I remember a time before Covid when j awards were readily available on international flights if you booked 353 days out. This seems no more and the qf premium call centre explained that they have had plenty of feedback to the same.
I now have to decide if I put my business flights and credit card spend through qf or elsewhere and I am sorely tempted elsewhere. Many other airlines appear to have much better award availability.
What’s your experience. Quite frankly I think qf need to do better, maintaining my qff status is all fine and dandy but if it is now meaningless/ worthless then what is the point!
Yet on the domestic front it's still quite quite easy to get Classic Reward flights in Business from SYD to most other capital cities just 3 months ahead.
The question of where to book flights and funnel credit card spending is a good one to ask yourself yearly. I have a simple little check list which I go thru once yearly (because changes will have occurred in the loyalty programmes since the previous year) to see which airline offers me the most value for the money I spend on them, and their partners. For me, "value" is primarily frequent flier points. But I also look very closely at ease of redemption! Now, in that very crucial area, I've been finding that Virgin beats Qantas (by a country mile!). Not only is much, much easier to find availability on Virgin (and partner Singapore Airlines) for the destinations I need to go to; but the actual process of booking/changing/cancelling redemption bookings is also much, much easier with Virgin. So despite the fact that I get a little bit more opportunities to earn points with Qantas, it's actually Virgin which has been winning the bulk of my $$ for the past eight years or so, since I began doing annual "value" reviews.
I can only urge you to be more proactive and demanding of your chosen airline. If they're not working out for you (i.e. keeping you on the phone for days on end; no redemption flight availability etc etc), just go elsewhere.
If points holders start to realise that all the hard work and hassle that they undertook to get their points no longer translates into international award business class seats , maybe they won't go to the trouble of earning them and that could be a big loss to QFF!
I am now looking a an amex platinum business which will allow me to put points anywhere including QFF. earn rate is 2.25 per dollar and conversion 2:1 so not as good as the qantas amex business reward but nevertheless much more flexibility. I had 1.8 million qff points and have found it hard to secure flights that I want
checking reward bookings for travel from Australia to Europe early 2022, very limited availability, no Emirates coming up, go to move the date to the next 7 days, comes up no flights, it seems the booking engine is all over the place
Hi Guest, join in the discussion on
Award availability on Qantas- or lack of it.
obanpointer
obanpointer
Qantas - Qantas Frequent Flyer
Member since 08 Jun 2014
Total posts 318
I remember a time before Covid when j awards were readily available on international flights if you booked 353 days out. This seems no more and the qf premium call centre explained that they have had plenty of feedback to the same.
I now have to decide if I put my business flights and credit card spend through qf or elsewhere and I am sorely tempted elsewhere. Many other airlines appear to have much better award availability.
What’s your experience. Quite frankly I think qf need to do better, maintaining my qff status is all fine and dandy but if it is now meaningless/ worthless then what is the point!
sid
sid
Member since 07 Jan 2011
Total posts 205
It's a combination of limited flights and people having lots of points to burn. Don't think it'll get better until later this year.
Phil Young
Phil Young
Qantas
Member since 22 Oct 2012
Total posts 253
Yet on the domestic front it's still quite quite easy to get Classic Reward flights in Business from SYD to most other capital cities just 3 months ahead.
sunnybrae
sunnybrae
Etihad - Etihad Guest
Member since 21 Jul 2019
Total posts 80
@obanpointer
The question of where to book flights and funnel credit card spending is a good one to ask yourself yearly. I have a simple little check list which I go thru once yearly (because changes will have occurred in the loyalty programmes since the previous year) to see which airline offers me the most value for the money I spend on them, and their partners. For me, "value" is primarily frequent flier points. But I also look very closely at ease of redemption! Now, in that very crucial area, I've been finding that Virgin beats Qantas (by a country mile!). Not only is much, much easier to find availability on Virgin (and partner Singapore Airlines) for the destinations I need to go to; but the actual process of booking/changing/cancelling redemption bookings is also much, much easier with Virgin. So despite the fact that I get a little bit more opportunities to earn points with Qantas, it's actually Virgin which has been winning the bulk of my $$ for the past eight years or so, since I began doing annual "value" reviews.
I can only urge you to be more proactive and demanding of your chosen airline. If they're not working out for you (i.e. keeping you on the phone for days on end; no redemption flight availability etc etc), just go elsewhere.
seniorflyer
seniorflyer
Member since 05 Jan 2021
Total posts 1
Qantas should simply release more reward seats .
If points holders start to realise that all the hard work and hassle that they undertook to get their points no longer translates into international award business class seats , maybe they won't go to the trouble of earning them and that could be a big loss to QFF!
obanpointer
obanpointer
Qantas - Qantas Frequent Flyer
Member since 08 Jun 2014
Total posts 318
I am now looking a an amex platinum business which will allow me to put points anywhere including QFF. earn rate is 2.25 per dollar and conversion 2:1 so not as good as the qantas amex business reward but nevertheless much more flexibility. I had 1.8 million qff points and have found it hard to secure flights that I want
VZ1_60
VZ1_60
QFF
Member since 03 Sep 2014
Total posts 10