Qantas frequent flyers divided on new points-hungry Classic Plus reward seats

The airline’s new frequent flyer product has members divided whether it’s a genuine attempt to reward their loyalty.

The biggest change to the Qantas frequent flyer program in 35 years has members divided as to whether “Classic Plus” is in fact a plus, or a minus.

Rolled out on Monday by Qantas chief executive Vanessa Hudson and new Loyalty boss Andrew Glance, the new product aimed to address frustration among members about the difficulty in nabbing a rewards seat after building up healthy points balances.

With almost 16 million members, Qantas’ annual offering of 5 million Classic Rewards seats just wasn’t meeting demand, which risked creating disengagement from the program.

That prompted the development of Classic Plus, a new rewards product that offered greatly increased opportunity for frequent flyers to book a seat with points, but also required a lot more points.

For avid traveller Olivia Gordon who runs ecommerce business The Kairos Child, the additional points needed for Classic Plus was a major turn-off.

Ms Gordon made a concerted effort to build up her points balance last year, grocery shopping exclusively at Woolworths, buying fuel from BP and taking out a credit card that came with a 110,000 points bonus.

Qantas frequent flyer member Olivia Gordon. Picture: Supplied

As a result, she was able to fly one-way from London to Brisbane with Qantas’ partner Emirates, for 159,000 points plus $1800 in taxes and charges.

She was hoping to do another Europe trip next year, but with a Classic Plus business class seat now “selling” for 400,000 points, she felt that was unachievable.

“What people really wanted was more availability of Classic Rewards because I did find last year when I was searching to book that flight from London to Brisbane, it was really difficult to find Classic Rewards seats,” said Ms Gordon.

“The fact (Qantas) has come forward and said they’re doing this (Classic Plus) for the people, it feels like it’s devalued, and it’s marketed to look like it’s for the people, but it’s really not.”

Instead of getting another Qantas branded credit card, Ms Gordon said she was now considering an AMEX card, which offered the option of using points across various airline loyalty programs.

“Yes, the card fee can be higher, and the interest you’re charged can be higher, but the flexibility of rewards seats is so much better,” she said.

Qantas frequent flyer member Olivia Gordon isn’t convinced Classic Plus is a plus for her. Picture: Supplied

Adelaide businesswoman Gail Fitzpatrick had a different perspective, after building up her frequent flyer points balance to more than a million during the pandemic.

Thanks to a co-branded credit card, Ms Fitzpatrick continued to earn around 10,000 points a month which she dipped into “from time to time” on trips to Perth to visit her sister, and international flights if available.

“It’s difficult when you’re tied to a timeline and a destination,” said Ms Fitzpatrick.

“Booking an overseas trip last year, it was just a case of grab what reward seats I could base on our itinerary. They weren’t great seats for most of the trip, but we did get business class to Tokyo through Qantas on Japan Airlines.”

An upcoming trip to South Korea with friends was not booked with points because there was no availability of rewards seats at the time they wanted to travel, Ms Fitzpatrick said.

For her, the increased availability of Classic Plus seats was appealing, even if she did have to use more points.

“That’s how I interpreted (the announcement). It should be a bit more flexible and even if you are paying more in points, for me, it’s probably worth it,” she said.

Qantas revealed it had seen a strong response to the launch of Classic Plus, with three times as many points redeemed on international flights on Monday, than what was typical for that day of the week.

Booking data showed three frequent flyers booked Canberra to Queenstown for the winter ski season for 26,000 points each in economy, and one frequent flyer booked Melbourne to Singapore return around Christmas for 215,000 points, flying business outbound and economy back.

Unlike Classic Rewards where the number of points needed on certain routes and in certain cabins remained fixed, the amount of points needed for Classic Plus seats fluctuated, in line with supply and demand, and Qantas sales.

The new product was only available for booking via the Qantas website, and did not apply to partner airlines or Jetstar.