out of London, try transit through by originating out of another European city (which is great if you are already in Europe) to save yourself paying the high London departure tax.
This is a great article and I’ve used it to book a multi-stop business class trip through Europe and Africa later in the year. What I am stuck with, and am hoping others might have a solution for, is that when I used the Qantas website to view Finn Air flights from Singapore to Helsinki and then Helsinki onto Vienna (a flight that’s three hours after the first), there are business class seats available for each leg individually, but Qantas told me the flights had to be booked together, and there was no business class availability for the combined route. The operator said it wasn’t related to timing between flights, just that some routes have to be booked together. The same applied if I tried to fly out of Helsinki to a number of other European destinations, unless I chose flights that were approximately 8 hours after arriving in Helsinki. Has anyone else found a way around this? It’s very frustrating that there is availability when separated out but not combined together.
Hi Tori,
That is one of those strange quirks in the system, the same thing happens with Singapore Airlines.
Unfortunately there is no way around it, unless you try and call again and speak to another agent who can try to piece it together.
Ive had issues in the past before and one QF agent couldn’t solve it but when I called again, I got a different agent and she booked it without any issues.
As this is a multi-city booking and not really a rtw, is there actually a requirement to return to the original departure airport?
Thank you for a great article.
So in a nutshell
Keep under 35k
Use same cabin class
Book in advance
Max 5 stop overs.
Avoid the high tax carrriers.
No emirates
I flew malaysia airline from syd to paris business class and used almist 300k points plus 1100 in tax. Great experience but felt a bit ripped off by the 1100 tax.
Is there a way to pay absolute minimun tax.
I have accumulated 1.7m points. And want to takr me and partner for 1st class bliss. One this year and another one the year after
Are there any other advanced tips?
Adding in 5 stops for less than 24 hours. Can i arrange a daytrip at various countries.
Also i dont want to go on a crappy first xlass. Obviously emirates would be up there but is unavaialablrm what other airlines are up there in paradise?
Also as per your example. Eg first class
420k points to go around the world and multiole stops. But if you used your points to do a return trip via airlines its 408k ppints for a single destination.
Seems like the value of the rtw is magnitutes better for points redemption. I csnt think of a better points to dollar ratio. Am l missing something
Hi Joe,
I think there is just no way to compare the One World airlines First class product to Emirates, in terms of food, beverage, service, shower etc.
The closest for me, would be Japan Airlines but they stopped flying First Class to Sydney last year.
With the One World alliance, I’ve flown First Class on British Airways, Qantas, Japan Airlines and Cathay Pacific.
They were all good in their own ways and some where better than others, but no one compares to Emirates.
If you have 1.7 million points, I’d try First Class at least once, because the difference in taxes between First and Business are not much, probably $20 or $80.
I cannot seem to find any economy rewards flights with AA (American Airlines), they only appear for Alaska which is not part of one world. I am using the qantas search tool. Am I doing something wrong?
Qantas has had some issues with finding AA space in the past few months. I’d suggest searching on the AA and/or BA websites and then calling Qantas to confirm.
is it just me or is the qantas website super buggy and almost impossible to use to get this done? i’ve tried 5 times but can’t get past the 4th flight without timing out – unresponsive. my internet is fine. used chrome and edge to no avail
HI Jeremy,
It is. For me even simple Melbourne to Paris flights i have trouble booking sometimes.
It is frustrating.
This probably won’t help. but scroll right to the bottom on your page and see “Viewing Tips”
click on that and make sure that all your browser status “passed”.
Not sure if it will help, but worth a shot.
SO this seems like a silly question but you never know!
Does Qantas have any issue with you booking additional flights outside of this ticket through them but on separate itineraries?
Basically, I would like to use my stopovers as hubs to travel from, but at the same time I still have my loyalty to the program and would like to claim the additional credits from flight I would pay for!
Has anyone ever done this?
Actually seems like this isn’t possible anyway! Seems I will have to go direct through the domestic carrier
I cannot see any problem in doing so.
Hi,
Great and informative article, I’ve been researching the RTW for a while and only recently have I started making attempts at booking.
I’ve constructed a business class itinerary that fits into the criteria <35k miles, etc.
ADL-AEP (via SYD/SCL) [Qantas/LATAM]
AEP-BOG (via GRU) [LATAM]
BOG-MEX (via LIM) [LATAM]
MEX-MAD [Iberia]
MAD-HKG [Cathay]
HKG-ADL [Cathay]
Flights between Nov ’18 and Dec ’18.
All hunky dory capping at the 280k points, but at the final step to calculate the fares and taxes the Qantas website returns a “We could not find fare for the requested itinerary (5685 UI)” error.
Has anyone else experienced this issue? Or is there something I’m doing wrong?
Thanks in advance,
Tom
Hi Tom,
That is a great itinerary. Wonderful way to maximise your points!
And unfortunately the Qantas website has been buggy lately.
I tried to book my flights and have had a lot of issues trying to reach the payment page.
I would suggest calling the agent and booking via the phone, but also letting them know of the website problem so they dont charge you a phone booking fee.
Regards,
Nelson
Hi Tom,
We had the same problem and was never able to resolve. Qantas advised that it was actually a problem with LATAM, the flights you were seeing were actually not available.
We ended up booking completely different business class itinerary SYD-NRT-LAX-MIA-BOG-JFK-MAD-DOH-SYD (a few indirect flights not listed).
We only wanted to go to BOG though at one stage were looking at other South American destinations and there did seem to be more availability with AA rather than LAN
Hope that helps
Hi Nelson and Nic,
Thanks for the replies, agreed that it was both the website being buggy and an issue with LATAM.
However, 3 months after my first attempt I finally got a working itinerary albeit via a slightly different route. Somehow the LATAM system was playing ball with the Qantas Multi-city search and managed to book everything.
ADL-MEX (via SYD/LAX) [Qantas/AA]
MEX-BOG (via DFW) [LATAM]
BOG-SCL [LATAM]
SCL-MAD (via GRU) [LATAM]
MAD-HKG (via BRU) [Iberia/Cathay (on the A350)]
HKG-ADL [Cathay]
33,490 miles, Business class – 280k pts $744 in taxes.
http://www.gcmap.com/mapui?P=adl-syd-Lax-mex-dfw-bog-scl-gru-mad-bru-hkg-adl
Fantastic article.
I have a few basic questions.
I have been saving points aggressively for years now and have a nice little pile
I want to go all out at minimal cost of course
Years ago I used my qff points to do return business class to a single European country for personal reasons. The trip cost me about 280k points and $1100 on taxes and fuel. At this time there were sale fares to the same destination via economy for about $1200. So I felt I got a free business upgrade for 280k points. Rather than a full trip. I I would have liked to pay very little tax
Your article mentions which airlines have high taxes but is there a way to work out the cheapest taxes. Or how much tax can I possibly pay the least for and do one of the examples posted on the article.
I understand a rtw trip. Via business would cost 6k and above however If I’m using 280k points via rtw and having to pay 2k in taxes feels a bit silly.
Also. Second question. You can have multiple 24 he stopovers without counting as a stop. What’s the point of a 24 hour stopover? I suppose some stops may be a transit and you can’t leave the airport or if you can 24 hours isn’t much to do anything
Hi John,
Any itinerary that involves Qantas, Qatar and British Airways is guaranteed to have high fuel surcharges. Thats from my experience. Cathay Pacific doesn’t charge as much.
The 24h stopover is not technically 24 hours, you are transiting for 23 hours and 59 minutes.
If it is 24 hours or 24 hour and 1 minute, the airline will count that as a stopover.
I’m wondering anyone have difficulties trying to redeem QF classic rewards for MH flights? I’m cannot find any MH flights listed on any MH routes but only KUL – SIN route. It’s showing BA flights only; or QF via SIN then MH to KUL. Not sure what are their deals behind these but I’m find it weird under “One World” policies.
Reason why I’m asking because I’m interested to try their new A350 for my trips from LHR – KUL next year.
Anyone?
Qantas.com just introduced online searching and booking capabilities for Malaysia Airlines a few months ago but maybe it’s having problems—try searching on the BA website instead. More info here.
Thanks Matt. Will check it out
I did this the a few months ago.
Around the world in 30 days it was a blast. My Itinerary was Sydney Shanghai, Cruise to Kochi Japan, Osaka London, London Milan, Milan London, London NYC, NYC Vancouver, Vancouver San Fran, San Fran Sydney.
All booked through Qantas. I highly recommend this!
Doing my next trip in August!
Thats a great use of points Bryon.
The planning process wouldn’t be easy but the end result is worth it, crisscrossing the world in the lap of luxury.
Hi
In 2015 I flew economy RTW
Melbourne- Sydney- Dallas – Huntsville-Washington DC-London then by high speed train to Paris-Ashford-Brussels-Bruges-Brussels-Amsterdam then back on the plane for Amsterdam-Hong Kong – Melbourne.
In that trip I visited the grassy knoll in Dallas (where JFK was killed), Huntsville Space Centre, Smithsonian Air & Space Museum, Lincoln Memorial, British Museum, Hyde Park, Montmartre, Eiffel Tower, Arc de Triomphe, Palace of Versailles, War Museum, Sacre Coeur, Atomium, Bruges town centre, the Rijkesmuseum, Van Gogh Museum, Kinderdyke, Dysneyladn Hong Kong, The Peak and the Star Ferry and various other attractions. on top of that I also got to steer aq tourist boat down the canals of Amsterdam. Best 140,000 points I ever spent.
Sounds like a great trip!
Thanks for sharing Peter, were the taxes and fuel surcharge high?
They will vary depending on who you fly with and from where. I got mine down to about $900.
Nelson, Thanks so much for this awesome article I just booked a RWT using the Qantas search engine, as you mention you have to have a fair amount of patience. I booked my flights 300 days out to get the flights I wanted the entire trip is Business class. Also to get the business flights I wanted I decided to fly for example via KUL it gave me more options on my flight home. I’m really excited to be going on such a great trip. I know it takes time to write informative articles like this but with out your help I may not have had such and easy booking journey.
For those interested my itinerary is:
MEL-HKG,/HKG-LHR,/LHR-YVR,/YVR-JFK,/JFK-BNA,/JFK-HKG/HKG-BKK/BKK-KUL/KUL-MEL
all up 32.316 miles
Hi Steve,
Thanks for taking the time to comment.
That is a great itinerary and really wonderful use of your points. You really maximized it with 32,000 miles. What was the taxes on it?
Yes I know, having planned a number of RTWs myself over the years, I know how difficult it is. But it is worth it in the end.
