Offering more than 20 million extra reward seats, Qantas has unveiled Classic Plus Flight Rewards, a new way for Qantas Frequent Flyers to book flights using points.
In one of the biggest expansions of the Qantas Frequent Flyer program in its 35-year history, Qantas says the initiative will make it easier for travellers to book flights even during peak times, thanks to more availability of seats.
Classic Plus seats will also be eligible for upgrades.
The flip side is that customers will usually need to use more points than the existing Classic Reward seats to make bookings.
However, during sales, Classic Plus seats might require fewer points than Classic seats for the same route.
The points needed for Classic Plus reward seats will vary, like regular airfares, so they could be lower during off-peak times or when booked in advance and higher during busy times.
Classic Plus is available via qantas.com from today for international travel departing Australia from 1 July 2024, but the airline plans to roll out the program to its entire network by the end of the year for travel across a rolling 12-month booking window.
Qantas Group CEO Vanessa Hudson said the new flight reward option enables frequent flyers to get better value when using their points for travel.
“The Qantas Frequent Flyer program is an integral part of Qantas and has always been about recognising our customers for their loyalty,” she remarked.
“We’ve spent a lot of time listening to members about how we can better reward them.
“We’re adding over 20 million new flight rewards with the launch of a new type of reward seat called Classic Plus. It’s one of the biggest expansions we’ve made to the Frequent Flyer program in its 35-year history.
“The growth and success of Qantas Loyalty is driven by engaged members who earn and redeem points across the frequent flyer program, including with our partners, and that’s why we’re investing in making more seats available to book with points.”
Qantas Loyalty CEO Andrew Glance said, “The widespread availability of Classic Plus means that frequent flyers have more options to fly where they want, when they want and more often, using their points”.
“The new type of reward seat will usually require more points than the highly sought after existing Classic seats, and will be available to all destinations on the Qantas international and domestic network, across First, Business, Premium Economy and Economy cabins,” he added.
“We know how much our members love the existing reward seats and have been booking them in record numbers, so the new Classic Plus product we’re announcing today is over and above our commitment to 5 million Classic reward seats.”
The flying kangaroo will continue offering over 5 million Classic rewards seats across Qantas Group airlines with unchanged points since 2019.
This year, they’re also investing $60 million to add 6,000 new premium reward seats to Europe during busy times.
Last week, Qantas dropped a massive sale for flights from Australia to New Zealand, with more than 100,000 seats to Auckland, Christchurch, Queenstown and Wellington all discounted.
