QANTAS: Classic Flight Rewards seats in Business on every London & Rome flight, northern summer 2024

Qantas has just announced via email and on its website that it is releasing Classic Flight Reward seats for next summer in the northern hemisphere. That’s for the peak period of June, July and August 2024.

Seats are to be available in both Business and Economy cabins

Available flights

These include both the Australia to London and return routes and the seasonal route to Rome and return. Qantas runs daily flights to London but only three times a week on the seasonal route to Rome. Qantas is not dumping the Cassic Flight Reward seats all at once but is rolling them out. That means it is worth checking and re-checking for the dates you would prefer. Classic Flight Reward seats for your dates are unavailable, then you have one other way you could spend your hard-earned points.

Points Plus Pay costs discounted

Qantas is discounting the points required to use on Qantas-marketed international flights (that means they have a QF flight number, although it maybe operated by another airline). This applies to any available fare to any destination that offers Points Plus Pay purchases in all premium classes. That’s Premium Economy, Business and First Class cabins.

But there is a deadline for this 50% discount offer. You only have a few days until 27 October 2023 to book.

Which Points deal, Clasic or Points Plus?

These are different schemes. The best bang for your points is always Classic Flight Rewards, full stop. However, if the flight you want is not available through Classic Rewards and you have a stack of points to burn, Points Plus Pay maybe an option.

Points plus pay is always lower in value because the cash price of the fare is just converted to an equivalent number of Qantas Points. You know the form – you see a fare requiring millions of points, compared to a Classic Reward, where only several hundred thousand are required for an international premium fare. Points Plus Pay will always cost you more points than a Classic Reward fare.

On the upside, all fares on Qantas Jetstar and partner airlines are available for purchase in this way. You get to determine how much cash (quite a bit, usually) and how many points (usually a HUGE number).

The 50% discount on the points required doesn’t make this a better deal than Classic Rewards, but it definitely makes it a better Points Plus Pay deal.

You will also earn Frequent Flyer points and Status Credits when you fly on a Points Plus Pay ticket, which you won’t on all Classic Rewards (with some exceptions).

2PAXfly Takeout

This looks like another move in trying to repair the drastic blows to the Qantas brand over the past year or two. It’s the beginning of the new CEO Vanessa Hudson’s promise to repair the damage to reputation and to answer the complaints raised in the recent Senate Committee inquiry about the lack of available reward seats.

This goes some way to repair that damage. Whether it is enough is in the hands of Qantas customers, especially those who are trying to redeem their points.