How to Fly First Class with Qantas Points

From the premium champagne and caviar to the comfortable, lie-flat bed in a private suite, First Class is the epitome of luxury in the sky.

As you’d expect, First Class tickets are typically very expensive. But when you redeem frequent flyer points, you’ll just pay the taxes and any carrier charges. Plus, in the Qantas Frequent Flyer program, Qantas First Class reward seats only cost 50% more than a Business Class seat. The difference is even less when redeeming Qantas Points on most partner airlines.

Not all airlines have First Class, and those that do tend to only offer it on a small handful of routes and aircraft. This guide explains how to book First Class using Qantas Frequent Flyer points on both Qantas and its partner airlines that offer it…

Qantas

Qantas offers First Class exclusively on its Airbus A380s. These planes fly on the following routes:

• Sydney-Singapore-London
• Sydney-Los Angeles
• Melbourne-Los Angeles
• Sydney-Johannesburg
• Sydney-Dallas/Fort Worth (resuming August 2025)

It’s usually quite difficult to find Classic Reward seats in Qantas First Class, but it’s not impossible. For example, we can currently see a handful of First Classic Reward seats between Sydney and Johannesburg on QF63, for travel dates in October and November 2025.

In the past, the best time to book these seats was 11-12 months in advance. Nowadays, Qantas generally only releases long-haul Business and First Class reward seats in batches, much closer to the departure date.

If you’re a Platinum or Platinum One frequent flyer with Qantas, there is one other way to access Classic Reward seats in First Class – even if you can’t find any availability on the Qantas website. As a status benefit, you can call Qantas to request the release of an extra seat. This doesn’t always work, but it often does… so if you have the right status, it’s worth a try!

One final option is to buy a Business Class ticket and request a Classic Upgrade Reward. This isn’t guaranteed, and Qantas gives priority in the international upgrade queue to frequent flyers with the highest status. But if there are enough First Class seats available, you could get lucky.

Emirates

If you want to fly First Class with Qantas Points, your best bet is probably Emirates.

This airline has infamously high carrier charges, which mean there can be relatively high co-payments when booking a First Class reward seat with Qantas Points. But Emirates has the most widely available First Class reward inventory, and the on-board experience is simply phenomenal.

If you fly First on Emirates’ Airbus A380, you can even enjoy a shower on board!

Emirates offers First Class on all its flights to and from Australia, except from Adelaide to Dubai. You’ll typically have the best chance of finding Classic Reward seats when booking either within a week of departure, or around 9-11 months in advance.

At the moment, there happens to be a particularly large amount of First Class availability on the Perth-Dubai route. So, if you’re on the Australian east coast, consider positioning over to Perth. If you want to fly to Europe, you shouldn’t have too much trouble finding First availability on an onward flight from Dubai to Europe as well.

Qantas Frequent Flyer members had a bit of a scare last week after Emirates announced that Classic Reward seats in its First cabin would become a tier benefit exclusively for Skywards elite members. Fortunately, this change did not affect availability for bookings via partner airlines.

British Airways

Qantas’ Oneworld partner British Airways has First Class on many of its long-haul flights, including its Sydney-Singapore-London route. From time to time, you can even find reward seats available in First Class on the Sydney-Singapore portion of this flight.

Nicknamed “the world’s best business class” by some frequent flyers, First Class on British Airways isn’t as “glitzy” as on Emirates. The carrier charges can be a bit high on some routes (e.g. trans-Atlantic flights), although they aren’t as bad as on Emirates.

Other than Sydney-Singapore, routes where you can often find First Class availability on British Airways include:

• Trans-Atlantic routes (especially from London to airports including Newark, Boston, Atlanta, Houston, San Francisco and Los Angeles, as well as to Mexico City)
• Routes between London and the Middle East (especially London-Bahrain)
• Routes between London and India
• Routes between London and China

Japan Airlines

Japan Airlines (JAL) has a phenomenal First Class product on its international Boeing 777-300ER and Airbus A350-1000 jets. These aircraft mainly fly from Tokyo to London, Paris, New York, Dallas and Los Angeles.

