Has anyone had any luck in phoning Qantas to enquire about / book classic reward seats in business class as unsurprisingly nothing popping up on website searches? Just wanted to hear the experiences of others to see if it’s worth trying.
As others have commented previously, all the reward seats (including with partner airlines) have dried up post-Covid, whereas pre-2020 you could usually snare a business reward seat if you were flexible and a little bit creative.
They are virtually non existent out of Australia! One way of getting around this is to try Qantas Business Classic Rewards from Asia to Europe, maybe Singapore, Kuala Lumpur or even Hong Kong now that Cathay have started up! What this means then is all you have to do is do a separate Classic Reward booking from Australia to any of these Asia destinations and usually you will find an Economy CR to Singapore say that you can request an upgrade on or a 7hr flight in Economy is manageable! I have done exactly this...I have a CR Economy flight booked to Singapore in Aug with requested upgrade, then secured Business Class from Sing/Paris/Bordeaux on Air France (Alliance with Qantas, came up as CR). I then did same coming home, Athens/Paris/Sing, BC again with AF...just hoping now to secure CR flight home from Denpasur as spending last week on Lombok!
One thing to note is that British Airways release 4 Business Class award seats on almost every flight (excluding Singapore it seems). So I have found business class to HKG on CX and then to LHR on BA as an option. Could also look at getting onto MEL/SYD Lax and going BA from there.
We were able to successfully request 4 business class award Seats on QF1 for SYD-LHR next December but that was only after Platinum One sent it to be manually looked at by their analysts.
Also, I've seen lots of business award seats on QF67 and QF69 but not to sure you'd want to go through Delhi or Bangalore :)
Thanks guys. I did try looking for classic rewards for various Aus - Asia and Asia - Europe routes as seperate bookings which has worked for me previously but only economy rewards were popping up over a range of dates, nothing in business at all.
Qants are not doing the right thing by there FF members, they know since Covid that people have built up their points balance and now finally wanting to fly again so they should be doubling their efforts to release even more Classic Reward seats but they won't as profits are more important than their members! Yet Qantas continually encourage members to collect even more points thru, shopping, credit cards, home, car & health insurances...it's wrong, I've even heard others on here say it's turning in to a scam!?
@Arnu - as a lowly Bronze member, I have 8 medium+long haul business class classic reward flights this year. Including 2 on QF metal. Some booked 11months out, others booked 4 months out.
I personally enjoy this "scam". I don't enjoy calling Qantas.
@O.P have you considered calling QF and asking if they will release seats for you. If I recall correctly, that is a benefit of being Platinum.
Hi Guest, join in the discussion on
Qantas classic rewards
MrT
MrT
Qantas - Qantas Frequent Flyer
Member since 28 Aug 2015
Total posts 78
Has anyone had any luck in phoning Qantas to enquire about / book classic reward seats in business class as unsurprisingly nothing popping up on website searches? Just wanted to hear the experiences of others to see if it’s worth trying.
As others have commented previously, all the reward seats (including with partner airlines) have dried up post-Covid, whereas pre-2020 you could usually snare a business reward seat if you were flexible and a little bit creative.
(QF Plat looking for Aus-UK travel in May.)
Arnu
Arnu
Qantas - Qantas Frequent Flyer
Member since 07 Sep 2022
Total posts 10
They are virtually non existent out of Australia! One way of getting around this is to try Qantas Business Classic Rewards from Asia to Europe, maybe Singapore, Kuala Lumpur or even Hong Kong now that Cathay have started up! What this means then is all you have to do is do a separate Classic Reward booking from Australia to any of these Asia destinations and usually you will find an Economy CR to Singapore say that you can request an upgrade on or a 7hr flight in Economy is manageable! I have done exactly this...I have a CR Economy flight booked to Singapore in Aug with requested upgrade, then secured Business Class from Sing/Paris/Bordeaux on Air France (Alliance with Qantas, came up as CR). I then did same coming home, Athens/Paris/Sing, BC again with AF...just hoping now to secure CR flight home from Denpasur as spending last week on Lombok!
vhojm
vhojm
Qantas - Qantas Frequent Flyer
Member since 25 Oct 2019
Total posts 72
One thing to note is that British Airways release 4 Business Class award seats on almost every flight (excluding Singapore it seems). So I have found business class to HKG on CX and then to LHR on BA as an option. Could also look at getting onto MEL/SYD Lax and going BA from there.
We were able to successfully request 4 business class award Seats on QF1 for SYD-LHR next December but that was only after Platinum One sent it to be manually looked at by their analysts.
Also, I've seen lots of business award seats on QF67 and QF69 but not to sure you'd want to go through Delhi or Bangalore :)
MrT
MrT
Qantas - Qantas Frequent Flyer
Member since 28 Aug 2015
Total posts 78
Thanks guys. I did try looking for classic rewards for various Aus - Asia and Asia - Europe routes as seperate bookings which has worked for me previously but only economy rewards were popping up over a range of dates, nothing in business at all.
airADL
airADL
Qantas - Qantas Frequent Flyer
Member since 25 Mar 2014
Total posts 208
The classic rewards is in a bad way. Seems impossible to find seats.
Arnu
Arnu
Qantas - Qantas Frequent Flyer
Member since 07 Sep 2022
Total posts 10
Qants are not doing the right thing by there FF members, they know since Covid that people have built up their points balance and now finally wanting to fly again so they should be doubling their efforts to release even more Classic Reward seats but they won't as profits are more important than their members! Yet Qantas continually encourage members to collect even more points thru, shopping, credit cards, home, car & health insurances...it's wrong, I've even heard others on here say it's turning in to a scam!?
hutch
hutch
Member since 07 Oct 2012
Total posts 771
@Arnu - as a lowly Bronze member, I have 8 medium+long haul business class classic reward flights this year. Including 2 on QF metal. Some booked 11months out, others booked 4 months out.
I personally enjoy this "scam". I don't enjoy calling Qantas.
@O.P have you considered calling QF and asking if they will release seats for you. If I recall correctly, that is a benefit of being Platinum.