How to Buy Qantas Frequent Flyer Points

How to Buy Qantas Frequent Flyer Points
Topping up your Qantas points could help you reach your next reward, but buying top-up points is not always the best solution. Photo: Qantas.

Need to top up your Qantas Frequent Flyer points balance to reach your next reward? It’s possible to buy Qantas points directly from the airline. But you can get even cheaper Qantas points with the regular Qantas Wine offers!

When buying Qantas top-up points, you can purchase between 1,000 and 150,000 Qantas Frequent Flyer points per transaction. There is a limit of four top-up points purchases within a 12-month period.

Purchases can be made in increments of 1,000 points up to 30,000 points, or increments of 5,000 Qantas points for transactions above 30,000 points. To purchase top-up points from Qantas, you must have already been a Qantas Frequent Flyer member for at least 30 days.

Qantas points can be purchased on the Qantas website if paying with Visa, Mastercard or American Express. For other payment methods, you would need to contact the Qantas Frequent Flyer Service Centre. Buying points over the phone attracts a $35 fee.

When would it make sense to buy top up Qantas points?

If you’re just a few points short of a specific reward that requires a fixed number of points, such as a Classic Flight Reward or upgrade to Business or First Class, it could make sense to buy the additional Qantas points that you need.

QantasLink 717 business class
Buying Qantas points could make sense if you’re just short of what you need to upgrade a flight to Business. Photo: Qantas.

However, as we’ll explain below, buying top up points is not actually the cheapest way to get Qantas points quickly in Australia! It can work out to be more cost effective – and far better value overall – to buy a Qantas Wine case instead.

If you need a large amount of Qantas points, there are cheaper ways of accumulating the points you need than buying them. For example, you could sign up for a Qantas Frequent Flyer credit card with a large sign-up bonus. To receive the bonus points – which can be up to 150,000 Qantas points with some offers – you would generally need to pay the credit card’s annual fee and spend a minimum amount on the card within the first few months. While this is a more cost-effective way to earn large amounts of points, the whole process usually takes a few months.

If you only need a small number of additional points, you might also be able to earn the Qantas points for free!

It does not generally make sense to top up your Qantas points if you’re planning to redeem for a product from the Qantas Rewards Store – or any reward other than Classic Flight Rewards or upgrades, for that matter. There are two reasons for this:

How to buy Qantas points online

To buy Qantas points online, simply go to the Qantas website and select “top-up points”:

Navigate in the menu to the top-up points page on the Qantas website
How to find the top-up points page on the Qantas website.

You’ll then be prompted to log into your Qantas Frequent Flyer account, if you haven’t already done so. On the next page, simply select the amount of points you wish to purchase from the drop-down menu:

Buy 10,000 Qantas points
Screenshot from the Qantas top-up points webpage.

How much does it cost to buy Qantas Points?

Qantas top-up points start at a cost of $56 for 1,000 points, and vary in price depending on how many you buy. For example, it costs $388 to buy 10,000 Qantas points or $2,730 to buy 100,000 points.

It becomes cheaper on a “per-point” basis as you buy higher amounts. The cost per point ranges from 5.6 to 2.66 cents per point, depending on how many Qantas points you purchase.

It would cost $3,999 to purchase the maximum amount of 150,000 Qantas Frequent Flyer points.

Here is a full list of Qantas top-up points prices:

Number of pointsPrice (AUD)Number of pointsPrice (AUD)
1,000$5628,000$857
2,000$8929,000$884
3,000$12830,000$929
4,000$16835,000$1,038
5,000$20840,000$1,155
6,000$24545,000$1,267
7,000$27950,000$1,427
8,000$31355,000$1,511
9,000$34760,000$1,647
10,000$38865,000$1,782
11,000$40870,000$1,919
12,000$42775,000$2,055
13,000$46880,000$2,192
14,000$49785,000$2,328
15,000$53290,000$2,464
16,000$54495,000$2,600
17,000$570100,000$2,730
18,000$590105,000$2,860
19,000$612110,000$2,990
20,000$645115,000$3,120
21,000$662120,000$3,250
22,000$691125,000$3,380
23,000$718130,000$3,510
24,000$747135,000$3,640
25,000$790140,000$3,770
26,000$803145,000$3,900
27,000$830150,000$3,999
Qantas top-up points pricing table.

Ordinarily, buying Qantas points is relatively poor value. But it could still be worthwhile if you’re just a little short of the points required for a valuable reward flight or upgrade.