Until recently, JAL was flying its Boeing 777 with First Class on the Sydney-Haneda route. Many AFF members even managed to book a seat using Qantas Points! Unfortunately, the airline recently changed the aircraft it flies to Sydney to one without a First Class cabin.

There is a chance we’ll see Japan Airlines First Class return to Sydney at some point. In the meantime, the route with the best JAL First Class availability is currently Bangkok-Haneda.

American Airlines

American Airlines will eventually phase out international First Class. But for now it still sells this product on selected trans-continental and international routes, including Sydney-Los Angeles.

You actually have a pretty good chance of finding First Reward availability on American Airlines flight AA72 when booking within a week of departure.

Cathay Pacific

Oneworld member Cathay Pacific doesn’t fly First Class to Australia any more, but you can sometimes find availability on selected routes between Hong Kong and Europe or North America. This is a great product and a great use of points.

As an added bonus, if you book a flight departing Hong Kong, you’ll get to visit Cathay Pacific’s multiple excellent First Class lounges at Hong Kong International Airport!

Qatar Airways (last-minute bookings only)

Due to an ongoing dispute between these airlines, Qatar Airways doesn’t release any Business or First Class reward seats to Qantas Frequent Flyer members until up to three days before departure. This unfortunately makes redeeming Qantas Points on Qatar Airways unviable, unless you’re really booking at the last minute. That said, it is theoretically possible.

China Eastern (in theory, anyway)

Qantas also partners with China Eastern. In theory, you should be able to spend Qantas Points on First Class reward seats with China Eastern, on routes where this is available such as between China and Europe or North America.

However, China Eastern flights are not currently appearing at all on the Qantas website when you search for Classic Reward seats… and they haven’t been for months.

We understand that bookings are still technically possible via the call centre, and that Qantas is working on bringing these seats back online in the near future.

But as one AFF member found, booking China Eastern flights via the call centre can be easier said than done…

I rang QF the other day to see if it was an IT glitch. I didn’t get Hobart, so my expectations were low. It went downhill quickly when they said there were no award seats between PEK and PVG because QF doesn’t fly that route….

SYD on the AFF forum

How to find reward availability

It’s possible to book Classic Reward seats on all of the airlines featured in this article on the Qantas website.

You may need to use the multi-city booking tool if you want something more complicated than just a point-to-point flight. The multi-city booking tool also comes with the added benefit of giving you the option to view a calendar showing a summary of availability across the entire month.

If you’re having trouble finding reward seats, tools like Seats.aero can also be very helpful for quickly and easily finding that “needle in a haystack”!

For more tips, don’t miss our upcoming AFF Webinar at 8pm (AEST) on Tuesday, 20 May 2025. During this hour-long webinar, I’ll show you exactly how to find Business and First Class reward seats – including with Qantas Frequent Flyer and other programs – in 2025!

If you’ve got the points, go for it!

So… if you’ve been saving up your frequent flyer points, and you’ve always wanted to fly First Class, what are you waiting for?

In case you needed another excuse to make that booking now, Qantas will increase the number of points you need to spend on most premium cabin redemptions on 5 August 2025. You can still access the lower existing rates when booking until 4 August 2025, even if you fly after this date!

With the assistance of tools like Seats.aero, it is possible to find reward seats yourself. But if you’re not sure how to do this, and want some expert help with making a booking, you can always request a quote from our Frequent Flyer Concierge team.

Having trouble finding and booking reward seats?

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Matt Graham

The editor of Australian Frequent Flyer, Matt's passion for travel has taken him to more than 100 countries… with the help of frequent flyer points, of course!
Matt's favourite destinations (so far) are Germany, Brazil, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. His interests include aviation, economics & foreign languages, and he has a soft spot for good food and red wine.

You can connect with Matt by posting on the Australian Frequent Flyer community forum and tagging @AFF Editor.