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Qantas sweet spots are governed by the distance from the start point of your trip to the end point. While Qantas has a distance-based award chart, a refreshing twist on that concept is that Qantas charges based on cumulative mileage rather than charging for each segment separately. This can work out especially well for those on short connecting itineraries like those traveling to/from smaller airports and it means that those who are in or near Miami get access to Central America and the Caribbean quite cheaply, even in business class.
Collecting Miles
Qantas is transfer partners with the following currencies and conversion rates:
| Rewards Program | Amex Transfer Ratio | Chase Transfer Ratio | Citi Transfer Ratio | Marriott Transfer Ratio | Capital One Transfer Ratio | Brex Transfer Ratio |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Accor Live Limitless | 1000 to 500 | 1000 to 500 | ||||
| Aegean Miles + Bonus | 60K to 25K | |||||
| Aer Lingus Avios | 1 to 1 | 1 to 1 | 1 to 1 via Qatar | 60K to 25K | 1 to 1 via BA | |
| Aeroflot Bonus | 60K to 25K | |||||
| AeroMexico ClubPremier | 1 to 1.6 | 1 to 1 | 60K to 25K | 1 to 1 | 1,670 to 1K | |
| Air Canada Aeroplan | 1 to 1 | 1 to 1 | 60K to 25K | 1 to 1 | ||
| Air China Phoenix Miles | 60K to 25K | |||||
| Air France KLM Flying Blue | 1 to 1 | 1 to 1 | 1 to 1 | 60K to 25K | 1 to 1 | 1,670 to 1K |
| Air New Zealand Air Points | 60K to 307 | |||||
| Alaska MileagePlan | 1 to 1 via Hawaiian | 60K to 25K | ||||
| Alitalia MilleMiglia | ||||||
| Allegiant | ||||||
| Altitude Points | ||||||
| American AAdvantage | 3K to 1K | |||||
| Amex Membership Rewards | ||||||
| Amtrak Guest Rewards | ||||||
| ANA Mileage Club | 1 to 1 | 60K to 25K | ||||
| Arrival | ||||||
| Asiana | 60K to 25K | |||||
| Avianca LifeMiles | 1 to 1 | 1 to 1 | 3K to 1K | 1 to 1 | 1,670 to 1K | |
| Best Western | ||||||
| Bilt | ||||||
| Brex | ||||||
| British Airways Avios | 1 to 1 | 1 to 1 | 1 to 1 via Qatar | 60K to 25K | 1 to 1 | |
| Capital One Miles | ||||||
| Cathay Pacific Asia Miles | 1 to 1 | 1 to 1 | 60K to 25K | 1 to 1 | 1,670 to 1K | |
| Chase Ultimate Rewards | ||||||
| China Eastern Airlines | 60K to 25K | |||||
| China Southern Airlines’ Sky Pearl Club | 60K to 25K | |||||
| Choice | 1 to 1 | 1 to 2 | 1 to 1 | |||
| Citi ThankYou Rewards | ||||||
| CNB Rewards | ||||||
| Copa Airlines ConnectMiles | 60K to 25K | |||||
| Delta SkyMiles | 1 to 1 plus excise tax | 3K to 1K | ||||
| EL AL Israel Airlines | ||||||
| Emirates Skywards | 1 to 1 | 1 to 1 | 1 to 1 | 60K to 25K | 1 to 1 | 1,670 to 1K |
| Etihad Guest | 1 to 1 | 1 to 1 | 60K to 25K | 1 to 1 | ||
| EVA Air Infinity MileageLands | 1 to 1 | 1000 to 750 | ||||
| Expedia+ | ||||||
| Finnair Plus+ | 1 to 1 via BA | 1 to 1 via BA | 1 to 1 via Qatar | 1 to 1 | ||
| FlexPoints | ||||||
| Frontier Miles | 60K to 25K | |||||
| Garuda Indonesia Frequent Flyer | ||||||
| Go Far Rewards | ||||||
| Hainan Airlines | 60K to 25K | |||||
| Hawaiian Miles | 1 to 1 plus excise tax | 60K to 25K | ||||
| Hilton | 1 to 2 | |||||
| Hotels.comRewards | ||||||
| HSBC Rewards | ||||||
| Hyatt | 1 to 1 | |||||
| Iberia Avios | 1 to 1 | 1 to 1 | 1 to 1 via Qatar | 60K to 25K | 1 to 1 via BA | |
| IHG | 1 to 1 | |||||
| ITA Airways Volare | ||||||
