700,000 points. Where should we go?

[earlyriser]

Regardless of where you go to in Europe, I suggest that you book your accomodation five or six months in advance. Else any savings you make from using the points can quickly evaporate in higher accomodation costs.
Regards,
Renato

I had the opposite experience last year in WINTER in EU. Not sure when OP is planning to travel but we were able to save ~$1000 EU by cancelling bookings on the road and re-booking at much nicer hotels (Hilton etc) at last minute sale prices. I would estimate this is not the case during the high season.

 

[Moindardt]

Have you considered cash and points? Might be as good a value and more flexible and earn SC. Not a big fan but might be something to look at.

 

[nickfromeastryde]

Regardless of where you go to in Europe, I suggest that you book your accomodation five or six months in advance. Else any savings you make from using the points can quickly evaporate in higher accomodation costs.
Regards,
Renato

I would have to disagree. On our Europe trip this year we often booked on the day and got some terrific bargains ranging from 3 star up to top of the range 5 star hotels

 

[LouLou]

Have you considered cash and points? Might be as good a value and more flexible and earn SC. Not a big fan but might be something to look at.

Thank you. I have been looking at this now. On the flights were looking at:

Brisbane - Paris 22 March
Madrid - Brisbane 25 April

2 Adults + 2 Children + 1 Infant

We have found:

Qantas Points + Pay 654,000 points $0
Qantas Award Fare ~$3500 fees + Points (Qantas website is down so I can't see the exact amount at the moment)
Qantas ~$6120 Fare
Emirates ~$6100 Fare
Qatar ~$5700 Fare

So Points + Pay is appealing to us at the moment. I'm not sure if I'm doing something wrong, but it seems to be good value?? Is there something I'm missing here, as I know it's often not considered a popular option.

Thank you

 

[Mattg]

Points + Pay is usually poor value, but due to the high fuel surcharges so are international economy redemptions much of the time. So in this case you may actually get more value out of your points by using it. I don't often spruik Points Plus Pay, but there are a couple of advantages. You will earn points and status credits for your flights. And you can choose to pay with a mixture of points and cash if you want to save up your points. I believe you can also request an upgrade from a Points Plus Pay booking as it is treated more or less as a revenue fare. Provided you're booking an upgradable fare (i.e. not a "Sale" fare), that is.

As a reference point for you:
-Converting points to Woolies vouchers nets you around 0.67 cents per point
-Using Point Plus Pay values points at around 0.8 cents each

I would personally suggest using around half your Qantas points towards a Points Plus Pay booking, while saving at least 360,000 of them. When you book, route via Melbourne or Sydney and fly on Qantas to Dubai, connecting in Dubai to Emirates on to Europe. You'll then be able to request an upgrade for all of you to Business class on the Australia-Dubai leg (provided you're on a Qantas flight, booked as a QF flight number). The cost is 72,000 points each, or 360,000 in total. If you are successful, great. If not, you can try again on the return leg. If you do want to do that, I would suggest flying via Melbourne as the MEL-DXB flights are usually a little less full. So your chances of upgrading could be a little better.

But don't forget about those Emirates miles - you may want to check when they are due to expire. If it's soon, make sure you use them.

Edit: Actually, I just checked and at this stage the SYD-DXB flight is looking more empty than MEL-DXB on 22/3 at this stage.

 

[LouLou]

Points + Pay is usually poor value, but due to the high fuel surcharges so are international economy redemptions much of the time. So in this case you may actually get more value out of your points by using it. I don't often spruik Points Plus Pay, but there are a couple of advantages. You will earn points and status credits for your flights. And you can choose to pay with a mixture of points and cash if you want to save up your points. I believe you can also request an upgrade from a Points Plus Pay booking as it is treated more or less as a revenue fare. Provided you're booking an upgradable fare (i.e. not a "Sale" fare), that is.

