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Since my last video where I discussed how I earned 900,000 points with Qantas, I've been busy spending those points. I've been from Sydney to London and back in business with the upgrade paid for points and I have booked flights for myself and my whole family to Japan and back again with points. But despite all that spending, as of today I've actually got more points than before 934,000 points.
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In this video, I'm gonna tell you how I got the upgrades, how I earn those points. I'm also going to discuss some changes coming to the Qantas system which will make it both more difficult and more straightforward to earn points going forward.
0:41 How to get upgrades
The first thing we're gonna talk about is how I managed to get the upgrades between Sydney and London and back in business. Now there's a couple of things that influence the chance of you getting a rewards upgrade when you apply for one with Qantas. And aside from how sold out the flight is and how many spare seats there are, the biggest contributing factor is your status with Qantas - Gold, Silver, etcetera
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Now I'm currently Platinum with Qantas, which makes me the second highest priority aside from Platinum One for getting a rewards upgrades on the flight. Now I don't normally fly enough with work or in my personal life to achieve platinum level status. The way I managed to do it was by having a child. Now I know this isn't something that everybody can do but if you have had a kid recently or you have one on the way and you're going on parental leave from work then you can use that as a reason to lock your status with Qantas.
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If you're going for leave above a certain period of time, you get a letter from your company, you send it in to Qantas, they lock your status. The benefit of locking your status is that while it's locked for that two year period you continue to earn status credits and they don't expire. So a few trips home to Ireland and back in the first couple of years of my kid's life managed to get me platinum status which made me high priority for the upgrade. That's something worth looking at.
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Aside from that, travelling in smaller parties, travelling on your own makes an upgrade more likely and in this case, I booked premium economy and upgraded to business. So that gives you a better chance than if you just book economy.
2:05 How to earn more points
Those two business upgrades cost me about 70,000 points each way gone from my account. How do you replace the points when you're using the points? Well the main way I did it over this last three months was with shopping and with purchasing wine firstly with Qantas Wine. Look for cases on Qantas Wine's website that come with bonus points particularly around sale periods or stock clearance periods. You can get up to 25,000 bonus points per case.
2:29 What you want to make sure is you're not paying above odds for those points. So you want to check the prices of all the wines in the case versus availability elsewhere. That can be pretty time consuming. But recently I found that ChatGPT does a pretty good job of doing the price checks for me.
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So that's one way to earn points that covered one of the upgrades for me over the last 3 months and the second way is via shopping, by converting my Woolworths points to Qantas Points. For more details on that, you can check my previous video. But also by shopping and spending via my American Express Ultimate card which costs $450 a year in an annual fee.
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But you get all of that back in Qantas travel credit. It earns 1.25 points per dollar which is one of the best earn rates on the market and that's been the main way I've been earning points.
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for the last few years now, it's worth noting Qantas program changes. There are some changes coming to the Qantas rewards program. Some good, some bad. Basically, it breaks down into four different changes. First of all, Qantas are adding more reward seats on partner airlines like KLM Hawaiian Airlines and Air France which is good because it means you can use your points to book business or economy seats on other airlines, which might have better availability than Qantas.
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The second change is Qantas is now going to be offering more points earned on domestic flights. They say about 25% more, though I gotta be said, it's gotta be said flying doesn't generally earn you that many points anyway. A fraction of the points I earn actually from flying. But if you're flying domestically regularly that could be a good way to earn extra points.
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Third change is that they are going to make it cheaper to book rewards seats with Jetstar. So that's a positive. But the drawback, the fourth point here is from August, Qantas are going to make it more expensive to book Classic Reward seats. So you have to spend a higher percentage of points to get those seats.
4:13 Virgin status match vs Qantas
Overall, it's a bit of a mixed bag. You can check out an article from Angus Kidman on Finder which I'll link in the description below. For more information on these changes, finally, it's worth noting that there is another major airline in Australia. I know we really should have more than two, but Virgin Australia is also available and the benefit of being high status with one airline is you can often use that to match your status with the other
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so I managed to get Virgin to match my status with Qantas. Not quite match. I got gold with Virgin and I'm platinum with Qantas but getting gold with Virgin allowed me to fly on Virgin with status and use their lounges. I've done a domestic flight and I've got a international flight coming up.
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So in future, we will do a video looking at the difference between the flying and club experience between Qantas and Virgin and answer the question "Which is better?". Which is worth spending your time investing in?
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Thank you for your time watching this video you can find more frequent flyer news on finder.com.au.
Dear Jacob. Can you please tell me whether MasterCard or Visa gives me the highest points per dollar spent and which has no limit of how many points per year (no annual cap) for qantas frequent flayers points?
Can the Coles MasterCard be changed to a better MasterCard?
Hi Richard.
Thanks for your question.
If you would like to change the card you currently have, you can apply for another credit card through our website. Your old account will stay open, it’s up to you to close the account. To close your old account, you will need to make sure the account is paid in full and then call the lender and let them know you would like to cancel your credit card.
I hope this helps.
Hi Ali,
Thanks for your question.
Please refer to a range of Qantas Frequent Flyer Credit Cards with no annual points capping. The earn rates for MasterCard and Visa are very similar across a range of different cards. You can select the “Go to Site” button of your preferred credit card to proceed with your application. You can also contact the provider if you have specific questions. A gentle reminder, please ensure to read through the relevant product disclosure statement and terms and conditions to ensure that you got everything covered before you apply.
I hope this helps.
Cheers,
Jacob
thank you
How can I cash in my reward points
Hi Jeanette. Thanks for your question. You can do this online through your card issuer’s website. If you let me know which card you have I can offer some more information on how to redeem your rewards. Jacob.
Can you give me details on the Jetstar Mastercard and Jetstar Platinum Mastercard. Thank you.
Hi Jan,
Thanks for the question.
You may want to read our Jetstar credit cards page.
I hope this helps.
Regards,
Jacob
I am going overseas in July and am trying to work out if I should apply for a new credit card which will offer me free travel insurance as well as no charge on exchange rates for overseas purchases. I currently have a National Visa card with a $500 limit (self imposed)which is cleared every month and a Ignite Mastercard with a balance of $ 2,300.00. which I am reducing by at least $ 400 per month.
Hi Anne,
Thanks for your question.
Your first stop will need to be this page where we compare travel money options. If you apply for a travel-friendly credit card, you can transfer the balance of your other credit cards and get an interest rate reduction. If you do this though, you won’t get any interest-free days on purchases. The travel insurance benefit offered with premium credit cards will save you money before you leave the country, and you are more than likely going to be paying for your flights with a credit card, so you may as well get the most you can. You may also compare credit cards with no foreign transaction fee. You can select the “Go to Site” button of your preferred credit card to proceed with your application. You can also contact the provider if you have specific questions. A gentle reminder, please ensure to read through the relevant product disclosure statement and terms and conditions to ensure that you got everything covered before you apply.
I hope this helps.
Cheers,
Jacob
How do I find out how many frequent flyer points I have accrued?
Hi Chris. Thanks for your question. If you’re looking to find out how many frequent flyer points you have accrued, please log in to your frequent flyer account. Say you have a frequent flyer account with Qantas, you would log in to your online account. Here you can spend your points on flights and other things and manage your account. Jacob.