| JAL (Japan Airlines) Mileage Bank | 60K to 25K | |||||
| Jet Airways Inter Miles | 1 to 1 | 60K to 25K | ||||
| JetBlue | 250 to 200 plus excise tax | 1 to 1 | 1 to 1 | 60K to 12.5K | ||
| Korean Airlines | ||||||
| LATAM Pass | 60K to 25K | |||||
| Leading Hotels of the World | 1K to 200 | |||||
| Malaysia Enrich | 1 to 1 | |||||
| Marriott Bonvoy | 1 to 1 | 1 to 1 | ||||
| Merrill | ||||||
| Miles & More | ||||||
| Multiplus | 60K to 25K | |||||
| OneKeyCash | ||||||
| Other / Unknown | ||||||
| PenFed Rewards | ||||||
| Penny Points | ||||||
| Preferred Hotels & Resorts I Prefer | 1 to 4 | |||||
| Qantas Frequent Flyer | 1 to 1 | 1 to 1 | 60K to 25K | 1 to 1 | 1,670 to 1K | |
| Qatar Privilege Club Avios | 1 to 1 | 1 to 1 via BA | 1 to 1 | 60K to 25K | 1 to 1 via BA | |
| Radisson Rewards | ||||||
| Royal Brunei Royal Skies | ||||||
| Saudia Airlines | 60K to 25K | |||||
| Shop Your Way Rewards | 1 to 10 | |||||
| Singapore Airlines KrisFlyer | 1 to 1 | 1 to 1 | 1 to 1 | 60K to 25K | 1 to 1 | 1,670 to 1K |
| Sonesta Travel Pass | ||||||
| South African Airways Voyager | 60K to 25K | |||||
| Southwest Rapid Rewards | 1 to 1 | 60K to 25K | ||||
| Spirit | ||||||
| TAP Air Portugal | 60K to 25K | 1 to 1 | ||||
| Thai Airways International Royal Orchid Plus | 1 to 1 | 60K to 25K | ||||
| Turkish Airlines Miles & Smiles | 1 to 1 | 60K to 25K | 1 to 1 | |||
| Uber Cash | ||||||
| UBS My Choice Rewards | ||||||
| United MileagePlus | 1 to 1 | 60K to 30K | ||||
| Virgin Atlantic Flying Club | 1 to 1 | 1 to 1 | 1 to 1 | 60K to 25K | 1 to 1 | |
| Virgin Australia Velocity Frequent Flyer | 60K to 25K | |||||
| Vueling Club | 60K to 25K | |||||
| Wells Fargo Rewards | ||||||
| Wyndham | 1 to 1 | 1 to 1 |
Note that Qantas sometimes offers transfer bonuses and in the past bonuses have sometimes been targeted to those who have transferred to Qantas before. In fact, we’ve even seen times when a public transfer bonus and targeted bonus for past transfer customers have stacked, so it might be worth a single speculative transfer of the minimum number of points to be prepared in case such an opportunity ever comes around again and makes for a great deal on any Qantas sweet spots.
Award Chart
The Qantas award chart is distance-based. Miles required are calculated based on the cumulative distance of your trip whether one-way or round-trip. This means that there is generally an advantage to booking round trip since additional segments will not be priced individually but rather as part of the cumulative distance.
Here is a link to the Qantas Frequent Flyer award chart tables.
Note that Qantas maintains more than one award chart: the Qantas Classic Flight Reward Table applies to bookings on Qantas, Jetstar (though there is a separate table for Jetstar Asia, Jetstar Japan, etc), Airnorth, Fiji Airways, Air Vanuatu, and American Airlines.
You’ll need to scroll further down the page for the Partner Classic Flight Reward Table that covers Air France, Air Niugini, Alaska Airlines, British Airways, Cathay Pacific Airways, China Airlines, China Eastern, Cathay Dragon, EL AL, Emirates, Finnair, Iberia, Japan Airlines, KLM, LATAM Airlines, Malaysia Airlines, Qatar Airways, Royal Air Maroc, Royal Jordanian, S7 Airlines and SriLankan Airlines. This second chart has slightly higher rates.