Limited-time bonus point offers

From time to time, Qantas Frequent Flyer offers discounts or bonus points when buying top-up points. For example, Qantas is currently giving 25-50% bonus points when buying at least 15,000 top-up points between 11-15 December 2023.

With the current offer, you’ll earn 25% bonus points if buying 15,000-29,000 Qantas points or 50% bonus for a purchase of 40,000 or more points.

In the past, Qantas has offered between 40-60% bonus points when buying top-up points during limited-time offers. These promotions generally come around 3-5 times per year.

However, even with this offer, purchasing top-up points is unlikely to be particularly good value compared to other methods of buying extra Qantas points. Before using this offer, you should also beware that some AFF members have had problems in the past with purchased top-up points not crediting correctly to their accounts.

You can discuss Qantas top-up point bonus offers on the Australian Frequent Flyer forum: Qantas Top-up points (limited-time bonuses)

Cheaper Qantas points with Qantas Wine offers

Rather than buying Qantas top-up points, a cheaper method is to take advantage of a bonus points offer from Qantas Wine!

The airline’s online wine retailer regularly gives away generous amounts of bonus points when you purchase a case of wine. This is a popular way to buy Qantas points as you’ll often pay less than you would when buying Qantas top-up points. You’ll also get a case of wine!

Qantas Wine releases new bonus point offers weekly. With a typical offer, you could get 10,000 bonus Qantas points with a case of wine that costs around $250-300.

During some exceptional sales, you could even receive 18,000 bonus points at a cost of around $354. Now that’s a good deal!

Examples of Qantas Wine offers in October 2022
Some examples of past Qantas Wine offers.

If you were to buy 18,000 Qantas points outright (excluding any bonus points) as top-up points, you would pay $590 – and wouldn’t receive any wine!

See our guide to Qantas Wine bonus point offers for more details.

When ordering from Qantas Wine, you’ll usually receive the bonus points within 24 hours of your order being dispatched – but it may take 1-2 weeks for the points to credit. So if you need points urgently, purchasing Qantas top-up points could still be a safer option.

You can discuss Qantas Wine offers on the Australian Frequent Flyer forum: Qantas Wine latest offering

Great Credit Cards for Earning Qantas Points

NAB Qantas Rewards Signature
Earn
1

Qantas Frequent Flyer Qantas Points on everyday purchases

Signup Bonus

Up to 120,000 Qantas Points

Annual Fee
$295 p.a. for the first year, $395 p.a. thereafter
Read the guide
Qantas Premier Platinum
Earn
1

Qantas Frequent Flyer Qantas Points on everyday purchases

Signup Bonus

Up to 80,000 bonus Qantas Points

Apply by 01st May 2024

Annual Fee
$349 for the first year and $399 p.a. ongoing
Read the guide
Qantas American Express Ultimate
Earn
1.25

Qantas Frequent Flyer Qantas Points on everyday purchases

Signup Bonus

100,000 bonus Qantas Points

Apply by 02nd Apr 2024

Annual Fee
$450 p.a.
Read the guide

Can you buy Qantas points from other people?

No. You can buy top up points directly from Qantas, or earn points through third-party Qantas Frequent Flyer partners. But you cannot sell Qantas points or buy them from other members.

Qantas does allow family transfers. You can transfer between 5,000 and 600,000 Qantas points to family members at no cost. Eligible family members include immediate family members, grandchildren/grandparents, domestic partners, cousins, aunts/uncles and in-laws. There is an annual transfer limit of 600,000 points in total per Qantas Frequent Flyer account.

But according to sections 7 & 8 the Qantas Frequent Flyer terms & conditions, “selling, assigning, transferring or acquiring, or offering to sell, assign, transfer or acquire any Reward, Benefit or Qantas Points” would be considered misuse of the Qantas Frequent Flyer program and grounds for Qantas to suspend your membership.

Section 19.4 of the Qantas Frequent Flyer terms & conditions also states:

Qantas Points do not have a monetary value and cannot be converted to money. They cannot be sold, transferred or exchanged other than in accordance with these Terms and Conditions. The prices for additional Qantas Points do not represent a monetary value for Qantas Points.

The editor of Australian Frequent Flyer, Matt's passion for travel has taken him to over 70 countries… with the help of frequent flyer points, of course!
Matt's favourite destinations (so far) are Germany, Brazil & Kazakhstan. His interests include economics, aviation & 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.
________________________

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Community Comments

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$3,999 for 225,000 points (1.77cents/point). Better than usual I guess but personally I'll only ever contemplate if I run out of credit card signup bonus offers.

