Best value for family of 5

[Madison 5]

Hi, This is my first question since joining AFF....I have over 500,000 points with Qantas FF. Where is the best value (or best bang for your buck) to travel. From previous investigation the charges and taxes seem to be high when look at flying to the state. What countries? Do the carriers rates when using points ever change? Is Asia or certain destinations in Asia the best value? It may bhquite a general question but I could really do with some help here. Hope I am on the correct Forum group for this kind of general question. Cheers Madison 5

 

[harvyk]

Traveling Y? Save your points and look for sale fares.

Traveling in J? Finding 5 reward seats might be difficult.

Save the points for a weekend getaway in J or F (if you can find something) with your partner leaving the kids at home.

"Taxes" will easily eat up points value, especially as kids can be very cheap and Y sale fares can be excellent value. Our last family (2 adults 4 kids) trip basicially cost us $476 pp SYD-HKG return thanks to sale fares / child fares, and not a single point spent.

 

[Mattg]

To answer your question about carrier charges, they vary by airline, route and destination. There is a list of carrier charges for flights operated by Qantas here: A List of Qantas Carrier Charges for Reward Flights

I'm not sure where you're based or interested in travelling to, but what about Sri Lanka? Availability from Melbourne to Colombo on Sri Lankan Airlines is not that hard to find and there are no fuel/carrier surcharges. For 2 adults and 3 children from MEL to CMB it would cost 420,000 Qantas points + $993.50 round-trip.

If you want to fly to the USA, have a look at flying with either American Airlines (direct Sydney-Los Angeles) or Fiji Airways to Los Angeles or San Francisco (via Nadi). Again, economy availability is not too hard to find and there are no carrier charges with either of those airlines. Should be 450,000 Qantas points for 5x return economy tickets to Los Angeles/San Francisco.