Frequent flyers splurge 2 billion points ahead of border reopening

Qantas frequent flyers have burnt through 2 billion points booking seats on international flights since the government confirmed borders would reopen next month.

Sydney Airport’s departures hall will be a lot busier come November 1. Picture: Sam Ruttyn

Qantas frequent flyers have burnt through 2 billion points booking seats on international flights since the federal government confirmed borders would reopen next month.

The extraordinary response has prompted the airline to make the largest ever single release of “reward” seats across its international and domestic network from Tuesday.

Up to 50 per cent more seats will be available for booking using frequent flyer points for travel throughout 2022.

Qantas Loyalty chief executive Olivia Wirth said more “points planes” were planned, where every seat can be booked by redeeming frequent flyer points.

“Throughout the pandemic, many Qantas frequent flyers have been stockpiling points they have earned on the ground so they can use them to travel once travel restrictions are lifted,” Ms Wirth said.

“With members keen to travel internationally and domestically we have released more reward seats to make it easier for our frequent flyers to use their points to go on holidays and be reunited with family and friends in 2022.”

The minimum number of points needed to book a reward seat is 6400 for Jetstar and 8000 for Qantas on routes such as Sydney-Melbourne.

At the other end of the scale, anyone looking to book a business class seat on a Melbourne-London flight would need 144,600 points, or 108,600 for Brisbane-Los Angeles.

Taxes, fees and carrier charges were extra, with frequent flyers up for $38 for a short domestic flight, and as much as $462 for a long haul premium class seat.

Following the NSW announcement last week that fully vaccinated Australian travellers will be able to return to Sydney without having to quarantine, Qantas brought forward flights to London and Los Angeles to November 1.

Services to other overseas destinations including Fiji, Tokyo, Canada, New Zealand and Singapore are set to resume from December 18, with places such as Hong Kong, Bangkok and Dallas to restart in April.

Virgin Australia also plans to relaunch overseas flights from mid-December, starting with services to Fiji.

Anticipation around international borders has been reflected in a steadily growing number of enquiries to Flight Centre. Since late last month, enquiries about international travel have increased from about 25 per cent of all queries to close to 50 per cent.

Flight Centre Australia general manager Kelly Spencer said it was clear confidence in the ability to travel overseas was building.

“A lot more people are inquiring what the border announcements mean for them, whether they can visit family and friends overseas,” Ms Spencer said.

“The No.1 international destination for inquiries is Fiji, so a lot of people are keen to take that international holiday as well. There’s a lot of pent-up demand.”

Despite the interest, bookings are not quite keeping pace with the level of inquiries as customers came to grips with new requirements for travel.

Ms Spencer said she expected that to change when borders reopened and it became clear vaccine passports and pre-flight Covid tests were not as daunting as they might appear.

“Most of the travel being booked is for mid to late-2022 although we are starting to see more interest in the earlier part of the year,” she said.

“We’re finding a lot of people are asking about, if they were to travel overseas what would happen if there was a disruption and borders closed. We’re telling people to expect the unexpected, and take out the right sort of travel insurance.”