Qantas award change and cancellation fees
Qantas charges 5,000 points to change an award ticket or 6,000 points to cancel an award ticket (note the these fees are temporarily waived on Classic Flight Rewards until February 28, 2022 due to the pandemic). Those fees are pretty reasonable on long-haul flights, but might mean forfeiting more than half the points you used to book your award for shorter itineraries, so keep this in mind when booking.
Qantas Sweet Spots (Economy Class)
Caribbean from 8K miles one way (e.g. Miami to Grand Cayman)
- The short story: Qantas offers better pricing than traditional American Airlines award prices on itineraries with a distance of 1200 miles or fewer each way and has no close-in booking fee.
- Miles required: 8,000 miles each way for itineraries covering a distance up to 600 miles (like Miami to Grand Cayman) or 12,000 miles each way for itineraries covering a distance up to 1200 miles (like Miami to most of Central America and the Caribbean). (See: Strengths of Qantas for AA redemptions).
- How to find awards: Search for available space at Qantas.com (you’ll need to create a free Qantas Frequent Flyer account)
- How to book awards: Book online at Qantas.com.
- Key warnings: Alaska Mileage Plan might be a better value if you have direct flights and Finnair will be significantly cheaper on flights over 1,200 miles.
- Transfer from: Amex, Citi, Capital One, Marriott
South America from 12K miles one way (e.g. Miami to Cartagena)
- The short story: Qantas offers good award pricing on shorter oneworld routes, like Miami to parts of Northern South America.
- Miles required: Qantas has a distance-based award chart that goes by cumulative distance whether one-way or round trip. The shortest-distance flights to South America measure fewer than 1,000 miles one-way but the longest can be more than 5,000 miles one way. Here are the first several distance bands:
- 12K miles for a cumulative distance of 601-1200 miles
- 18K miles for a cumulative distance of 1201-2400 miles or
- 20.3K miles for a cumulative distance of 2401-3600 miles
- 25.2K miles for a cumulative distance of 3601-4800 miles.
- 31.5K miles for a cumulative distance of 4801-5800 miles
- See the full award chart here. No fuel surcharges on American Airlines.
- How to find awards: Search for available space at Qantas.com (you’ll need to create a free Qantas Frequent Flyer account)
- How to book awards: Book online at Qantas.com.
- Key warnings: Avios might be a better value if you have direct flights (though this varies with precise distance) if you have access to points which transfer to Avios. However, for flights with connections, Qantas can be a better deal.
- Transfer from: Amex, Citi, Capital One, Marriott
North America from 8K miles one-way
- The short story: Qantas offers better pricing than traditional American Airlines award prices on itineraries with a distance of 1200 miles or fewer each way and has no close-in booking fee. This could be especially good for those who need to connect on short itineraries as Qantas measures cumulative distance rather than pricing segments separately.
- Miles required: 8,000 miles for itineraries covering a distance up to 600 miles or 12,000 miles for itineraries covering a distance up to 1200 miles. (See: Strengths of Qantas for AA redemptions). No fuel surcharges on American or Alaska.
- How to find awards: Search for available space at Qantas.com (you’ll need to create a free Qantas Frequent Flyer account). Note that for Alaska space you'll need to search AA.com.
- How to book awards: Book online at Qantas.com for American Airlines. Call for Alaska.
- Change and cancellation fees: 5,000 miles per passenger to change / 6,000 miles per passenger to cancel.
- Key warnings: Avios might be a better value if you have direct flights if you have access to points which transfer to Avios. However, for flights with connections, Qantas can be a better deal.
- Transfer from: Amex, Citi, Capital One, Marriott
Qantas Sweet Spots (Premium Cabins)
Israel on El Al from 78K points one-way in business
- The short story: Qantas offers good partner pricing for El Al flights to Israel.
- Miles required: 90K points in business class on El Al between Tel Aviv and Boston, Newark, and New York JFK. 104.5K points in business between Tel Aviv and Miami. 119.2K points in business between Tel Aviv and Los Angeles. With a transfer bonus, these rates can get better. No fuel surcharges for travel on El Al. See the full award chart here.
