Qantas sweetens deals for frequent flyers to boost travel

Qantas is making big changes to its Frequent Flyer program to stimulate travel demand following the ‘setback’ in Victoria.

Qantas says Australians are keen to holiday in tropical Queensland. Picture: Getty Images

Qantas has announced new measures to get people back onto aeroplanes in the wake of the “setback” in Victoria.

On the back of a massive airfare sale, the airline has flagged new frequent flyer initiatives to stimulate bookings and promote loyalty among the program’s 13 million members.

As well as handing out a one-off status credits bonus to frequent flyers tiered at silver or above to compensate for reduced flying activity, Qantas will increase the number of seats available to be “purchased” with points by up to 50 per cent.

The reward seats will be available on mostly domestic routes, with some also up for grabs on trans-Tasman routes for when between Australia and New Zealand resume.

Silver, gold, platinum and platinum one members will automatically receive 50 per cent of the status credits they need to keep their tier for the year, and some will be eligible for monthly status credits support.

The airline also flagged plans for more “points planes” or flights exclusively for frequent flyer point redemptions, to meet pent up travel demand.

Qantas Group CEO Alan Joyce said the changes would provide a further boost to tourism operators hit hard by COVID-19 travel restrictions.

He said Qantas was seeing huge demand for services into Cairns and the Gold Coast in particular which was “fantastic for tour operators” in those locations.

“Unfortunately this week we’ve had a setback with what’s happened in Victoria,” Mr Joyce said.

“Very clearly Australia is doing better than a lot of countries around the world but we’re not out of the woods when it comes to COVID-19.”

He said the recent Qantas and Jetstar fare sales were helping to get people to areas like Cairns “which had a lot of international visitors previously”.

“It’s really important that we can get domestic visitors to go there to help that local community,” Mr Joyce said. “Those local jobs are very, very important.”

Qantas Loyalty CEO Olivia Wirth said frequent flyers were still hopeful of using points for their dream trip, despite what was going on around the world.

“They’re just looking a little closer to home,” Ms Wirth said.

“Qantas Frequent Flyers are some of the country’s biggest advocates for travel and this has been reflected in the number of bookings we’re seeing as travel restrictions ease.”

A Virgin Australia spokesman said it too was seeing a strong uptake in flights, particularly between Adelaide and the Gold Coast, and Brisbane and Darwin, with load factors at an average 85 per cent over coming weeks.

He said since the launch of the airline’s “good to go” sale to mark the reopening of the Queensland-New South Wales borders, hundreds of thousands of people had visited the Virgin Australia website to book flights.

Court documents filed this month revealed how close Virgin Australia came to liquidation, with administrators Deloitte highlighting the need for a sale to be finalised by June 30 to provide much needed cash.

The sale to Bain Capital for an as yet undisclosed sum, is expected to be confirmed at the August 22 creditors meeting.