Glad to have helped and I really appreciate the feedback from readers who have found it useful.
Let me know how you go with your trip when its completed.
Regards,
Nelson Yap
Best thing was the total cash cost at the end of the day for 4 weeks came to $8,000 including spending money. So very good value for a rtw trip.
.
Hi Nelson,
Thanks for your article and also to the other contributors on the site. I’m new to this but have a Q Amex card for private and business. I’m planning a trip for 2 years away and plan on having enough QFF points for 2 Business RTW flights. Just as well I’m planning this far ahead as there is a lot to learn I am finding out. Not sure how anyone would do it without the help of this site.
Anyway my question (which was sort of answered earlier but I’m still a bit confused):
I am planning a 6 week trip basically Melb/Oslo/Paris/London/New York/ Toronto/ Vancouver/Melb. Probably a surface sector or 2 in there. Obviously it’s best to book 353 days in advance however over 6 weeks from first flight to last how do I do this? I’ve checked Melb/Oslo 6 weeks ago and there are no Business seats left so I can’t leave booking until 6 weeks prior to my last leg.
Hi Ian,
Thanks for commenting.
In these cases, you will have to book the flights as availability opens up.
Some readers have had success booking 300 days out, and you can take that risk and try to do it then. But it would mean you have given other people 50 days head start.
The only problem with booking it one at a time with qantas is that they will charge you an amendment fee each time,
So if you do that, try to lock in as many flights as possible, so the “amendments” are minimal.
Regards,
Nelson
Is it possible to redeem it in economy now, and then in half a years time upgrade to business? Or will I cop a change fee? Don’t have the 280k points now, but want to lock in the flights ASAP. Thanks.
Daniel, there’s no point in doing what you want. You want to book a Y RTW award now, and then change it to a J RTW later on when you have the points… but in 6 months time when you have the points, you’d be incredibly unlikely to have availability in J for the flights you want. Best to just wait until you have the points you need to a J RTW and then book it 350-ish days out from travel. Sad, but that’s really the only way to redeem points these days (for J cabin anyway)
Has anyone info about which, airlines that are affiliates of oneworld airlines can be used in a RTW itinerary booked with QFF points as a oneworld Classic Flight Reward?
After a couple of calls to the QFF call centre (which fortunately now seems to operate 24/7) I have the impression that only some affiliates (non budget) can be used, for example Qantaslink but not Jetstar. Also that American Eagle (an AA affiliate) and Cathay Dragon (a Cathay affiliate) are OK.
The full list of oneword affiliate airlines is here:
http://www.oneworld.com/member-airlines/oneworld-airline-affiliates
Also, I am I correct in assuming that, even if there is oneworld airline code sharing, flights on non oneworld airlines can not be used?
It’s a few years since I used points for this type of itinerary and am keen to have accurate up to date info before I invest more time into exploring my options.
Thanks
Hi,
That is correct, those affiliates are excluded from the RTW.
If you flew Jetstar, even just for a 1 hour flight, you will automatically trigger the ticket to be repriced and it will cost extra.
Non-one world airlines are also excluded, such as Emirates and Alaska airlines or China Eastern.
I’ve just got to 300,000 points. Thanks for the great guide. I’m finding the QF booking engine a little buggy, am just looking at possibilities now but quite a few times I’ve had Q surcharge in the range of $6,000 to $8,000 dollars, meaning a trip in J is $8k to $10k. Then almost the same itinerary, there is no Q surcharge. I called Qantas who just confirmed that must be the case!. Anyway I’ll just keep playing, using your tips, hardest thing is making a decision, I’ve got a shortlist of 10 cities ahaha. Thanks again.
That is awfully high, what airlines are you looking at because fuel surcharges between $6000-8000 sounds crazy.
Are you choosing Emirates? or Pay + Points?
Thanks for all the helpful responses, does anyone know the applicable cancellation fees (points/dollars?) when booking an entire business class (280,000 points) ticket online?
Hi Robert, the fees are the standard QF cancellation fees,
https://www.pointhacks.com.au/qantas-change-cancellation-fee-increase-dec-2016/
Hi all,
Am trying an itinerary, can’t get it down to the 140,000 points. Looking for Feb / March, using Qantas site, all flights have availability on desired dates but showing 197500 points required
bne-hkg (Cathay)
hkg-lax (AA)
Lax-sea-lax-den-dfw-was-ord (all on AA)
overland from ORD – LAX
Lax-hnl (AA)
Hnl-syd-bne (QF)
The distance is 26614 miles, only using oneworld (Qantas, Cathay, American). Am I breaking a rule somewhere?
Am just trying to get all those USA cities and Honolulu for 140k points – only included Hong Kong stopover to get a third OW airline. Any other ideas without the Hong Kong extra also appreciated
Oh – now I see that the stopovers are the problem. But I can’t see anywhere on this page that the stopover limits / rules are explained. I just noticed in some comments that there is some stopover rule. What is the rule? max five stopovers? Can’t see the rule anywhere. Sorry.
Yep – 5 max destinations BUT you can have a stopover in a city for less than 24 hours that doesn’t count (it’s seen as a transfer).
I.e. In my itinerary below, I am travelling from Melb to Rio but travelling via Aukland (stopping there for 23 hours) and Santiago (stopping there to 6 hours) and onto Rio. Both are transfers and the main stop is Rio.
Happy planning – it’s half the fun of travelling 🙂
I am currently trying to book a round the world trip for mid next-year. I have had no trouble seeing the flights for Qantas, Cathay, American & British Airways but a lot of the legs don’t fit in with my dates. I wanted to look in to connecting flight to the US and Europe by flying Malaysia Airlines and Japan Airlines but those two airlines never show up for me on the Qantas multi-city booking tool, any suggestions?
“…the British Airways search engine…[provides]…results for partners like Japan Airlines and Malaysia Airlines, which do not show up on the Qantas website.” Read more here.
Hi, i booked my RTW trip with 280k qantas points but some segments i’m not flying business and i know some open up closer to the date. Are changed permitted after starting the journey?
Hi Nelson, thanks for the guide. Wanted to share our itinerary also, we went on this trip last year and sites like points hacks, and aus frequent flyer forum were invaluable resources. We firstly flew a positioning flight to Auckland as we wanted to spend time there on both ends of the trip.
Stop 1: AKL – SYD – LAX – LAS
Qantas, Qantas, American
Overland: LAS – PHL
Stop 2: PHL – FRA – TXL
American, Air Berlin
Overland: TXL – MAD
Stop 3: MAD – MEX
Iberia
Stop 4: MEX – LIM – BOG
LAN Airlines
Overland: BOG – SCL
Stop 5: SCL – AKL
LAN Airlines
Total miles travelled: 34,695
We put together a small guide and map of our route if anyone is interested
http://www.auswallet.com/fly-around-the-world-for-less-than-800/
Hi Nelson
Thanks so much for an incredibly useful article.
My partner and I are looking to take a year off traveling and use our points balance to book RTW business class flights for the bulk of our trip’s major legs, roughly: BNE SCL EZE LIM SJO YYC JFK CIA DEL KUL DPS BNE, starting March next year.
However, as reward flights are only published about a year before scheduling we can’t book the entire trip now and/or run the risk that some business seats won’t be available if we book closer to departure. Based on the comments on here I see two options and wanted to get people’s thoughts:
1) Book the entire trip at once, probably about six months before travel, compressing the back end flights into the final weeks of the ~355 day period. Then rebook the later half of the flights to the later actual desired dates almost a year later, wearing the 3,500 points/change on the final 4 legs or so. Total cost = about 294k points / seat.
2) Start booking the trip now and add the other flights sequentially, hoping the rules don’t change and the points balance will be righted once RTW rules are met. Total cost = 280k (but might be higher intially)
I’m leaning towards option 1 in around Sept (as I’ll have silver status by then) as I think this would provide greater certainty in case the RTW rules change. What do others think?
Really appreciate everyone’s input,
Tam
Option 1 is what I did when I used the RTW, it is fine to change routing if no availability comes up. You only pay to change the itinerary not each leg, and you will lock in the flights you want to take earlier in the booking.
Thank you for this guide Nelson! It is the best resource on Qantas RTW points that I found.
I’ve just booked my honeymoon (Iceland, Paris, Kenya, Tanzania, Maldives, HongKong) travelling in November in business, and would like to share a few additional tips
Syd>[Doha]>Paris (Qatar)
Paris>[London]>Nairobi (BA…unavoidable unfortunately)
Nairobi>[Doha]>Male (Qatar)
Male>[HongKong]>Melb (Cathay)
Melb>Syd (Qantas)
Incremental Tips:
– Book using a Platinum or Platinum One friend’s account! Practically speaking there is no risk or cost in borrowing a friend/relative’s status in booking. This gave much more seat availability than my poor 0 status credit Bronze. Given I booked only 4 months out from my trip, I was lucky to get all legs in business except HK to Melb, which is in premium economy on Cathay – not possible with my on QFF account.
– A previous reader asked this too – You CANNOT have 3 stopovers at the same location. I had to use BA rather than Qatar because 3 transits through DOHA was not eligible for the 280K award.
– Augment your trip with additional non-Oneworld flights. I have separately booked Paris to Iceland return, and Nairobi to Tanzania return flights, as trying to find schedules that worked using points is almost impossible. Given they are short distances, booking them in economy did not add much cost to the overall booking
– As mentioned, avoid BA if possible… expensive taxes and charges.
– Use an excel spreadsheet – whenever you find a good potential flight, record the flight number and time onto your spreadsheet. After a few goes (hours) on the multi-city search tool, you’ll have a built up a database that you can mix and match
Hi
Does Cairns- Hong Kong- New York (with Cathay) – New York – Toronto (American) -Toronto- Hong Kong – Cairns (Cathay) meet all the rules for around the world ?
Thanks
I got to say a HUGE thank you for this page. I really didn’t think it was possible, I’ve just booked a trip of a lifetime using the advice provided here.
It started with a friend recommending the Amex Velocity Card (long story short, applied and I now have 150k points). Then applied for the Amex Explorer Card (I know it says you’re not eligible if you have had an Amex card within the past 18 months. I just ticked the box ‘I haven’t had a previous card’, it was approved and before you know it I’ve got 120k points). So, it worked with Explorer card, so why not the Amex Qantas card? (Yep – it did and got 130k points from it).
Then I read this page and it got me thinking – so I applied and got the NAB Qantas Card (65k Qantas points there) and ANZ Black card (95k points in that one). So I’ve ended up with around 150k Virgin points, 295k Qantas points, 120k Explorer points and already have about 30k Qatar points.
