Frequent flyer points for overseas trips: tips to find your flights

The cost of overseas travel can be dramatically reduced by using your frequent flyer points to get there | Here’s how to find the best flights

Overseas travel is rapidly returning to pre-Covid levels, giving Australians a chance to use piles of frequent flyer points they collected during the pandemic.

If you can find them, long-international return flights require between 100,000 and 450,000 points depending on the class of fare, plus potentially $500-$600 in taxes per ticket, and points specialists say they offer the most value per point.

The chief executive of iFLYflat, Steve Hui, says pockets of overseas points seats pop up through airline promotions but people need to stay sharp to snap them up.

Steve Hui from iFLYflat says “you have to be quick” with points flights. Picture: Tim Hunter.

“It can be a feast or famine situation,” he says.

“If you are looking for business class, it’s hard.”

Hui says booking reward flights overseas for a family group can be difficult because of tight supply, although some airlines – such as Emirates – offer seats blocks.

He says Qantas often puts out press releases about reward flights “but you have got to be quick”.

“You have to be searching for what you want. The further out you look, the better your chances.”

Like normal seats, reward seats are typically released 12 months in advance, which is a good time to start looking, although some offers now appear at very short notice.

The Champagne Mile founder Adele Eliseo recently booked a flight to Paris in first class just one week before takeoff out using points.

“We are seeing quite a bit of first-class availability open up one to two weeks out,” she says.

Eliseo says travellers have been frustrated by high demand for reward flights, but availability should improve as services ramp up on popular routes.

“Both Qantas and Virgin Australia are continuing to invest in airline partnerships, opening up additional reward seats for frequent flyers,” she says.

Adele Eliseo from The Champagne Mile recently flew first class to Paris using points.

Eliseo says reward seats and upgrades on long-haul international flights “almost always” offer the highest value per point.

“For maximum value, frequent flyers should look to save points for business and first class travel, where it is possible to extract up to five cents per point or more,” she says.

Eliseo says flyers seeking overseas reward flights should aim to:

* Use airlines’ charts and points calculators to learn how far their points can go.

* Be flexible and be prepared to travel on a wide range of dates on different routes.

* Be creative, using less-familiar airlines and reward programs, and consider last-minute bookings.

Originally published as Frequent flyer points for overseas trips: tips to find your flights