As a reference point for you:
-Converting points to Woolies vouchers nets you around 0.67 cents per point
-Using Point Plus Pay values points at around 0.8 cents each

I would personally suggest using around half your Qantas points towards a Points Plus Pay booking, while saving at least 360,000 of them. When you book, route via Melbourne or Sydney and fly on Qantas to Dubai, connecting in Dubai to Emirates on to Europe. You'll then be able to request an upgrade for all of you to Business class on the Australia-Dubai leg (provided you're on a Qantas flight, booked as a QF flight number). The cost is 72,000 points each, or 360,000 in total. If you are successful, great. If not, you can try again on the return leg. If you do want to do that, I would suggest flying via Melbourne as the MEL-DXB flights are usually a little less full. So your chances of upgrading could be a little better.

But don't forget about those Emirates miles - you may want to check when they are due to expire. If it's soon, make sure you use them.

Edit: Actually, I just checked and at this stage the SYD-DXB flight is looking more empty than MEL-DXB on 22/3 at this stage.

Thank you MattG, I'll look into this, when the Qantas website is back up. We have double checked and have 250,000 Emirates points and more than half expire in May. If we can't use them for our holiday we will be sure to at least convert to Westfield vouchers before expiry. You are right, we need to make sure we use them, it would be a tragedy to lose them! I do find the Emirates website difficult to work, so will spend some time on it tonight and hopefully Qantas is back up by then too.

Thanks again. Cheers

 

[LouLou]

Hi there

I thought I would let you all know what we ended up booking. I understand it may not be the best value for our points, but with less than $200 out of pocket, we're pleased. We also managed to use the majority of our Emirates points before they expire. Our fares are sales fares so can't be upgraded, and we have had to admit to ourselves that it will be many, many years before we travel solo business class as a couple without children ;-)

Brisbane - Paris; Madrid to Brisbane.

Qantas
1 Adult + 2 Children. Economy Points + Pay. Cost was $4406.09. But we offset this to $0 and 478,404 points.
Value of Points 0.9 cents per point

Emirates
1 Adult + 1 Infant 231,000 points + $192 in taxes that can't be paid with points. I think this worked out to 0.7 cents per point. But given these points expired in 3 months and we didn't even realise we had this many before yesterday, we consider it a win.

So around $6300 in flight value for 478,404 Qantas Points + 231,000 Emirates points for travel in April 2016. You may care to avoid travelling on our Emirates flight (3 children under 5 years) at this time ;-)

Thank you for all of your help

Cheers
Lou

 

[MEL_Traveller]

Qantas
1 Adult + 2 Children. Economy Points + Pay. Cost was $4406.09. But we offset this to $0 and 478,404 points.
Value of Points 0.9 cents per point

Emirates
1 Adult + 1 Infant 231,000 points + $192 in taxes that can't be paid with points. I think this worked out to 0.7 cents per point. But given these points expired in 3 months and we didn't even realise we had this many before yesterday, we consider it a win.

So around $6300 in flight value for 478,404 Qantas Points + 231,000 Emirates points for travel in April 2016. You may care to avoid travelling on our Emirates flight (3 children under 5 years) at this time ;-)

Thank you for all of your help

Cheers
Lou

I think that's pretty good going!

I hadn't even thought of using points and pay - often not such good value. But I think all things considered this represents pretty good value over a standard award and the approx $3500 surcharges those would have incurred.

 

[JohnK]

I would have to disagree. On our Europe trip this year we often booked on the day and got some terrific bargains ranging from 3 star up to top of the range 5 star hotels

Did you have alternate flexible bookings that you could cancel last minute.

My experience with last minute hotel bookings is they are usually very expensive especially peak season. My preference is to lock in a rate I am happy with months in advance. If booking via Accor/Hilton/IHG that would also be a prepaid non refundable rate.

 

[andye]

Did you have alternate flexible bookings that you could cancel last minute.

My experience with last minute hotel bookings is they are usually very expensive especially peak season. My preference is to lock in a rate I am happy with months in advance. If booking via Accor/Hilton/IHG that would also be a prepaid non refundable rate.

I've found that you can get flexible rates at very similar to the prepaid using the Government or AAA rates (for IHG at least).
It's one of the most useful tips I've picked up from AFF in 2015