Qantas assistance for passengers booked transiting China

So a relative is travelling to London, on China Eastern via Shanghai; booked as a Qantas business class reward ticket. They are travelling very early April 2020. They booked many months ago. Obviously with the situation in China and the 'Do Not Travel' advice, they want to change their routing.

Qantas has advised there is a 5,000 point charge to change or cancel flights (they are only waiving fees for flights up to 29 Feb); plus on him to find a new reward flight.

• As a sense check; does this sound reasonable, especially since China Eastern appears to be waiving all fees for tickets (according to the China Eastern website, although the English is not particularly clear)?
• What is the chance of finding any business class reward seats to London for April 2020? I am guessing buckley's to none?

I don't normally fly Qantas (typically fly Virgin), so anyone's insights would be appreciated.

Qantas has 2 Business class reward seats available in April, but one goes via Shanghai, the other via Hong Kong. And it depends on their Status as to whether they can see them.

There are almost no Business class reward seats on QF1 or QF9 these days. It's getting a bit late to be finding a good reward seat to London, especially given the coronavirus issue.

Does transiting through an airport in China cause a problem with entry into London?

Going via Hong Kong seems to be the only choice. I doubt there will be any China flights in or out in April unless they get a handle on this virus very quickly.

Unfortunately he doesn't have any status with Qantas (bronze). As far as I'm aware, at this stage the UK hasn't imposed restrictions (like Australia and Singapore have) on entry via Chinese airports. I do wonder however if it's just a matter of time. The main impetus however is the change in travel advice by the Australian Government.

Qantas. Assistance. Lols

I recently had the same issue, trying to fly back from Europe. Emirates released seats 10 days out so I booked on them and then cancelled my other flight. Of course you need to have enough points to book a new flight as you don't get your points refunded straight away like you do with Virgin.