Qantas ‘points planes’ to counter criticism over rising airfares

The airline is hoping to counter criticism of exorbitant airfares with the offer of 225,000 ‘points plane seats’ to the beach.

Qantas is hoping to counter criticism of exorbitant airfares with the release of 225,000 “points plane seats” to coastal destinations over summer.

From 11am on Tuesday, frequent flyers will be able to redeem points for classic reward seats to destinations including the Gold Coast, Hamilton Island, Byron Bay, Townsville, Broome and Kangaroo Island.

Travel must be undertaken in the period from January 9 to 22 and all of February, with at least 8000 points required for a one-way ticket.

The offer follows rising anger among travellers at four-figure fares for economy seats on routes such as Sydney-Melbourne and Brisbane-Sydney.

Qantas Loyalty chief Olivia Wirth said the points planes provided an opportunity for people to take that summer holiday they may have given up on.

“This is a record release of points planes that will help thousands of our frequent flyers use their points to book a coastal holiday this summer,” Ms Wirth said.

“Whenever we release points planes we see huge demand from our frequent flyers and they often sell out.”

The window for redemptions would remain open for 72-hours, on selected routes from Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth to a range of coastal hot spots.

“While strong demand and higher fuel prices have seen the price of airfares for all airlines increase off historic lows over the past 18-months, the points required to book these seats haven’t increased in years,” said Ms Wirth.

“Reward seats on most of these routes can be booked from 8000 points one way with a family of four able to travel from Sydney to the Gold Coast and back for under 65,000 points.”

In the last financial year frequent flyers amassed a mind-boggling 118 billion Qantas points, with more than two thirds of those earned on the ground through credit card use, shopping and a range of other activities.

The seats were also available for purchase with cash.

Data from Webjet showed domestic travel bookings continued to outstrip those for international by about three to one.

Melbourne and Sydney were the most in demand destinations, followed by the Queensland cities of Brisbane, Gold Coast, Cairns and Maroochydore.

Webjet OTA chief executive David Galt said the top international destinations were the “usual suspects” of New Zealand and Bali, with Fiji, London, Tokyo and Singapore also making the top ten.

Four New Zealand cities made the list including Auckland, Queenstown, Christchurch and Wellington.

The Webjet bookings also showed that Australians were spending an average of 7-days on domestic holidays after booking more than ten weeks in advance.

The average trip length for international holidays was 16-days after being booked 108-days ahead of time.

Originally published as Qantas ‘points planes’ to counter criticism over rising airfares