So it got me thinking, if I could go anywhere in the world flying Business Class – where would I go? So I designed my bucket list tour – going to continents and places I’ve never been before. It’ll be grueling, but a lot of fun.
First, the One World itinerary and then I’ll go into more detail about the extra’s.
Melbourne to Rio de Janeiro (via Auckland and Santiago)
Rio de Janeiro to Cape Town (via London)
Cape Town to Doha – Hong Kong
Dubai to Hong Kong
Hong Kong to Melbourne
All this come in at just under 35,000 miles (34,340!)
But the actual trip starts in Australia (using the free Virgin flights with the Amex Velocity card) to fly to the Gold Coast (and climb Australia’s tallest residential tower, QV1), then to Sydney to climb the Harbour bridge, then to Darwin to jump in the Croc cage), then to Uluru and skydive over the rock, then back to Melbourne (all this using the Virgin Velocity points).
Then from Melbourne to Auckland (there for less than 24 hours – enough time to jump off the Sky Tower), then to Santiago (6 hours to quickly explore the city) then to Rio! In Rio I will be paragliding over Ipanema beach (and a side trip to Buenos Aires and Montevideo) then off to Cape Town (via London – 8 hours to get to check out the city). Half the trip is the journey and enjoying all that Business Class has to offer.
Cape Town is about getting up and close with great white sharks and then off to Doha. Now you can change your Amex Explorer points to Emirates points. So I’ll use my Qatar points to get to Cairo (great Pyramids), and then jump onto Emirates to get to Petra, Jordan and Agra, India. Then to Dubai and flying Cathy Pacific to Hong Kong. I’ll use that base to get to Beijing (Great Wall) and Seoul. By that stage, my 7 weeks annual leave will be over and time to head back to Hong Kong to fly back to Melbourne.
Trip of a lifetime – thanks to PointsHacks!
What an amazing trip you have planned there John! Hope you’ll be having a wonderful time. Although can I ask in regards to credit card applications, did you leave any gap in between applying these cards? Like how often did you apply for those credit cards. As I’ve read, it’s not recommended to apply too many credit card at once as it will significantly affect the credit rating. Also well done on getting all 3 Amex cards!
Cheers,
Tania
Thanks Tania!
I was lucky where I dont have any debt; a stable job and income and a clear credit history. You’re right – it isn’t advisable to apply to a lot of credit too soon. I checked my credit history with Veda and my score hasnt changed too much.
With Amex – even though I applied for 3 credit cards, only one credit check was done on my file (they already had performed the check so didn’t need to do it again). the application and successful outcome literally took 3 minutes. This may be different for each person depending on your situation. But I applied and received the cards within a 8 month period. I had read that Amex had tightened up people getting the into 100k point bonus offer if they already had the card in the previous 18months – but then also read of a guy who wrote that he flies business every year by applying for the cards every year, getting the points and then closing the account.
Good luck!
Hi
Im trying to travel Cairns to Toronto return. The return points flying direct using Cathay Business (Qantas Points) are much higher then 280000. As such can I go Cairns- Hong Kong- New York (with Cathay) – New York – Toronto (American) Toronto- Hong Kong – Cairns (Cathay) and meet all the rules.
Thanks
Thanks Nelson for this guide. I used it for the following 280k RTW redemption in biz class:
SYD-MNL on QF
MNL-SFO (via NRT) on JAL
LAX-DUS on Air Berlin
LHR-SIN on MH
PEK-SYD
Individually pricing up all of the flights (not that anyone would pay the individual rates necessarily) came out at close to $40k USD.
I’m now ready to do my next RTW redemption. I’m a little confused as to what constitutes a ‘stop’ and when the backtracking rule kicks in.
E.g.
MEL-KUL
MNL-WAW (via DOH)
DUS-MNL (via HKG)
MNL-SFO (via HKG)
SFO-MEL (via SYD)
Are the stops counted as KUL, MNL, WAW, DUS, MNL, SFO (hence exceeding the 5 stops rule)?
Or are the stops counted as KUL, WAW, MNL, SFO only? (effectively taking the right column of the listed flights)?
Thanks!
Sorry for the late reply, I’ve been away on my Singapore Airlines first class flight 🙂
That is a great redemption and even better when you know you saved $40k!
A stopover is when it is over 24 hours in a city. If you are in a city for 23 hours and 59 minutes, it is considered a transit.
QF doesn’t really have an official backtracking rule and they are quite flexible, so it is possible to zig zag around.
Just wondering why this doesnt seem to cap at the 280,000 points when searching using https://www.qantas.com/fflyer/do/dyns/InitialPointsRedeemed
My trip was as follows, can anyone see if i missed anything… Total was 401,000
Qantas/QantasLink Brisbane – Los Angeles (stop) 96000 8 (7166) Business Qantas
Qantas/QantasLink Los Angeles – New York (stop) 50000 4 (2467) Business Qantas
British Airways New York – London (stop) 53000 4 (3440) Business Partner
British Airways London – Athens (stop) 38000 3 (1500) Business Partner
British Airways Athens – London – Hong Kong (stop) 104000 8 (7491) Business Partner
Qantas/QantasLink Hong Kong – Brisbane (stop) 60000 5 (4315) Business Qantas
Thanks all 🙂
Hi Jonathan,
Did you use gcmap.com to tally up?
the Qantas website is a bit glitchy at the moment, so you might need to ticket that via the telephone.
I noticed it the other day when I try to price QF and EK business, it was well within the maximum miles, but QF priced it as 2 awards, from Melbourne to Sydney with QF and Sydney to London via Dubai with Emirates, all up wanted to charge me around 150k points, rather than 128k.
QF seems to be pricing multiple awards when you try online and the glitch isnt going away right now, so our best hope is call and price the itinerary via the telephone and explain that there is a glitch on the website so the agent can waive the phone booking fee.
I know this post is a bit old and the number of miles required might have changed, but I see there are recent comments which say that they have been able to get a RTW priced within the miles specified.
I am just using this tool: https://www.qantas.com/travel/airlines/multi-city-flight-search/global/en and no amount of date swapping gets me a fare that takes 280000 miles only for business. The best I could get was 475K with a few economy flights to boot.
I have tried all the examples given in this post, including the ones in the comments. There are no Emirates, Malaysia Airlines or Japan Airlines in my bookings.
So I am wondering if I am doing something wrong 🙂 Is that still the right tool?
Hi Vikram,
Yes the post is old but the rates are still current.
Is Jetstar included in any flights or other non One World airlines?
Can you list city pairs (to and from) and airline flying that route.
Hey Nelson,
I tried the same route as Alpha Yankee (for example):
Sydney – Singapore – Helsinki on Qantas and Finnair;
Helsinki – New York on Finnair;
New York – San Francisco on American Airlines;
San Francisco – Phoenix – Honolulu on American Airlines;
Honolulu – Nagoya – Tokyo on Japan Airlines; (with the 1 hour Nagoya – Tokyo flight in economy)
Tokyo – Sydney on Qantas.
No there is no Jetstar option. I get the same airlines as Alpha Yankee, but my total is coming much higher. Further, the option from Tokyo – Sydney doesn’t allow me Business at all.
I don’t know what is going on then, it might be a glitch in Qantas system.
if that is the case, you probably have to call Qantas once you find the award seats one by one.
You can’t book Japan Airlines with Qantas, that has to be done over the telephone.
Thanks for a really useful article.
Keen to know if I am doing something wrong – I’m having a play around with a RTW trip via the mutli-city booking tool, using classic rewards. I’m keen to do a RTW trip in economy with the 140,000 cap (no potential for extra points).
I’ve put in SYD-HKG-DXB-BCN-JFK-LAX-SYD – comes in at 174,000 – should it be capping out at 140,000? Only 25,000 miles. Let me know if I’m doing something wrong!
Cheers,
Luke
Is it becauase the HKG-DXB leg is Emirates?
Yes, Emirates is not one world.
Hi Luke,
What airlines have you selected?
Thank you Nelson for such a comprehensive guide. After almost 18 months of points saving, we’ve finally taken the plunge, and 560,000 points later we have our 2 X Oneworld business class RTW tickets booked. Our trip starts next Australia Day long weekend until early March. Your guide was of enormous help.
We monitored and researched all flights through the Qantas and BA search engines (only used BA to search for JAL flights) online before we called Qantas. By the time I picked up the phone, all flights’ availability were researched and written down – the phone call took no more than 15 minutes.
Distance wise it’s not pushing the boundary – a total of 28,978 miles (46,636km) according to Great Circle Mapper, but it takes us to exactly where we want to be:
Sydney – Singapore – Helsinki on Qantas and Finnair;
Helsinki – New York on Finnair;
New York – San Francisco on American Airlines;
San Francisco – Phoenix – Honolulu on American Airlines;
Honolulu – Nagoya – Tokyo on Japan Airlines; (with the 1 hour Nagoya – Tokyo flight in economy)
Tokyo – Sydney on Qantas.
Hay Alpha,
Great redemption and great use of points, truly well worth the 18 months month.
Multi-city and RTW are my favorite redemptions.
I always look forward to reading about readers taking advantage of this redemption and maximising their points.
Why visit only one city when you can visit a number of cities for only slightly more points.
Now we just have to wait patiently for our trip to start. =)
Thanks for the tips Nelson – particularly on the dumplings! 🙂
No worries 🙂 I’m not sure if you have been to Spain, but I love it, although I’ve only ever been to Barcelona, not Madrid.
Barcelona was fantastic, 1.50 euro margaritas, 3.0 euro tapas dinners, washed down with 2 litre sangria for only 4 euros, it is wonderful! Just be prepared to have dinner at 9-10PM haha
The Cathay Pacific noodle bar has delicious succulent prawn dumplings, made fresh and on demand, definitely a great way to end your trip on your way back to Melbourne.
The Qantas lounge in Hong Kong also has yum cha too but only operates when there are Qantas flights operating, so worth checking to see if your departure is timed with a Qantas flight departure.
But obviously the lounge food can’t beat the real delicious food in Hong Kong.