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Does that include the service fee?

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I thought the $35 service fee was only if buying on the phone. I've never bought QF points, so might have overlooked some additional fees.

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So on Thurs evening 17/3 I paid $645 for 20k pts + 10k bonus. I wanted to use them that night for booking reward flights, but they didn't appear. As instructed I logged out and back in (multiple times), but still nothing. I checked my CC statement and the charge did go through. Page on Q website had a message saying to ring QFF if any issues and apologies for the inconvenience.

So I rang at 9am Friday, and was told the technicians are looking into the issue and to email a screenshot of my CC statement. I was told 24-48 hours for the fix! Did that and got an auto-reply with a case number.

I got back to making the reward bookings I could manage for my partner (different itinerary dates) and self with our existing points. Not happy as I have missed out on one PremEco seat that I wanted. I switched the reward to the return leg, but the price was much higher for the revenue seat 😞

And to add to my woes, I couldn't book a return itinerary mixing a revenue seat + reward seat, and pay with my existing Travel Pass! I had to make two one-way bookings. Maybe that's why the price was higher?? Arrgghh!!

Now that I have nearly everything booked except two one-way BNE-MEL seats, I think I want to cancel my purchase of the Top-up points. It's Monday morning, and still no points.

Should I call QFF to cancel and request refund (they say no refund of Top-up points, but I haven't even got them yet!), and if no joy, initiate a charge back with CC?

Appreciate any words of wisdom.

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Should I call QFF to cancel and request refund (they say no refund of Top-up points, but I haven't even got them yet!), and if no joy, initiate a charge back with CC?

No harm in trying (other than the time you'll wait on hold to speak to somebody at Qantas). But the terms & conditions are quite clear. :(

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A belated update: After two more phone calls that essentially promised action but got me nowhere I rang again and politely but firmly demanded the call centre person not hang up until this was fixed. I ended up having to pay again for the 30K points with the assurance of a refund of my original payment the next day. It seemed to be the only way to expedite any sort of solution, so I agreed. Thankfully I got the points immediately and the refund came through as promised. There was no "goodwill" gesture of any extra points or discount, which I think would have been justified after all the hassle, but I guess that's par for the course now. What a stuff up!

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There's another offer on now: 40-60% bonus points until 19 June.

I wouldn't necessarily recommend partaking.

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@Mattg Why wouldn't you necessarily recommend partaking please? Is it poor value? I am not as up on cost per point as many on here are, but was considering this as we have a UK trip planned for next year.

Also, does anyone know if purchased points count towards Points Club?

TIA

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Is it poor value?

Yes, top-up points, especially at the large values that Qantas is promoting, are incredibly poor value, despite this offer. For example, 100,000 points has a list price of AUD 2,730.00 , which is 2.7c per point. With the current promotion you would get 150,000 points for the same price but that's still 1.8c per point. Qantas points are generally valued at around 0.8c to 1.2c per point, depending on methodology, so as you can see this is around double.

The general advice is to avoid buying points unless you are just using them as a small top-up in order to meet the threshold for a classic reward, which is usually the best way to spend QFF points. In this case you can justify it as part of the whole value for money of the classic reward. But you should only top-up in small amounts, not the massive numbers they are promoting here.

as we have a UK trip planned for next year.

Please be aware that classic rewards to the UK are incredibly hard to secure, especially on Qantas, and due to various factors quite difficult on partner airlines right now as well (Ukraine, lack of HKG as transit option, etc). So do be mindful that this may not be all that realistic unless you are prepared to spend large amounts of time trying to secure the classic reward. Booking on Qantas may be near impossible unless you plan a year in advance exactly when the seats are released, and have Gold or higher status so you can access them early.

Never buy points for any purpose other than a classic reward, that will be incredibly poor value (i.e. "points plus pay" bookings). Just pay cash for these bookings.

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Thank you so much @jpp42 . I really appreciate the time spent replying. I just wonder if I recast my question with the following, would you think any differently:

I recently retired, and hubby retired about ten years back. I have discovered to my chagrin that - despite being more wealthy than I have ever been in my life - I can no longer get approval for a new credit card (thank goodness I already had two good ones) thus churning for points is not an option. Also we only consume the tiniest amount of alcohol, so wine is also not a great option. Thanks so much, Lyn

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