- How to find awards: Search for available space at Qantas.com (you’ll need to create a free Qantas Frequent Flyer account)
- How to book awards: Book online at Qantas.com.
- Transfer from: Amex, Capital One, Citi, Marriott
South America from 41.5K miles round trip
- The short story: Qantas offers good award pricing on shorter oneworld business class routes, like Miami to parts of Northern South America. Keep in mind that though LATAM has left oneworld, their flights can still be booked with Qantas points.
- Miles required: Qantas has a distance-based award chart that goes by cumulative distance whether one-way or round trip (booking round trip will work out to fewer net miles each way). The shortest-distance flights to South America measure fewer than 1,000 miles one-way but the longest can be more than 5,000 miles one way. Here are the first several distance bands:
- 27.6K miles for a cumulative distance of 601-1200 miles
- 41.5K miles for a cumulative distance of 1201-2400 miles or
- 57K miles for a cumulative distance of 2401-3600 miles
- 68.4K miles for a cumulative distance of 3601-4800 miles.
- 82K miles for a cumulative distance of 4801-5800 miles
- See the full award chart here. No fuel surcharges on American Airlines.
- How to find awards: Search for available space at Qantas.com (you’ll need to create a free Qantas Frequent Flyer account)
- How to book awards: Book online at Qantas.com.
- Key warnings: Avios might be a better value if you have direct flights (though this varies with precise distance) if you have access to points which transfer to Avios. However, for flights with connections, Qantas can be a better deal.
- Transfer from: Amex, Citi, Capital One, Marriott
Oceania on Emirates for 159K miles (~30 hours of Emirates business class)
- The short story: While the award cost here is substantially higher than most others, it may be worth it to those who really want an indulgently long experience in Emirates business class. It is possible to spend upwards of ~30 hours in A380 business class by routing via Dubai (note that some US cities have 777 service, which is likely angled in business class).
- Miles required: 159,000 miles one-way in business class between North American cities and those cities served by Emirates in Australia and New Zealand.
- How to find awards: Search for available space at Qantas.com (you’ll need to create a free Qantas Frequent Flyer account)
- How to book awards: Book online at Qantas.com.
- Key warnings: Choose A380 routes to get a fully-flat aisle access business class seat with a bar at the rear of the plane.
- Transfer from: Amex, Citi, Capital One, Marriott
Australia for 61.5K one-way in business class from Hawaii
- The short story: Qantas's low-cost-carrier Jetstar flies between Hawaii and several Australian cities and can be booked with Qantas points.
- Miles required: 61,500 miles one-way in business class from Honolulu to Sydney.
- How to find awards: Search for available space at Qantas.com (you’ll need to create a free Qantas Frequent Flyer account)
- How to book awards: Book online at Qantas.com.
- Key warnings: Jetstar flights can be quite cheap. While their business class is much more expensive than their economy class fares, it's worth comparing to cash fares to be sure you're getting a decent value.
Bottom line
Qantas can be a great program for short-distance flights. Qantas points can be especially useful for itineraries from Miami to the Caribbean and Central America, though they have some unique partnerships like with El Al and Emirates that might make sense in some situations – particularly if you can snag a good transfer bonus to give your transferable currency a boost.
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New York – Toronto can be pricey at times for a short flight. Qantas points work well on short expensive USA-Canada routes.
Is there any secret to finding airports that don’t appear in their list. Was trying to search flights from SCL to IPC since you have LATAM as a possible redemption partner listed in the article, but it cannot find SCL in the from or to fields.
I’ve used Qantas before for short haul flights on AA because I have so many Amex and Citi miles and I like having Qantas as a transfer partner. However, I find that Qantas cannot see a lot of a smaller AA routes. I thought at first it was just short regional flights operated by Piedmont or another regional carrier but on further investigation there doesn’t seem to be any rhyme or reason to it. Some of the routes that Qantas cannot see that are great AA redemptions: PHL to YQB (Quebec City), PHL to AVL (Asheville), PHL to BTV, etc. It can be frustrating when you think you have a great use of Qantas miles and then the site cannot see them. Anyone have experience with this? I’m using PHL examples because that is my home airport.