I have and I love Spain but haven’t been to Hong Kong before. Can’t wait to feast on all the good food! And check out the Cathay lounges 🙂
I first came across this article a long time ago and it inspired me to save up my QFF points for a RTW business class redemption. It’s taken time but I finally had enough points come through to my account on Friday and over the weekend I booked two business class fares for March 2018 as follows:
Melbourne to Santiago (overnight but not more than 23h55m) on to Lima and then Cusco
Cusco-Lima-Miami
Miami-Madrid
Madrid-Johannesburg
Johannesburg-Hong Kong
Hong Kong-Melbourne
This article has been so helpful. I have known what route I wanted for a while and checked seat availability on BA first so as soon as the points went on I was able to ring and score the seats. I had to book via the call centre as I couldn’t access the flights on the Qantas website. They charged me 6000 points per seat for assisting.
I’ll echo other comments here and say the call centre can be good, but it does depend on who you get. The first person I got I had to really step through the process. It required about three further phone calls as they were having trouble calculating the taxes but finally it all went through yesterday. (One of the calls was to get most of the flights back as they’d been cancelled by other airlines because Qantas hadn’t sorted the fees out in time).
I’m flying LATAM, Iberia and Cathay Pacific and the taxes came to $1400 each (of which $950 was fuel surcharges). Thanks to everyone for all the helpful comments – this is such a great way to use points and I can’t wait!
Thanks for posting Cathy, this is a wonderful itinerary, it is really creative!
The taxes and surcharges are stinging but when you consider that $1400 is not even enough to fly one-way economy class to USA, I think you have done really well to do this entire trip in Business Class!!!
A retail fare on One World for your itinerary would have cost at least $10,000, so this is a bargain.
By the way if you had trouble with Qantas website, normally the agent is supposed to waive the 6,000 points booking fee.
It is up to you, you can probably chase it up and get it refunded, although the thought of being on hold for 2 hours on QF (I don’t have status), probably not worth it for 6,000 points haha.
Enjoy your trip, I’ve never been to Madrid, but I heard great things about it.
If you have time, take the high speed rail to Barcelona, it is around 2 hours 30mins, and Barcelona is a beautiful city – one of the favorite destinations in Europe.
From Barcelona you can also take high speed trail to Paris, only 5 hours! haha sorry I’m getting carried away.
Anyway, don’t forget to enjoy the multiple Cathay Pacific and Qantas lounges in Hong Kong, they are my favorite places to get dumplings and won tons.
Thanks for stopping by and sharing your experiences!
http://www.australianfrequentflyer.com.au/community/your-questions/35k-mile-routing-challenge-f-82164.html#post1617644
I’m trying to do this, but it’s really hard… check out my challenge on the link above…
Hi Timmy,
Unfortunately it is first come first serve.
And trying to book First class 4 months out will be difficult.
When i booked my RTW F class award three years ago, I booked it 11 months out.
My advice is to keep looking, revenue management could release more seats.
Yes it works if you are prepared to be flexible and book rewards flights as early as possible.
Booked 2 x business class flight reward seats for 280,000 QF points each, in all the sectors in July 2016 for travel in June 2017 for:
Sydney – Stockholm (Sydney-Adelaide QF, Adelaide-Stockholm via Doha Qatar, Stockholm-Lisbon BA via London, Lisbon-Barcelona Iberia via Madrid, Barcelona-Hong Kong Qatar via Doha and Hong Kong-Sydney with Cathay.
Since it was an early booking there were some flight changes that caused connecting flight problems, but calls to Qantas fixed the issues – they were very helpful – and was not charged any additional points.
Hi Ian, thanks for sharing. I’m always keen to see how our readers maximise the value of their points.
That is a great redemption Ian, and great value out of the points when you consider that QF charges 139,000 points one-way for redemption flying One World partner airlines.
So your Sydney to Europe trip, would have cost 278,000 points booked as two one-way journeys, and you would have to pay extra $$$ for the internal Europe flights.
But for an extra 2,000 points, you have been able to secure all the internal flights within Europe as well, which has saved you between $1000-$3000, assuming you are flying business within Europe.
I know business class intra-europe is nothing special but lounge access is a godsend.
If you are going via London, you can probably stop by the new Cathay Pacific lounge, it looks fantastic or try out the new Cathay Pacific Hong Kong lounges.
Hi just curious, trying to book a business RTW reward, found all the international legs fine but looking for some internal Us flights and there is nothing on the Qantas sight (travel in jan 18). Based on the article, AA flights should be visible? Any idea why they’re not appearing or how I can book internal flights as part of this reward flight? Thanks!
Hi Tim,
Can you only see Economy seats?
Normally internal US flights, they call their business class as “first class”. so be careful when selecting, because you don’t want to pay First class award rates.
You may need to book without the AA flights and see if availability opens up later. AA availability does show reliably on Qantas.com so if you can’t see any, you’re probably out of luck at least for now.
Hi Thank you so much for the great article. Im currently trying to figure out our RTW itinerary business class. We are hoping to do: Melbourne -> Cairo, Cairo -> Helsinki, Helsinki -> Caymans, Caymans -> New York, New York -> Las Vagas, Las Vagas to home (Melbourne). Im already having issues trying to find flights for the first leg that are not emirates, does anyone know if I can get to Cairo in anyway without using emirates? Any other issues you see with my very draft RTW plan?
I’d check MEL or SYD to Doha and then Cairo with Qatar. Good luck!
Oh that worked! Thank you so much, I tried to google it but couldnt find an answer. Just to confirm I do select Search Classic Flight Reward flight in the Multi City option, don’t I?
Hi Kitty,
Yes correct, select classic flight reward.
Hi Nelson,
Your guide has been so helpful, thanks greatly for writing it!
I’m a little confused about the five stopover rule. Your “example two” has Sydney as origin plus 12 cities. Does this mean 7 of those cities had under 24 hours of tourism time in each?
When does it make sense to make something a “surface sector”?
If you don’t wish to change counties every 24 hours is the trick then to pick the six most expensive flights (Origin – City 1, 1-2, 2-3, 3-4, 4-5, 5 – Origin) to include in capped amount, and fill anything else in with “surface sectors” paid out of pocket?
Hi Craig, correct if you are transiting in a city under 24 hours it does not count as a stopover.
It depends on your itinerary, a surface sector gets added into the total mileage.
But in my mind, I suppose if you are in some random European town and you want to drive to another European town/city but don’t want to head back to the airport which is 600km away, get on a plane and fly to the another city, then you just drive or take the train.
I dont understand you last question? This itinerary does allow you stop in each city you are visiting and could be more than 24 hours.
I.e. If you want to fly into Paris and take the train to Barcelona and fly out of Barcelona, the distance between Paris and Barcelona is added towards your mileage allowance.
Otherwise you can take the train Paris to Barcelona and back, and fly out of Paris, and no extra mileage will be added to your itinerary.
I managed to book this flight today and am quite pleased. The Qantas call centre staff member was very patient and helpful, especially in finding other flight alternatives when two of the award flights I’d found online no longer showed availability at her end.
ADL-KUL-BKK (Adelaide to Bangkok)
BKK-HKG-DFW-CUN (Bangkok to Cancun, Mexico) + make own way to Austin
AUS-LGA (Austin Texas to New York)
JFK-TXL (New York to Berlin)
TXL-ZUR-MAD (Berlin to Madrid, with transit layover in Zurich) + make own way to Dublin
DUB-LHR-HKG-ADL (Dublin to Adelaide)
140,000 points for economy + $1021 taxes
FYI: It took a little over 2 hours on the phone, which did include trying to find alternatives to two legs as mentioned (I’d been on hold for 25 min before getting answered, Monday 9.15am AEST approx).
Very nice itinerary. Yes it is always good to get helpful agents who can find seats for you.
Also doing it via the phone means you can redeem on One World partners not searchable via the QF online search engine. Partners like Japan Airlines and Malaysia Airlines just to name a few.
Looking at booking the following in Business Class for 2 people when bookings open 353 days ahead but wondered if you have any suggestions to minimise the taxes and surcharges. I have tried to remember all the info in point hacks but all suggestions will be gratefully accepted as I’m sure I have forgotten something. Do I also have to include 2 Qantas flights? I haven’t done that.
Melbourne to Tokyo. Japan Airlines. 4 nights
Tokyo to Hong Kong(transit) to San Francisco. 6 nights.Cathay Pacific. First leg may be Japan Airlines?
San Francisco to New York. American Airlines 7 nights
New York to London…..Are taxes less at Gatwick or Heathrow and do all one world airlines fly into both (Need to stay here for a couple of weeks ) Not sure who best to fly with as It is suggested that BA have high taxes?? American Airlines?
London to Copenhagen, again staying for a month or so .. Who will be cheapest with taxes and surcharges in Europe? Air Berlin? Cathay Pacific?
Copenhagen back to Melbourne. Cathay Pacific via Hong Kong.
Sorry for so many questions but I am trying to get it right the first time so I have less changes to make. We are flexible with where we fly into or transit through.Thanks in advance for your help and suggestions of alternatives from anyone are welcome.
Nanette
The airlines you are planning to fly on have minimal surcharges.
The One World airlines to avoid are British Airways, Qantas and Qatar. Although Qatar is not as bad as BA and QF.
Unless the flights originate from Hong Kong where the surcharges are lower due to government regulations. But because your flight originates from Australia, that won’t apply.
If you depart from London and your flight distance is less than 2000 miles, you won’t pay a huge Advanced Passenger Departure (APD) tax.
From April 01 2017, APD taxes for business/first class passengers departing is up to 150 pounds per passenger compared to 13 pounds if you fly out of UK to a country less than 2000 miles.
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/rates-and-allowances-excise-duty-air-passenger-duty/rates-and-allowances-excise-duty-air-passenger-duty
However you can avoid that APD, if you are transiting
Noting that you don’t need to return to the city of departure… but the mileage will calculate back to departing city, regardless of where you finish.
Is there a way of booking stopovers (less than 24hrs) when booking the itinerary online with the multi-city function?
Also, I’m likely to end my trip in Europe before home to Adelaide, and my searches keep throwing up Emirates as the only option on the final leg, which means the points don’t get capped with the inclusion of Emirates. Any thoughts on alternatives?
Suggestion on the Adelaide options – take a look at Cathay Pacific via HK, or Malaysia Airlines via Kuala Lumpur (which wouldn’t show online).
Managed a really good itinerary for 3 following this guide…
Mel – dubai
Dubai – london
London – paris
Paris – berlin
Berlin – London – New york
New York – LA
La – mel
All around Easter in 2016, but booked a full year in advance.
Taxes about $1000 but a great use of points.
That’s a really good itinerary. Real good value for money.
Wonderful article.
Could you clarify one thing for me? “Avoid flying out of the UK”… does this mean only LHR? Say, does London City still charge the same surcharges/taxes/fees, whatever they may be?
