Qantas ramps up frequent flyer points to boost summer bookings

Qantas is throwing more frequent flyer points at travellers in the hope of stimulating bookings for the summer holiday period.

After slashing thousands of flights in June, Qantas is hoping to reinvigorate interest in air travel with a big frequent flyer points offer. Picture: Brendan Radke

After a grim month of capital city lockdowns and border closures, Qantas is hoping to reinvigorate interest in air travel with one of its biggest frequent-flyer offers ever.

Any flight, hotel or holiday package booking made from Thursday to next Tuesday for travel any time until June 30 next year will attract triple the number of frequent-flyer points.

A single flight booking would attract a minimum 2400 points, while every $1 spent on hotel or holiday packages through the Qantas booking site would earn nine points.

Qantas chief customer officer Stephanie Tully said the airline hoped the offer would inspire travellers to start planning their next holiday around Australia and across the Tasman.

“It’s a really challenging time for many Australians as we navigate these latest outbreaks, but we know planning holidays and family reunions brings a lot of excitement and gives people something to look forward to,” Ms Tully said. “With the vaccine rollout ramping up and flexibility on all of our fares, there’s no better time to book your next trip.”

As an example, a family of four stood to earn 16,000 points for flights from Sydney to the Gold Coast return and a three-night stay at Sanctuary Cove resort.

Ms Tully said Qantas had also extended its fly flexible policy, meaning travellers could change bookings made before February 28, 2022 without penalty until the end of that year.

The initiative followed the worst month on record for flight cancellations in Australia, with 9406 services axed in June, or one in four scheduled flights.

Qantas was hardest hit, scrapping 3612 domestic flights, while partner Jetstar scratched 2574, or almost 40 per cent of services.

On routes such as Melbourne-Perth and Melbourne-Sydney more than 70 per cent of flights were cancelled due to border closures and lockdowns.

The data compiled by the Bureau of Infrastructure, Transport and Regional Economics coincided with new airport passenger traffic figures showing Brisbane was the country’s busiest gateway in the year to June 30, with 7.9 million travellers.

In comparison, Sydney Airport recorded 7.8 million and Melbourne Airport 6.1 million.

Brisbane Airport CEO Gert-Jan de Graaff said the figures were the worst since 1994, but were helped by the strong demand for intrastate travel in Queensland.