Qantas frequent flyers points auction: preloved A330 business seat the most popular item
A used airline seat has proven to be the star of the latest Qantas points auction, attracting a winning bid 18-times the reserve.
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A used airline seat has proven to be the star of the latest Qantas points auction, attracting a winning bid 18-times more than the reserve.
The preloved A330 business seat was one of ten items or experiences to go under the hammer in the last week for Qantas frequent flyers.
After opening at 100,000 points, bidding climbed to 1.37 million points in the first 30-minutes before the solo seat was eventually secured with a bid 1,888,889 points in the last 15-seconds.
In contrast a pair of Boeing 747 premium economy seats fetched a mere 510,747 points, while a tour of the MCG and lunch with former Australian cricket captain Ricky Ponting went for 650,000 points.
The largest single outlay for points, was for a day trip to Hamilton Island for 24 people in an Alliance Fokker aircraft converted into a private jet.
The glamorous outing attracted the auction’s biggest bid of 3.6 million points, only 100,000 points above the reserve.
A Whistler ski package went for 2.75 million points and a luxury London trip for 2.52 million, while a Sydney New Year’s Eve jaunt pulled a top bid of 1.115 million points.
Overall frequent flyers splurged more than 15 million points on the auction, the second staged by Qantas to help keep members engaged in the absence of the airline’s usual flying schedule.
Qantas Loyalty CEO Olivia Wirth said they knew members appreciated new ways to use their points which had continued to mount up during the pandemic through credit card use and other on-ground activities.
“We are looking forward to rolling out more exciting initiatives in 2022,” said Ms Wirth.
“We’re also continuing to see members booking reward seats with thousands of frequent flyers already redeeming points on flights to and from Queensland since Monday’s border announcement.”
Although domestic travel continued to account for most holiday bookings, global booking site Expedia was seeing plenty of interest in international destinations from Australian users.
With Indonesia and New Zealand currently off-limits for Aussies, the US, India, UK, Thailand and Canada made up the top five most searched destinations for travel between now and March.
Beyond that, Italy entered the top five in the place of Thailand, with India dropping to fifth.
Expedia air partnerships manager James Marshall said the survey also found Australian travellers were much more concerned about booking security and flexibility than price.
“Naturally, Australian travellers appear to be cautiously optimistic about border closures, but also, having spent so much time at home, almost a third have more budget to spend on
travel this year,” Mr Marshall said.
“That might also explain the nation’s current lower focus on deals and pricing compared to booking security and flexibility. Airlines that best highlight refund, reschedule, and credit policies are likely to attract more travellers as air travel continues to take off both locally, and
abroad.”
Originally published as Qantas frequent flyers points auction: preloved A330 business seat the most popular item
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