Unfortunately, yes. There are two exceptions which I learnt from the Head for Points site in the UK this week – Newquay (not relevant for Qantas redemption as Newquay – LGW is only flown by flybe who are not a Qantas partner) and Inverness (which can work as BA fly Inverness -> London).
Oh well. Thanks Keith!
Well that’s a bit of good news! So, what’s the easiest way to see seat availability (on line) for those other airlines?
Thanks, Deb
The best bet is to use the one-way or multi-city search tool.
Cathay Pacific, British Airways (Sin-Syd) and Qatar are all searchable on Qantas engine.
Just wondering if you can start and end an Qantas points RTW journey in another country – say, Singapore or Malaysia. Given the difficulty in obtaining reward seats in business class between Aus and USA just thought of picking up a separate cheap flight in and out of Asia. We have been saving points for a few years to do the RTW in business class only to find it’s not that easy, plus you have to book soooo far in advance.
Di Deb,
Yes you can.
I would suggest having a look at Cathay Pacific, Qantas, British Airways, Qatar flights across all capital cities.
Cathay flies to Perth, Adelaide, Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane and Cairns and they typically open up unsold seats 2 weeks out from desired travel date.
And the cost to tag that flight with QF at the call centre would be 3500 QF points if you are booked in Business Class or First. Costs more if its an economy class redemption.
We just have to be flexible.
In my upcoming trip, I couldn’t get any seats out of Melbourne, so I’m transiting via Sydney instead.
I was considering using Qantas points for an economy reward fare from NCL UK to PER AU but after reviewing it was better to buy a ticket.
Economy Reward 110,000 Qantas points
Carrier charges and taxes £529
Economy Fare £38
Carrier charges and taxes £529
Valuing 110,000 points @ £38 seems a bit rubbish.
Hi Alex,
I’ve never been a fan of using points for economy class redemptions, particularly with carriers which charge a hefty surcharge.
It is not good value for money in my opinion, since economy class tickets are so cheap.
IMHO you are absolutely right. For this reason it is usually best to use points to redeem business or first class and onto airlines/ routes where the carrier charges are not levied.
Great article. I’ve finally reached the required number of points, so the timing was perfect.
Can I clarify infants charges though?
Infant is 22 months at the date of the first flight.
Trip is 6 months long, so the child will be over 2 years at the conclusion.
Aside from the infant taxes, will they be charged all, some or none of the points for the trip?
Obviously, the entire trip would need to be booked on the single booking number.
Best to check with Qantas directly on this one. Would love to know the answer, please report back!
can do exactly the same thing for 220,000 asia miles and much less in taxes.
I agree, this article is geared towards FF who earn only earn QF points.
If you are an AMEX cardholder or hold another card which transfer to Asiamiles, i would look at Asiamiles because a similar itinerary costs 190,000 miles (5 stops and up to 35,000 miles) in business or 270,000 miles in first class, vs 420,000 QF points.
However some people will argue that QF points is easier for them to earn.
For anyone else interested, we have covered the comparable Asia Miles multi carrier award here.
you can do the exact same thing for 220,000 asia miles and likely pay half the taxes.
Hi Thanks for the great article.
Is there a similar option to RTW fare using velocity points?
Thanks
Eyal
Hi Eyal,
Thanks very much. Unfortunately velocity doesn’t allow it. however you could look at transferring velocity to Krisflyer which does allow RTW redemptions on Singapore Airlines and Star Alliance partners.
With krisflyer you can also to multi-city trips on the one itinerary with Singapore airlines,
https://www.pointhacks.com.au/maximising-krisflyer-redemptions-using-free-additional-stopovers/
Routing through HKG may save $100’s in fuel (oops-carrier) charges – in which case using BA from HKG-LHR may be a useful option (especially if you get A380 flight…)
I did have one of these RTW itineraries booked up a couple of years ago, but the additional charges were off the scale – in the region of $2,000, so I cancelled, simplified the itinerary and saved a sh-t load of cash.
At that time QF were collecting fees for flights on AA, which didn’t even qualify for a surcharge (QF seems to have stopped that outrightly unethical practice).
If I used Alaskan points to go RTW in first class (SYD-HKG (bus)-LHR (first)- LAX (first) – SYD (first)) I could do that for 30,000 + 70,000 + 70,000, +70,000 = 240,000 pts and fly CX for the SYD-HKG-LHR to minimise surcharges: in that context the 280,000 pts plus big cash from QF to fly business is not a very good deal: sure you can get more flights, but for each extra flight add another sector surcharge (which can be around $300 per sector)….
Yep – if you already have the QF points it might take sense – but then if that’s the case you most likely haven’t got your frequent flyer strategy optimised in the first place…(read more Point Hacks articles!!!).
You make very good points.
I agree people should definitely read more Point Hacks articles on other programs!
This guide is definitely for Qantas FF who are sitting on a mountain of points.
Also in Aus, everyone defaults to QF or VA.
But I prefer to keep my points in AMEX and transfer to whichever program gives me the best value of money at the time.
Yep – I keep my points in AMEX wherever possible! IMHO I agree people tend to default to QF and VA, but that’s not necessarily a good thing and whereas the article is very good in addressing the topic at hand a few links at the end of the article to alternatives (as covered by Points Hacks) would be the icing on the cake! Good job!
We’ll take that into consideration and see what other guides we can link.
This guide was geared to Qantas FF and we didn’t want to confuse people by providing different links because they might think they can transfer QF points to those other programs, because the most common question we get asked is “Can I transfer my frequent flyer points between different airline programs?”.
Personally I keep my points balance in AMEX and transfer them to different programs.
I’ve got to admit that RTW or multi-city trips are my favourite redemptions, I like the concept of getting more value out of your points, like using Singapore Airlines Krisflyer stopover to fly to Europe as well as the USA, for an extra $100 USD and 12,500 miles in Business and 5,000 miles in First Class.
What a great article and questions/responses.
I may have missed it but could you confirm how points are deducted when you have to dribble book.
Do points get deducted from your account in excess of 280K and then get refunded when you meet all the requirements and qualify for award? If this is the case then would certainly have to have an excess of 280K.
Thanks & regards
Michael
Hi Michael,
It won’t exceed the 280k cap as long as 1. you don’t mix Emirates
2. include a first class leg in your itinerary.
3. exceed 35,000 km
what you will find is, when you book as many flights as possible at the beginning, the number of points required is 280k.
You can add more flights later on by calling Qantas but they will charge you 3500 points to amend the booking each time, so you end up paying more than 280k points if you did it that way, particularly if you make many changes.
What a fabulous article and thread!! I have been saving QFF points for some years now and have 614,000 for my husband and I to do a RTW in April 2018. So this thread was very timely and had so much info. It’s a bit scary for me to do it all on line so if I book with the Qantas gurus who do this all the time is the total cost per passenger (in points) to do this booking for us 3500 points?? And of course the 280,000 each for our business class 5 stopovers. If you can only book 353days out from the first sector, are you charged the 3500 points each time you ring and get them to do the next flights? If that’s the case I may just have to put on my big girl pants and try to do it myself.
Yes, Qantas would probably like to sting you the change fee each time you call up and make a change – however that may be necessary to get some of the flights as they come available at the ‘edge’ of the calendar.
thanks Nelson for that. Just one more thing. if I am going from Perth to Honolulu into the US mainland can I go first to Washington and then to New Orleans or Houston or is that BACKTRACKING and not allowed? Before I move on to Europe?
There are no specific back-tracking rules but agents do apply some geographical sense to itineraries and may deny them. Back tracking to Honolulu may not be allowed if flying across the Atlantic from the US to Europe.
I am in the process of booking this fare and was hoping you could clarify the stopover/transfer rules.
As part of the flight I want to take the following legs:
COK – DOH – CDG
BOS – DOH – DXB (stopover)
DXB – DOH – ADL
Does this exceed the maximum transfers in DOH?
If so can I just pay the DXB – DOH legs separately which would then give 1 stop and 1 transfer.
Also if I take an AA flight with AA number but it is operated as Envoy Air as American Eagle does this comply.
Thanks a lot for your help
I’ve never tried transiting in one city three times, so I won’t be able to help you out.
Thanks Nelson for that advice.
I also had a chat with an online agent who told me that it is 8000 per passenger for service fee plus another 5000 points for a change when booking economy multi city. Now THAT may be news to some of the readers here. However booking on the phone will cost 3500 points per passenger. I think it used to be 6000.
I guess I will just have to wait for the return fights, to be available and then try my luck. I am flexible with dates and airlines (an to some extent even destinations) so that might serve me in good stead.
Yes Andy the Qantas 5,000 points change fees applies to all classes.
And Qantas recently raised the cost of award fees.
https://www.pointhacks.com.au/qantas-change-cancellation-fee-increase-dec-2016/
The biggest sting is for economy class award bookings where Qantas charges a service fee of 8,000 points + 5,000 points change fee.
The 8,000 points service fee is waived for premium cabins.
So people who book an Economy award have to be aware and keep changes to a minimal because each change will cost you 13,000 points.
Otherwise if you book an economy class multi-city or RTW award for 140,000, every time you call up and make changes, it could easily add up to and before you know it, you could have just booked a 280,000 Business Class award instead.
Hi Nelso
Great info.
I am waiting to book RTW on Qantas economy for four persons leaving Perth around 10 Dec 2017 returning end Jan 2018 and am a bit confused how this can be done in bits and pieces. I thought it cud only be done on the phone and one go. Are you saying I can already book my flights out which are now “open through the Qantas multi city option: and then add the inbound flights into Perth when they open later next month. Wont that take me over the 140,000 FF points for a RTW?
My IT is Perth-Tokyo-Honolulu-New Orleans (surface to Houston) -Dublin, -Johannesburg and back to Perth.
Also somewhere on this thread the advice is to select/tick “use point-classic awards only”. Is that on the Qantas website in which case you will need to select a multi city itinerary and not a RTW. I can’t seem to find such a tick box on the one world site. Or do all RTW trips have to be booked on the phone.
All advice/tips welcome thanks
Hi Andy,
You can complete most of the itinerary online via the multi-city search tool on the Qantas site.
You can all the flights in one go or book whatever you can now and add more flights as you go along.
However if you book as you go along, you won’t be able to complete the itinerary online, you will need to call Qantas and make changes to the booking.
Each change to an economy class booking is 8,000 points per passenger, so you could end up with a very hefty award.
So my advice is to book it in one go to avoid paying 8,000 points per passenger each time you want to change the flight.
Hi Neilson – great article and helped reshape some travel plans for Dec-Jan 2017/18.
