Qantas Frequent Flyer is now a UK American Express Membership Rewards transfer partner

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• guesswho2000 says:

  22 Jun22 June 11:24

  In a nutshell – you need quite a lot of points but the lowest is 8,000 for MEL-SYD, fees/charges are applied (was around $650 for J MEL-SCL, as a quick point for comparison), one ways are possible, open jaws are possible, redemptions are in distance bands.

  For UK based readers, as I see it, the jewels in the crown are probably EK, JQ/3K/GK, LY & WS redemptions.

  • guesswho2000 says:

    22 Jun22 June 11:27

    I tell a lie about the lowest being 8k, Jetstar redemptions are lower (around 20%) than QF on the same route, as an incentive to use the LCC over full service.

• Benj says:

  22 Jun22 June 11:33

  I transferred 500 MR this morning and they arrived instantly in my Qantas account.

• Ste says:

  22 Jun22 June 11:34

  This is great for French Polynesia redemptions – always use QF points in J on air Tahiti nui en route to Conrad Bora Bora. Even using a stack of points it’s not cheap but a fantastic destination, better than Maldives IMHO.

  • meta says:

    22 Jun22 June 14:17

    On my admittedly limited search into this, I think you’re much better using AAdvantage miles as the taxes are much lower. On some of the dates I looked round trip in J LA to Tahiti was $48 with American miles vs $450 with Qantas. The difference in miles was 10k. Of course AAdvantage miles are harder to acquire in the UK. Anyone knows more?

  • George K says:

    22 Jun22 June 22:41

    What’s your preferred route to Bora Bora from the UK by the way?

    • Ste says:

      23 Jun23 June 08:18

      I hadn’t looked at the AAdvantage route, will take a look next time. Not sure on there flight times either.

      via LA with 1 or 2 nights there (@ La Peer – nice area, good walk to Runyon), then head on to Tahiti, another overnight stop (@ IC – nice hotel and only 5mins from airport) before arriving in Bora Bora and on the hotel boat. Daytime flights the whole way, arrive fresh 🙂

      Perfect for the outbound but not so good on the return – last time was back to back overnight flights! 🙁

• Rich says:

  22 Jun22 June 12:03

  Not sure if it’s still true, but Qantas used to be a good place to credit deep-discount economy fares on BA. They got 25% mileage in BAEC but 100% in QF. I used them for an Air Berlin redemption, which was good value, although I can’t remember the details.

  • Lyn says:

    22 Jun22 June 19:36

    Unfortunately this has changed.

  • Wally1976 says:

    22 Jun22 June 21:55

    Yes, back in 2003 I credited points from my round the world ticket to Qantas and ended up with a free Nintendo DS! This was a rebate of about £100 worth on a £2k ticket if memory serves. Only snag was it had to be delivered to an Australian address so I had it delivered to my friend’s wife’s parents then waited several months until they visited. It wasn’t worth me using the points for a flight at that time.

• Jase says:

  22 Jun22 June 12:07

  Good news for expats to stop points expiring after 18 months. I’m Lifetime Gold with QF, (OWS / BA Silver) so have no intention of crediting to them having shifted to BAEC.
  The only other option was to use a VPN to OZ and make a restaurant reservation via Quandoo (100 QFF Points per person) for a London restaurant, however their restaurant selection is limited and I usually had to chase points to be credited.
  In terms of the scheme itself, I would not bother joining as redemptions are difficult and the taxes are worse than BA. I have a stash of 400,000+ QFF points that I mainly use for domestic J upgrades, especially SYD – PER. You can tell what flights will have a classic award upgrade from Y to J, so I just make sure I book those. It’s nice to do with family as they don’t get to fly with QF’s ridiculous J prices.

  • Jase says:

    22 Jun22 June 12:56

    One other use is when BA use a valid fare code when a flight change is made. I had an Amex Companion Voucher to GIG where the flight was cancelled and so I asked to be moved a day and they opened up a revenue seat, A class. It credited to QFF but not to my partner’s BAEC. This was a few years ago.

  • Jk says:

    23 Jun23 June 09:50

    Expat in London. Came here to write pretty much exactly what you said. Good summary. Some niche routes but otherwise no reason to look at this for the average UK based traveller.

• Lady London says:

  22 Jun22 June 12:08

  for newbies, wheretocredit dot com could be useful. Always check costs for redemptions – cash and miles – as well.

  • mutley says:

    22 Jun22 June 12:47

    And for oldies like me LL, Thanks! I had completely forgotten about whereto credit.

  • rob says:

    22 Jun22 June 17:46

    http://www.awardhacker.com is probably where you’ll be wanting to look for redemptions.

    WTC is mainly for revenue flights I believe.

• Andrew says:

  22 Jun22 June 12:33

  I recently booked an economy flight with QF and was surprised that One World Emerald still have to pay for exit row seats – first time I’ve seen that. Turns out only their own very top tier get it for free (their equivalent of GGL, above Emerald). The redemption rates for QF also seem better with Avios via BAEC so I’m not sure it’s worth transferring to QF to use to book flights, but good to top up, avoid expiring etc.

• Neil Donoghue says:

  22 Jun22 June 13:15

  This is a fantastic addition for Uk card members! I’ve always had to use Marriot to transfer points to QF. A few cheeky redemptions are Air Nui for Bora Bora and also Lord Howe Island using QF points.

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