Is it worth paying extra on Jetstar to earn Qantas Points?

Although Qantas owns Jetstar, you can't earn Qantas Points on a regular Jetstar flight.

To do that. you have two options:

• Sign up for Jetstar Qantas Frequent Flyer Extra, which is an expensive choice for an infrequent Jetstar passenger, as my full analysis of that scheme explains
• Purchase a Flex Plus bundle for an individual flight. Is that ever worth doing? Let's crunch the numbers.

How much you pay for your bundle will depend on the flight you've chosen. As an example, let's use Sydney to Melbourne, which is Australia's busiest airline route. Here's what you'll get with a Flex Plus bundle. (The non-points inclusions are important, as we'll see. Jetstar used to offer a slightly cheaper Flex bundle but that's no longer available.)

If you're paying for the bundle purely to earn points, it's really hard to justify. Let's look at the Flex bundle.

Paying $77 for 800 points is an effective rate of $96 for 1,000 Qantas Points. We always advise that you get at least $20 in value for each 1,000 Qantas Points when you redeem, which is quite straightforward if you redeem your points for flights. But in this case, you'll need to get almost $100 per 1,000 points simply to break even. That's almost impossible to do.

It's a slightly different story once you factor in the other Flex Plus inclusions that you'd otherwise pay for. The seat selection and carry-on luggage included with Flex Plus are worth $44. So now you're paying $25 for 800 Qantas Points - a rate per 1,000 points of $3125. You could match that by using the points for Qantas flight redemptions, but you'd have to hunt around carefully.

And the key question is: do you really need those other extras? Would you have paid for them even if you weren't earning points? Personally, I'll always pay for seat selection, but it's very rare for me to pay for extra carry-on.

So in most cases, I'd be better off just paying $16 for the up-front seat and leaving it at that. If you do want that extra carry-on, it's potentially worth it (but read on for the Qantas warning).

• Pedantic note

  If you're a Club Jetstar member, charges for seat selection and baggage will be slightly lower, but that doesn't change the basic argument.
  Similarly, the Flex and Flex Plus fares do let you make changes to your flight, but it's hard to assign a direct monetary value to that. That's especially the case on routes where Jetstar only flies once a day anyway. So I haven't factored that in here - that's a flight choice, not a points choice. Same goes for the food.

There's also another factor you need to consider: the actual cost of a competing Qantas flight. The Flex Plus flight I checked on Jetstar was $165, which isn't unusual outside of a Jetstar sale. The equivalent Qantas flight was $185 - not heaps more.

It's not a direct apples-to-apples comparison, since you'd have to pay more for an exit row on Qantas if you wanted one and you'll potentially have fewer meal choices with Qantas' "free" food option than with Jetstar's "paid" deal. But it's a good reminder: if you're keen to earn points, check the competing Qantas fare before paying extra for the bundle.

If you plan to pay for checked baggage, a seat and perhaps a meal anyway, earning Qantas Points on a Jetstar flight might work out as an OK choice. But make sure you check competing Qantas flights first, and don't just sign up for a bundle purely to earn points without comparing carefully.

Jetstar works for cheap flights, but as a points-earning strategy it's hard to recommend as the main game.

We updated this guide on 22 June 2026 to include current Jetstar bundle pricing and the removal of Flex Plus.