A couple questions as I start the planning:
(1) guessing I will only be able to book all legs around 330days prior to my last leg (which would be late Jan 2018 – hence booking for that leg will only open Feb/Mar 2017). Alternative is to book incrementally as outlined above? Please confirm if that’s correct….
(2) re: suggestion to avoid BA/LHR. I am looking to do a leg from Europe to Cape Town….Given member airlines, was looking at Finnair HEL-CPT (which goes via LHR and might code share with BA). Question if a if operating under a Finnair code, would I still get slugged the equivalent BA/LHR fees etc which I would try to avoid and if so, any idea how might get to CPT from Europe (within 15-20hrs)?
W
Thanks I’m glad it you found it useful.
You can book Classic Awards up to 353 days in advance, so if you are able to piece together your itinerary then, I would go ahead and do it.
Yes you can book it incrementally using the online multi-city tool if you are flying on the one world partners found on Qantas search engine. Some One World partners do not show up on Qantas engine.
If you do decide to use the multi-city tool to book, I would try and book as many segments/cities/stopovers as possible and minimise changes to the award/itinerary because Qantas charges 5,000 Qantas Points per person per booking to make changes.
I.e. for your return flight to Australia, the award calendar has not opened and you need to wait for the 353 days to book it via the phone with the agent.
Answer to second question, if you book Finnair and transit via LHR on your way to CPT, then you do not pay the LHR Advanced Passenger Departure Tax as long as you keep your transit in London under 23 hours and 59 minutes.
But if you fly on BA metal, you will pay BA’s hefty fuel surcharge, that cannot be avoided.
The alternative is to fly Qatar Airways from Europe/LHR to CPT via Doha. It is a bit of a hassle, 5-6 hour hop between EU and Doha, followed by a 9hr 45 minute flight to CPT.
Whereas LHR to CPT is a direct 11 hr 30 mins flight.
Was wondering if open jaws are allowed ?
Hi Stephen, yes it is possible
thanks nelson just did my around the world trip! some are in economy and premium however but hopefully award seats appear prior. lady reminded me change before 15th Dec otherwise its 5k per passenger.
Glad to hear that. Hopefully more premium space appears so you can change to premium.
I am in the process of booking an award flight and am a little bit confused about the allowed number of stops.
I have left out the complying connecting flights from the flights below
Currently I have
Melbourne – Shanghai
Kochi – Atlanta
Boston – London
Rome – Melbourne
Is this considered three or four stops for the conditions of the ticket? I am not sure if Melbourne is considered a stop or a final destination.
Thanks
Alex
melbourne is the originating and end city, so its not counted as stopover.
a stopover is when you are in one city for over 24 hours.
Thanks for that.
I am going to book
MEL – SYD – SHA
PEK – HKG – MNL
MNL – HKG – CMB
COK – DOH – DFW
BOS – LHR
FRA – DOH – MEL
Comes in at 56,109 km against a maximum of 56,237 km with 14 flights/surface sectors so should just sneak in. Thanks for your article and help – it is much appreciated.
You’re welcome Alex.
As long as it falls within the 35,000 miles, you’ll be alright, you can do it all for 280,000 points, which is amazing value when you consider that Qantas charges 128,000 (QF/EK/AA) and 132,000 points (One World Partners) for one-way redemption and you aren’t allowed to stopover.
Thanks Nelson, when I priced the itinerary it came to over $12k each so definitely worth it! Can’t wait!
I booked myself and my partner for June 2017 Business class Brisbane – Hong Kong – Johannesburg – Cathay Pacific (internal cheap flight to Krueger and onto Cape Town) – London and washington DC on BA, New York to San Francisco on American. Some American trans continental flights now have a proper business class but only out of certain cities, then final leg Qantas los Angeles to Brisbane.
I used the RTW planner to get an idea of which flights/dates and airlines to use then called Qantas for advice 6 months before starting to book. Each flight was booked separately and charged accordingly until the cap was reached.
We only had seven weeks in which to complete the trip and ended up adding an eighth as we couldn’t get home in business class with Qantas.
Couple of tips: if one of you has silver FF and above use this account as you get first dibs on reward seats, some may not be available to bronze members until later and may have all gone. (Only found out 3/4 of the way through the bookings and you can’t change over accounts without cancelling everything prior!). I thought Qantas club also got priority but alas no!
One flight in first class automatically defaults the points to the full RTW first class fare despite being booked into business so if you are going to book one sector in first class then book the lot!
Also silver FF and above are dealt with by the Hobart call centre who seem to have a more experienced team with more knowledge on the dos and Donts.
Finally check and double check the advice given, we tried to book Los Angeles back to Brisbane with transit in Hong Kong and were told this counted as a double back, I checked 3 times after getting told originally that we could, hence the extra week!
Booking this is not for the feint hearted, it can be stressful when your ducks don’t line up, but perseverance and a good attitude to the call centre agents go a long way. If you need to, book an economy seat and change it when a business class seat becomes available, it will cost 2 change fees but may be worth it for peace of mind that you won’t have to pay for a flight home! Total $$$ were 1.5k each taxes and charges!
Great redemption, thanks for sharing!
Thanks Stephanie for sharing your experience. sounded like a great itinerary.
Having planned my own RTW first class with One World, I know your experience of booking these flights.
Having said that, we are saving $8000 and over $20,000 in First class, so patience and perseverance pays off in the end.
And it is stressful during the planning process, but once you get to the airport, no queuing, enjoy the lounge, get on board and you are sitting in the front, sipping champagne and dining on a lovely meal, its all worth it!
Hi Nelson
Are there conditions on the 140000, 280,000, 440,000 points cap that you must fly out of and into Australia using QF flights or can you use another one world flight?
Hi Adrian, Nope you don’t need to fly Qantas in and out of Australia, any One World partner flight will do.
Cathay Pacific out of Melbourne, Sydney, Adelaide, Brisbane, Cairns, Perth.
Japan Airlines out of Sydney
British Airlines out of Sydney
Qantas out of Brisbane, Melbourne and Sydney
Qatar Airways out of Perth, Adelaide, Melbourne and Sydney.
Just depends on availability, but you can tag on a domestic leg if you can’t find a flight departing from your home city.
Hi
I have a Qantas points flight to Hong Kong with Cathay and a connecting Qantas points flight to Milan on Cathay but different reference numbers as the Qantas website would not let me book as one flight. Can I now link them to start to form a RTW flight. ?
You can link the reference numbers to enable the airlines to know what flights you are connecting to and from in case of any issues, but beyond that, there’s no way of combining the itineraries to save points / change the method of booking.
I believe you could cancel one of them if you can find an alternative flight that you know would be available to book – for example, say you can find a seat for HKG-Milan now before you cancel your HKG-Milan redemption, you could add that hypothetical HKG-Milan flight into your existing SYD-HKG Qantas redemption (paying the 3,500 point change fee) – along with any other flights you wanted to add into your itinerary to turn it into a round the world award. You’d want to do all your research first to ensure all the flights you wanted to book were available before cancelling one of the itineraries you already have, of course. Hope that makes sense.
In short, no way of combining two existing reservations, but you can absolutely make changes to one of the existing reservations if you can find the availability to suit your plans.
“Spoke” to a Qantas agent online today regarding the OW classic redemption. I’m afraid the knowledgable people seem to be missing in action. The above sample itineray via Hongkong on the way out and back wasn’t OK she said, because it “backtracked”. I made it clear my enquiry was a redemption, not a OW RTW, but she insisted, can’t be done. Next she said, I can only do, say, Denver-LAX-SYD if the total flight time is under 24hrs. She did not understand the transit time rules at an airport, to me clearly misunderstanding the transit rule thinking it means flight time. Whilst I can get around this silliness because I’ve done these ropes a few times before, it is a sad day for Qantas. Their call centre staff used to be spot-on for interpreting the rules, now it is clear why some of the other posters above are so disgruntled. Given that I will need to run the gauntlet of the call centre to complete my booking, I am a bit concerned I will have trouble completing a OW booking as the agents are not well informed.
Hi Peter,
I’ve encountered problems with booking with Qantas, Cathay and US Airways now American Airlines.
Normally I would thank the agent, hang up and call again, and hopefully the different agent has a better idea.
But if the rules are strict that means you will need to tweak your itinerary. It doesn’t mean your entire trip cannot go ahead now, you would need to look at alternative routes and work within the airline rules.
Is it possible to purchase one leg of a return flight on points and the other leg with cash? I know you could just purchase two separate one-way flights, but it would be nice to take advantage of the cheaper prices offered when purchasing return flights.
No, this is not possible – one of the downsides of using points and stitching together mixed-payment method itineraries.
Hi Nelson,
I recently booked a RTW Business class ticket using points, which had one sector in the USA. I booked the US domestic sector as Economy and thought I would be able to change it to First class by calling Qantas. Do you have any experience regarding this. i.e. should I be able to use US domestic First class with a Business class RTW ticket?
Cheers,
Wazza
Hi Wazza,
Use the qantas search engine and search for that specific flight and see if it falls under the Business Class or First class award category.
That should be a good start.
I’d call them and check anyway. Qantas agents can be helpful, I haven’t had a bad experience with Qantas frequent flyer agent.
Hi, has anyone looked at booking the RTW business class during the peak season (Nov/Dec/Jan) and what the availability is like? We are looking to book one for our honeymoon but a bit nervous about the timing.
Thanks
Irene
Hi Irene, the rule about booking awards is to get in as soon as possible.
Particularly for peak season, seats do tend to get snapped up really quickly.
Thanks for your fast reply Nelson. Could I not book these flights as single leg flights over the internet rather than getting Qantas to include them on the one multi city booking?
Hi Greg,
If you booked them as single leg flights one at a time, they will be ticketed separately, so you will be charged multiple awards, which could easily add up and the redemptions would end up costing more than the rate for 140,000 economy, 280,000 business or 420,000 first class.
A multi-city booking allows you to string all the flights on Qantas and One World partners in the one itinerary and the maximum points is capped at 280,000 business or 420,000 first class, as long as your total travel distance (including surface sectors) is under 35,000 miles.
One mile over, 35,001 and you will trigger a new award.
Thanks Nelson. I’ve ended up booking the flights as a multicity fare. I was astounded at the ‘charges’ that Qantas adds to the booking over and above the points for the flights. It ended up costing me more than $1200 over and above the points for the two of us just in their extra charges!! They’re far and away the most expensive airline I’ve come across for added charges! I doubt I’ll book them again because of it. It devalues their points so that 1 Qantas point is worth around .7 cents!!!
