Frequent Flyer Points Guide | When Points Beat Paying, and When Not

We earn nothing here

Worth saying first, because it should change how you read this.

When you spend points, we earn nothing. There is no commission on an award seat and no reason for us to steer you either way.

Which means this page can say the thing an airline's own upsell screen never will, and the thing a points blog with affiliate links has an interest in complicating: points are usually a bad deal, and occasionally a spectacular one, and the difference is almost entirely about which cabin you are in. Ask us to run the comparison.

The value ladder, plainly

Economy: usually bad. This is the one that surprises people. Economy fares are already cheap, and the taxes, fees and carrier charges on an award ticket frequently approach a meaningful share of what you would have paid in cash. So you burn a large balance to save a modest amount.

If your points are going into economy seats, you are getting the worst rate available to you. Pay for the flight and keep the points.

Business: competitive. Genuinely arguable. Sometimes the redemption is good, sometimes the wholesale cash fare we can access is better, and the honest answer changes by route and by week. This is where the comparison is worth running properly.

First: the widest value gap in aviation. Business awards are competitive with paying. First class awards frequently are not close. The cabin that is absurd to buy becomes entirely reasonable to redeem, and our first class page makes exactly this argument: if there is one thing to take from that page, it is that the points play is the real answer to first class.

So the crude rule: the further up the aircraft, the better your points work. Which is the opposite of how most Australians use them.

The upgrade play, which beats both

This is the thing almost nobody does deliberately and it frequently beats paying outright and redeeming outright.

Book the right paid fare class on purpose, then apply points to upgrade.

The logic: you are spending points against the expensive part of the ladder, the gap between economy and business, rather than against the cheap part. You get a flat bed for a modest cash fare plus a modest points spend, and you keep the earn on the paid ticket.

The catch, and it is the reason this fails for most people: upgrades are only available from specific fare classes, and the cheapest ones do not qualify. So if you booked the lowest fare on the search page, the upgrade door is closed and you never knew there was a door.

That is a decision made at booking, months before you want the upgrade, and it is precisely the kind of thing that needs someone to flag it at the right moment. Our premium economy page covers a related trick: premium economy to business upgrades frequently price better than economy to business jumps, which makes buying the junior cabin deliberately a smarter starting point than it looks.

The alliance facts Australians miss

This is the most reusable thing on this page and hardly anyone knows it.

Most Australians are in the Qantas ecosystem, which is Oneworld. Your status works on every Oneworld carrier: lounge access, priority boarding, priority baggage, and the flights earn points and status credits.

The Oneworld carriers Australians actually use, and mostly do not realise are Oneworld:

Cathay Pacific, which flies a better business seat than most and is frequently cheaper than the airlines with stronger brands.

Qatar Airways, which flies the Qsuite, the best business seat in the sky.

Malaysia Airlines, which is frequently the sharpest flat-bed fare on the India corridor.

SriLankan Airlines, which is the clever routing to south India that nobody prices.

That means you can take the cheapest option on a corridor and still be looked after as the frequent flyer you are. It is a genuinely good deal and it appears on no comparison website, because comparison websites do not know about your status.

And the ones that do nothing for you

Equally important, and we would rather tell you before you book.

Star Alliance carriers do not talk to Qantas: Singapore Airlines, Thai, Air India and Air New Zealand are all excellent airlines and your Qantas status does nothing on any of them.

SkyTeam likewise: Vietnam Airlines and the Chinese carriers.

Etihad sits in no alliance at all, which is why it competes on fare and product instead.

None of that makes those airlines wrong. It makes the status a real factor in the comparison, and one worth putting a number on rather than a feeling.

Availability is the actual constraint

The forums talk about redemption rates. The real problem is seats.

Award space in premium cabins at peak is effectively closed. Not expensive: absent. Diwali, Christmas, the European summer, cherry blossom season: the seats that exist are sold for cash long before an award seat is released.

So points reward flexibility far more than they reward a large balance. A traveller with a flexible fortnight and a moderate balance will do better than a traveller with an enormous balance and fixed school-holiday dates.

If your dates are fixed by a school term or a wedding, plan to pay and treat any award seat as a lottery win rather than a plan.

The earn nobody checks

A small thing that costs people quietly.

The cheapest fare classes frequently earn a reduced number of points and status credits, sometimes very few, and that detail lives in a table nobody reads.

So the fare that looked cheapest may be a false economy if you are chasing status, and the modest step up may pay for itself in credits. We check this when we quote if you tell us your programme, and it is exactly the sort of thing a search box will never surface.

What we actually do

We do not book your award seats. You do that yourself, directly, and we will tell you so.

What we do is the comparison: tell you honestly whether the points are worth it against the wholesale cash fare we can actually access, which is not the fare you can see. Sometimes the answer is that the cash fare is better and you should keep the points. Sometimes the answer is that the redemption is superb and we should not be involved.

And we structure the paid fare so the upgrade door stays open, which is the single most valuable thing on this page and the one that has to happen at booking.

Tell us your programme and your balance in the quote notes and we will run it properly. Our what is a wholesale airfare guide explains where the cash numbers come from, and our why use a travel agent guide is candid about when you should just do it yourself.

Send us your dates and your balance and we will tell you which side of the line your trip falls on, including when the answer is that you do not need us.