Anyone Got a reward seat recently

Interested to hear if anyone has been able to redeem a reward seat recently

I have tried 3 times to more than 6 location in or near EU with 5 months advance notice out of school holidays from Plat there is not ONE single seat

I think my points are worthless

Agree. Looked a few times for flights to UK without any success even in economy. Bit of a rort. They make it so hard that you will end up spending 4 times as many points as you should on flights or buy overpriced headphones or a vacuum cleaner out of sheer frustration.

You're not alone, unfortunately. I scan for redemption opportunities monthly as I'm trying to get rid of my points stash. But I've all but written off 2024 for long and mid haul redemptions. I'm hoping 2025 will be better (although I doubt it). The bitter irony is, my inflow of 'passive' points has never been higher. I'm sure I'm not the only one to notice that as earning opportunities have exploded, the redemption side has dried up to a point where you might regard points to be 'worthless'.

I disagree, from Nov 23 to May 24 I have booked 3 classic rewards business class trips to Asia (Manila, Hong Kong and Singapore) for 2 people. Flexible with dates, outside holiday periods and Platinum status all help. I agree on the minimum availability to Europe but when you can fly on Qatar in business from Manila to Dublin for around $3000 that works for me.

I've booked my flights as J reward seats on LATAM to and from Australia, and Malaysia to KL in less then <1mth from departure since December. Same story when booking QR last year over Christmas and Emirates in September where availability opens up ~2wks to 1mth before departure.

I booked a J ticket to Tokyo from Melbourne yesterday; leaving next week. Seems like there’s decent availability around.

I flew SYD to LHR in First in November with Emirates and booked 4 weeks in advance as a lowly Silver. My new strategy is relatively last minute bookings now as that tends to see more availability. The usual book 11 to 12 months in advance seems to be too hard now with limited availability.

International business class is almost impossible if you want to plan. I have also requested seat release, still no outcome. Such a shame that using points for flying is worthless, even as a platinum. Stretching my loyalty to the max.

You have to think one year ahead - at 5 months point you will find only economy and especially so on sounds after destinations like Europe.

I managed to book UK for two in business and first. You have to be persistent, flexible, be prepared to kill some time doing booking and above all you have to start whole year ahead.

It is true, but do not work for everyone.

If you need to plan you should forget about redemption. Flexibility is mandatory here.

The reality is that it has become harder for the common frequent flyer to just rock up to the Qantas Website, enter an European destination and dates and book business rewards seats. There’s very high demand for those, both in reward and revenue, so fewer will show up, and if they do, will be taken 11 months in advance.

I recently booked two long trips in business for two. You just need to spend time and think of the routes options. Leaving Australia to Europe, you’ll have to be creative. There are plenty of options out of Tokyo (JAL and Finnair), Hong Kong (BA, Finnair, Cathay), Singapore (BA, Finnair, QF), Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia Airlines). Be flexible, book what’s available (even if a leg is in economy for now) and keep searching for availability. If something better comes up, call up and change, pay the 5000 change fee and that’s it.

The multi-city, flexible dates, tools is your friend. It’s not ideal, it crashes, it shows ghost availability, but in the end it worked for me.

My experience with booking business seats:

JAL randomly pop-ups from time to time so does Finnair. BA usually available only about a year ahead, Have not seen Cathay for ages, QF can fall from the sky like few month ago there was exceptional availability on QF MEL-HKG-MEL for a period about a month in September. I am not fond of MA so seldom search it.

Yes it is take some effort (actually a lot of it), but it is doable and I managed to secure 2 seats SYD-HND-LHR-HKG-MEL in First and Business and indeed looking forward to board a plane. Just do not give up.

Not a single business class seat with points is available on QF (or LATAM) to Santiago ALL YEAR. For many many years I could pick from multiple days /over many weeks. Now absolutely nothing.

Hoping that changes as the year progresses or a last minute seat comes up a few days/weeks out.