Hi Greg,
I have an American Express card and if you have one, the other option is to look at Cathay Pacific Asia Miles for One World multi-city fares.
Asiamiles is an Amex transfer partner at a 1:1 ratio.
Keith wrote a guide on it, and for 275,000 miles you can redeem a First Class multi-city award compared to Qantas’ 420,000 points.
Hi. I’m about to book a number of flights starting May 2017 from Syd to San Fran then to Calgary. Then Anchorage to LA and back to Syd. I have enough rewards points for myself and my wife to do the lot but only in economy unfortunately 🙁
My question is this: Should I book separate flights as they become available or wait and try to book the lot in one hit with their multi city booking? Do you pay the same fees and taxes (which I think are VERY high) if you book legs separately as you would by booking a multi or is it dearer?
Hi Greg,
If you book the flights separately, you would need to call Qantas and add them as they become available.
That doesn’t sound so bad if you were booking a business/first award.
But…. for Economy class redemption, Qantas will charge you a service fee of 8000 points per passenger every time you make changes.
On top of that, there is a 3500 points to “change” the award.
So every time you call to add a city, you are getting hit with 11,500 points charge per person.
Before you know, you could have used those points to book a business class redemption instead.
Taxes depend on the airline carrier and airport fees depend on the country, regardless of whether you book the flights all at the same time or separately, because every time you make a change, the ticket gets repriced.
So if you book the legs one by one, each time you add a city, the ticket gets repriced.
And different airlines charge different fees.
I.e. flying British Airways or QF is dearer than flying Cathay Pacific, which charges like $78 for Paris to Sydney compared to $300-600 for QF I think.
Hi Nelson,
The article and responses are extremely helpful for redeeming FF points. I am in the process of redeeming a RTW business class with my Qantas points. However, it can take all day to get any answers waiting online for Qantas.
So far I have booked Sydney (via Doha) Johannesburg -> surface segment, Nairobi -> Lisbon BA -> surface segment, Rome -> New York (via London BA). These are the next legs I want to book. -> San Francisco -> Miami surface segment, Mexico -> Sydney. I calculate the stops are within the miles (I could be wrong) but I am unsure if I have gone over stops. Any suggestions?
Hi Vicky,
I’m not sure how Qantas goes about calculating the surface sectors.
Perhaps they calculate the surface sector the same way they would calculate the flight distance, so you could use gcmap.com to calculate the distance between the cities.
Hi,
Each time I go onto the Qantas website and search reward flights + RTW it keeps taking me to the oneworld website RTW planner so I don’t have any idea how to investigate how many points my planned trip is. I’m only getting a US dollar figure.
I want to go Sydney-Santiago-New York-London-Jo’Burg-Sydney in April 2017 in Business class x 2.
Any ideas as to how I can check how many points this would cost as a round the world ticket on the Qantas website?
Hi Nick,
You can book the RTW online, by using the multi-city tool, not the RTW tool.
However, you would not be able to book flights on some airlines such as Japan Airlines or Malaysia Airlines, because they are searchable on Qantas online tool.
Using the multi-city tool, you can piece together the flights and the total will be capped at the 280,000 points for business or 420,000 for first, as long as the maximum distance is 35,000 miles.
if you go over, it will cost more.
And do not include emirates in your itinerary.
Thanks! What a seriously cool resource.
We are travelling from Sydney – Cape Town (via Jo’Burg) – Athens (via Jo’burg and London) – London – Hong Kong – Sydney.
All business class. Yes, you are right that significant taxes are incurred with BA, but sometimes that’s just unavoidable…and ultimately a fraction of the price to pay compared to paying for the whole thing in actual money!!!
Nice work Nick, the “rtw” is one of the best benefits of the QF FF program and the millions of QF members rarely take advantage of it, thats why we wrote the guide on Point Hacks.
Yep the BA taxes are high, I think last time I got slugged $480 for BA First Class between JFK and LHR.
$480 is a lot of money but when you consider that Economy class costs $600 between JFK and LHR, its not a bad deal to pay $480 to fly First Class, enjoy the Concorde Room in JFK and LHR and sip $300 bottles of champagne. Pity there was no caviar though.
Qantas a pretty sneaky in this respect. I don’t think they want you to take advantage of this. It is a staggeringly good value use of points.
When you click on the round the world tab, it takes you to the oneworld website, which is frankly useless. If it wasn’t for this website, I’d highly doubt I would have known to click multi-city, and I’d wager nor would 90% of the rest of us either.
So, thanks thanks thanks!!!
Yes thats right Nick, when you click on the round the world link, it doesn’t let you take advantage of this “rtw” ticket.
You can call the desk and book via the phone but I don’t have a status with QF and that means waiting on hold for a long time, so the online option is the way to go if you can find all the flights.
The only reason you would call QF is if you wanted to fly on Japan Airlines, Malaysia Etc which the Qantas search engine doesn’t show up.
“Yes you have to be careful, because in the USA, they call their business class “First Class”, so if you select one leg in their so called “first class”, even if it is just a short 40 minute flight, Qantas will automatically price this redemption cost higher.”
So, to clarify, if you are booking legs in the USA, which category do you book to keep it all a RTW Business points redemption? Thank you
Hi Simon,
After the calendar, the next page is the available award seat page.
On that page, there are 4 columns, or sometimes 3.
Economy, Premium Eco, Business and First.
If the seat you are after is under the First column, that means it has been classified as First class award seat, so you will be charged for First class instead.
Hi Nelson,
Thanks mate. I knew you would have a simple explanation.
No worries, Point Hacks is here to make it easier for everyone to learn how to get the most value out of our points.
Hi Nelson,
Thanks again. You mentioned not to included Emirates in the multi-city booking. Can you please explain why?
Cheers,
Wazza
Emirates is not part of the One World alliance, so when you combine Emirates with any One World partner, Qantas will price it as two or more awards depending on how many flights you are taking.
Emirates can only be combined with Qantas.
Thanks Nelson. I had already tried the multi-city tool but it didn’t cap the booking as I hoped it would. Now that you have explained, I think this may have been due to one leg in the U.S. where business class wasn’t available, so I chose First class. That probably negated the RTW cap.
Thanks again for your insight.
Yes you have to be careful, because in the USA, they call their business class “First Class”, so if you select one leg in their so called “first class”, even if it is just a short 40 minute flight, Qantas will automatically price this redemption cost higher.
Thanks for the great article Nelson, and to Bhut84 for the additional insight.
Can you book a RTW award online using Qantas FF points? I can’t see anywhere during the RTW process to select ‘award only’ when you choose the cities or flights. Also, the RTW planner is a oneworld website, so I can’t see how they would be able to use Qantas points.
Sorry if this is a silly question.
Hi Wazza,
Thanks, answer to your question. Its yes and no.
You can book the RTW online, by using the multi-city tool, not the RTW tool.
However, you would not be able to book flights on some airlines such as Japan Airlines or Malaysia Airlines, because they are searchable on Qantas online tool.
Using the multi-city tool, you can piece together the flights and the total will be capped at the 280,000 points for business or 420,000 for first, as long as the maximum distance is 35,000 miles.
if you go over, it will cost more.
And do not include emirates in your itinerary.
Great article. Just to clarify, you would qualify for the award if using at least 2 one world airlines other than qantas. Does that mean you are not required to fly qantas at all if using say JAL, CX and AA or does qantas have to be included?
Reason for asking is that Asia miles have similar one world award (better rates) but CX must be included if 3 or more airlines used.
Hi Illya, you can find out by piecing it together using the multi-city tool and no select Qantas flights.
But if you need to book Japan Airlines, you would need to ring QF.
It mentions that one does not have to return to the port of origin to redeem this type of ticket. However, is the caveat that you have to have spare miles left over to return to the port of origin?
Also, are surface sectors included as one of the 5 cities you can fly to. e.g. say you fly in to Berlin but surface to Paris. Would both Berlin and Paris be a stop over city, or only Paris?
Great article and website by the way.
Hi Ultan,
Yes that’s right, you do not need to return to the port of origin to complete this ticket, you had decide you want to stop somewhere for several months before flying back. But I would probably book it anyway, since its like 10,000 points only to fly business class. see example below.
I did a mock itinerary, Melbourne – Hong Kong – London – New York JFK – Paris (stay for 4 months) and the total was 270,000 points.
And then I did the itinerary all over again, added Paris to Melbourne 4 months later, and it was 280,000 points.
So thats flying Paris back to Melbourne in business class for an extra 10,000 points!
Yes surface sectors will be counted towards your 35,000 mileage cap.
So if you flew into Berlin and took a train or drove to Paris, or even fly a random airline, QF will count Berlin and Paris as stopover cities as well as calculate the mileage towards that 35,000 mileage cap.
Thanks for the speedy reply. The amount of miles you get with this ticket is great. 35,000 miles is a hell of a lot to use and has plenty of room to fly many places.
The sticking point though is the 5 stopover cities. You say that if a one does a surface leg then both cities are included as a stop over. Is that really the case? Millage between them I understand but to classify them both as stopovers? E.g. if one fly’s into London from Sydney, and then onto New York etc.., London would be one stop-over (as well as New York of course). if one arrived in to London but flew out of say Paris by surfacing from London to Paris, then both London AND Paris would be deemed as a stop over city? If this is the case then the 5 stop over limit using surface sectors would be quite restrictive as your entry and exit points are included separately as stop overs. Would be best to not use surface sectors so to get the most out of it, or exit the place as you enter.
(Sorry my previous post was less than clear hence I want to confirm this, Marks post above seem to suggest that surface sectors are not deemed as multiple stop overs)
Ah oops, sorry I misunderstood your question. No if you fly in Berlin and leave from Paris, they aren’t count as stopover cities.
But its easy, if you wanted to avoid the mileage calculator ticking up, you can base yourself out London for example and just buy intra-europe flights and fly back to london to depart.
Ah ok. Perfect! Thanks for that. Time to do some more research.
Hi there
Im looking at booking a trip Adelaide to Cancun to Las Vegas and home all on classic reward flights. Just wondering what happens if any of your flights are cancelled before travelling or delayed and you miss conecting flights. Does your insurance cover this and/or do you get points refunded.
Thanks Felicity
Felicity – that all depends on your specific insurance and their level of cover. Best to check with them.
Hello! I have 300,000 Qantas points and my husband has 180,000 points. What are the chances of us being able to book 3 RTW fares between us, for him, me and our 5 year old? It would just be in economy.. Is this doable? I just tried via the website for a test return flight to LA, it was going to be 135000 points and $4k.. or $3,200 to just book directly and pay full fare (!?!??!?!)
Hi Sarah,
While I’m not familiar with a child redemption rules, because different airlines have their own rules and I don’t have any kids, so I’ve never had to redeem an infant ticket.
But I looked at the website and it says “Children aged two years and older will need to redeem the full number of Points required for a Classic Flight Reward.”
I can provide some insight into using your points for a round the world in economy.
Yes a return flight to LA costs already 135,000 points but if you use the multi-city tool, you can add more cities and build a round-the-world itinerary and the cost will not rise above 140,000 points.
On top of that, you have to look at the cost of fuel surcharges, which could be in excess of $1000 per person.
So depending on how many cities you want to visit, I have seeing retail RTW fares as low as $2000 per person in economy. If you went down this road, you can save your points for business class.
Hi all! I’m fairly new to point hacks but my husband and I have just realised we both have enough points to do an economy rtw with oneworld. (I have 170k he has 150k points at the moment and will probably rack up another 30k collectively by the time we want to leave). We will have a 13month old though when we want to travel (mid august for 12 weeks) so does anyone know how they calculate the infant fare? Can we pay cash for him or can we use points and will we have enough points?
Infant fare with Qantas is just the infant taxes, alongside the cost of your adult points redemption (points + taxes). One of the best policies that Qantas has, other programs charge 10% of full adult fare, others change 10% of points.
Hi,
Thanks for the article, I just have a quick query on calculating mileage.
We are looking for a round the world booking but i’m not sure how to calculate the mileage? For instance our first flight we are aiming to take Sydney to Cancun, but we will have to go via Dallas. Does the mileage calculate as Sydney to Cancun, or are the two legs calculated separately?
Thanks
Ian
Hi Ian,
one of the most accurate mileage calculators is at http://www.gcmap.com.
please refer to the article above on how to input airport codes to calculate your total mileage.
Regards,
nelson
Hi Ian,
Sorry I just read your question again and realised my answer wasn’t sufficient.
The answer to calculating mileage for that award is that you need to add the connecting stops too.
So Sydney to Dallas to Cancun.
Unless it is one of those flights with the same flight number like QF1 Sydney/London or QF10, where they make an exception because it is deemed as a technical stop, unless you had a stopover holiday in Dubai, then assume that all routes with different flight numbers are calculated separately.
Recently I flew to New York from Melbourne, via Manila, Hong Kong and Tokyo because there were no award flights to LAX or Dallas.
The 3 transit cities were calculated as part of total mileage flown.
Qantas and “good value’ is an oxymoron to me. Yesterday I tried for a New York-Dublin round trip, J ticket. They wanted 100,000 points ( ok ) but they were going to charge an absolutely world-leading high charge of AUD 1390. Absolutely outrageous. So I went onto Delta, they wanted 80,000 and $14.45 USD. Yes folks, you read it right. $14.45. So why are Qantas continuing to rip-off their loyal flyers. Like Australia, they are the most expensive carrier in the world and the service is shite anyway. Although this flight had I gone ahead been American thank goodness.
Earlier this year, after another rip-off incident with this suspect airline, I opened up a QR privilege account and have since been depositing all my miles in their. Much better value than those thieving bastards at Qantas.
I have 130,000 points left to get rid of and as soon as they are gone, bye bye Qantas. I’m tired of being ripped off by those mongrels.
One of the first tricks i learnt when I joined a frequent flyer forum back in 2010… Did a 140k Y redemption SYD-EZE//GIG-MIA-ORF//ORD-LHR-ARN//TXL-LHR-FCO//NAP-MAD-BCN-MAD-JNB//JNB-SYD…
Used it as the backbone for continent to continent RTW and then road trips, buses and cheap flights booked separately in each continent…
Is anyone hasn’t seen
35% off Classic Reward Flights – Qantas. 20% off Classic Reward Flights – Jetstar
Book an eligible Economy international Qantas or Jetstar Classic Flight Reward* between 16 December and 11.59pm (AEDT) 22 December 2015. Your discount will be automatically applied to the points required. Taxes, fees and carrier charges payable in addition to points required.
Travel on Qantas between 13 January and 2 December 2016 or travel on Jetstar between 13 January and 30 September 2016.
Love this article! As always, it informative and very practical for those Aussies trying to get a bigger bang for their buck.
Thanks for your feedback Adrianne. Its certainly worth knowing this, because for a little bit extra points, you get a lot of value in return.
Thanks for the summary. Perfectly timed article as I am looking to book a oneworld round the world ticket in the next few weeks.
I do have a couple of questions though…
1. Can I include two cities in the same country (eg LA and NY) or am I better of booking a cheap internal flight?
2. Is it possible to mix and match travel classes? Or will I need to ( be able to) request an upgrade via the Qantas site… I would ideally like to squeeze in a business segment or even a first class segment if my points stretch that far.
Thanks in advance
Thanks Keith
Yes thats the great thing about this award redemption, because normally between LA and NYC, Qantas charges an extra 50,000 points for business class.
Airlines have a habit of charging the higher award rate. I played around with the system a bit and once I added 1 first class leg, London to Dubai on QF, the points redemption immediately jumped to 320,000 or 302,000 I think.
But when I selected the London to Doha to Melbourne in business, the points was recalculated and went back to 280,000.
Great article and hits all the high points. We did this in Business class three years ago and took a year to make the trip. The Qantas staff are incredibly helpful – but some are more knowledgeable on making this fare work than others – so call back if you aren’t making progress. We also made various date changes along the way which included phoning up the European call centre from deepest Africa. Whole itinerary has to be locked in prior to first flight – and since we were going for a year, that meant a couple of flights near the end of the trip had to be booked a month or two earlier than we were planning to travel… Then a phone call to Qantas as soon as bookings opened to snaffle seats – hence the date changes. We went Sydney to Capetown (via Jo-burg), surface sectors and separate flights all the way to Istanbul then IST to Marrakech (via Madrid). Berlin to Vancouver (via London) – in First as only Economy/First avail, San Fran to Cusco, Peru (via Lima), Lima to Iguassu, Brazil, Finally Santiago, Chile to Sydney (via Auckland). Due to the first class sector and all the massive surface sectors where we bought our own cheap internet flights or travelled overland, came to closer to 450,000 points each and about $2,500 taxes in total for the two of us. But incredible RTW itinerary and we visited loads of cities along the way.
Nice, thanks for sharing!
wow Vivienne, That read like an amazing journey and I love RTW.
450,000 points is a lot, having said that, points are meant to be earned and burned – not for hoarding, because you never know when the airlines will change the rules or award redemptions.
This is probably the best way to use Qantas points, seeing 5 cities for an extra 14-24k points, which is equivalent to flying between Melbourne and Brisbane in business class.
It’s incorrect to call it a ’round-the-world’ award. There is NO requirement to actually go around the world with this type of award.
That’s true, I thought we had left that open enough in the article. But the focus for this piece was maximising the Reward as a round the world itinerary.
I have recently booked a business Oneworld award ticket. A couple of things to keep in mind:
this is not strictly a round the world product. It is a mileage award. You do not need to go around the world. You may still plenty of value out of this ticket even on a return to europe with a sidetrip.
Due to restricted seats and the timeframes that the airlines release seats, the chances of being able to book this ticket in a single phone call to Qantas (when redeeming in premium cabins) is unlikely…particularly if your trip is longer. In my case I booked each of my legs the day the award seat became available (so around 360days out – dependent on the various airlines).
Generally, you book the first leg (or as many legs as possible) online as a normal one way award ticket. When the next leg becomes available, you call up Qantas, give them your booking reference, add another flight and pay the applicable taxes. Once your booking becomes a complying booking (2 non qantas, oneworld airlines etc etc) it will cap at 280,000pts (for business).
Note, you will be charged a 3,500pts change fee for each additional flight you add. But the phone service fee is waived for premium cabins. So you would not want to be taking the above approach for economy… as it would get expensive very quickly. Book the whole economy ticket online in one swoop if possible (which generally should be okay as economy award seats tend to be more readily available).
Be flexible and patient. I have spent a lot of time on the phone. Don’t expect to be able to get everything you want… ie you want to fly SYD-HNL on QF in business? Good luck! But you might be able to go via Tokyo (as someone on another site just did).
As stated, avoid BA. But also avoid departing from the UK as it has higher taxes (like, you’ll notice it).
After you book and before you receive your e-ticket, make it a habit to check your booking via qantas.com or other sites (like qatar airlines site or checkmy trip). Flights drop off (it has happened to me and to a friend) and you can’t always get them back.
Thanks for adding this, appreciated.
Great tips!
Although recently, I’ve been charged 3,500 points 3 times, to amend my QF bookings and they were first class flights. Maybe I was unlucky.
The 3500 charge is correct. It’s the change fee. I incurred 4 of them, but had planned for it.
The service fee (for using a human via the qantas call centre) is the fee waived for business and first. I believe it’s 6,000 or 8,000 pts (can’t remember off my head).
The 3500 charge is correct. It’s the change fee. I incurred 4/5 of them, but had planned for it.
The service fee (for using a human via the qantas call centre) is the fee waived for business and first. I believe it’s 6,000 or 8,000 pts (can’t remember off my head). It’s not waived for economy (so if you were paying a change fee AND a service fee each time, it would get expensive quickly)
Ah yes, I read it wrong. I thought you meant the change fee was waived and i was though “How did you do that?” 🙂
But you are totally correct, service fee + change fee for every change can add up very quickly, and probably better to book J or F award in the first place.
Hi Bhut84,
You mentioned with an economy ticket to book the whole trip online, how do you book it online? All I get is a dollar value through the Qantas one world planner.
Another question for anyone who knows, in the 5 cities stopover, does the origin city count? I’d like to fly Sydney – Athens – Oslo – Halifax(making own way to here from Oslo) – Vancouver – Bangkok – Ho Chi Min(making own way to here from Bangkok) – Sydney. Is this a viable option? Could I add another city if origin city does not count?
I haven’t done much redeeming in the past so am unsure how to try these online and see it in points value whether it works or not.
Thanks for your help, Wez
Hi Wez,
When you are searching for cities make sure you tick the “use points – classic rewards only”. so you only see award redemption seats rather than the $$$ value seats.
No the origin city does not count as a stopover.
just remember that when you make your own way Qantas will count that towards your 35,000 miles threshold.
best way to calculate is use http://www.gcmap.com so you can work out what distance they would add to your itinerary.