Current Qantas 35% Off Promotion - Who Says Points Are Worthless?

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Renato1

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I have just booked our return trip to Los Angeles for June next year.

With the current 35% off promotion that ends on 22 Decemeber, it cost me 124,800 points for my wife and me, plus $1216 in taxes and charges.

Subtracting the taxes and charges from the on-line full fare price, and then dividing by the points, results in my having redeemed the points at 1.7 cents per point.

Great value from Qantas!

Beats me why so much negativity in threads around here.
Regards,
Renato
 
Assume recent sale of LAX $999 return in Y.
62400 points plus $608+++
Then 62400 points only equates to $391, which means only 0.63 cents per point.

You're calculation of 1.7 cents per point means the airfare would be around $1600-1700 all inclusive LAX return...a bit expensive with the competition nowadays. So me thinks its poor value, but each to their own.
 
We booked 2 x Y BNE/HKG one way 39K points and $300 and used 70K AA miles for 2xJ return on CX and no early morning arrival home.
 
Assume recent sale of LAX $999 return in Y.
62400 points plus $608+++
Then 62400 points only equates to $391, which means only 0.63 cents per point.

You're calculation of 1.7 cents per point means the airfare would be around $1600-1700 all inclusive LAX return...a bit expensive with the competition nowadays. So me thinks its poor value, but each to their own.

Sale fares might not have been available on the dates the OP booked.
 
Assume recent sale of LAX $999 return in Y.
62400 points plus $608+++
Then 62400 points only equates to $391, which means only 0.63 cents per point.

You're calculation of 1.7 cents per point means the airfare would be around $1600-1700 all inclusive LAX return...a bit expensive with the competition nowadays. So me thinks its poor value, but each to their own.

When you take into account the points that would be earned on a revenue ticket (9000 as a NB and up to 18000 as a WP), the 'effective' value drops even further to 0.548 c/pt as a NB ('effective' cost of 71400pts) and 0.468c/pt as a WP ('effective' cost of 80400 pts).
 
Assume recent sale of LAX $999 return in Y.
62400 points plus $608+++
Then 62400 points only equates to $391, which means only 0.63 cents per point.

You're calculation of 1.7 cents per point means the airfare would be around $1600-1700 all inclusive LAX return...a bit expensive with the competition nowadays. So me thinks its poor value, but each to their own.
I decided to fly to LA this morning.
And I didn't want to fly to China and spend more than a day getting to LA (my wife would kill me), and the AFF Cheap Fare finder gave me the current best rates for the direct flights in the period we wanted to fly (June).

Lot's of luck going back in time and grabbing the sales fare.
Regards,
Renato
 
Good on the OP for getting:

a) value at the time they want to fly
b) direct to LAX then onwards to wherever they want to holiday
c) spending the QF points as it fits their lifestyle

personally, I'm more interested in where I go as opposed to how I get there, so our points are always spent
on my wife, as she enjoys F and J, whereas I buy tickets ex SIN and ex LAX to take advantage of QF pricing
arbitrage.

Cheers
BF
 
Beats me why so much negativity in threads around here.

I appreciate you made the decision to fly today, and you have made your calculations to justify the value of your purchase.

Others are considering the bigger picture. And the bigger picture highlights the potentially poor value in the redemptions offered by Qantas for economy class travel.

Had you waited another couple of weeks you may well have found a sub-$1000 fare to LAX, on Qantas, in economy. As others have pointed out, this substantially changes the 'value' of the points.

It's like fares between SYD and MEL - every once in a while QF doesn't have the super low discounts available and charges $145 each way. The more usual economy fare (if you wait a day or two) is in the $100 region. Basing a points redemption at the peak cost is not necessarily a valid comparison.
 
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Others are considering the bigger picture. And the bigger picture highlights the potentially poor value in the redemptions offered by Qantas for economy class travel.
Not everyone sees it the same.

In my opinion 19,500 QFF points + AUD80 for HKG-SYD in economy is pretty good value. Used AA points getting there and need something to get back.
 
I appreciate you made the decision to fly today, and you have made your calculations to justify the value of your purchase.

Others are considering the bigger picture. And the bigger picture highlights the potentially poor value in the redemptions offered by Qantas for economy class travel.

Had you waited another couple of weeks you may well have found a sub-$1000 fare to LAX, on Qantas, in economy. As others have pointed out, this substantially changes the 'value' of the points.

It's like fares between SYD and MEL - every once in a while QF doesn't have the super low discounts available and charges $145 each way. The more usual economy fare (if you wait a day or two) is in the $100 region. Basing a points redemption at the peak cost is not necessarily a valid comparison.
Thanks. That is true - I could for example get the cheap $1099 each fare to San Fransico today, which is one of the places that I'm going to be driving to during the trip. But it requires flying there between January and March - which is pointless for us.
a. I never leave Melbourne between November and March - what's the point? That's when everyone else wants to fly here, and I live 5 minutes drive from the beach, and
b. It will be darn cold in New York, which is the other place we'll be going on this trip, and
c. If my experience with Europe is any guide, the longer I delay booking hotels, the dearer they'll get (as the value ones with good reviews disappear first).

I was fortunate enough to run across a friend on the weekend who lived in LA and New York for quite while. He rattled off a prospective driving itinenary for us which has us quite excited.
Regards,
Renato
 
Not everyone sees it the same.

In my opinion 19,500 QFF points + AUD80 for HKG-SYD in economy is pretty good value. Used AA points getting there and need something to get back.

There are some sweet spots! Which is why I qualified in my post the 'potential' poor value. A fairly quick analysis shows that for round-trips, the points required represent some less than optimal savings. Sometimes on Jetstar you might save just a few dollars over their sale fares. Worth it for 50K points to save $100-200?
 
Not everyone sees it the same.

In my opinion 19,500 QFF points + AUD80 for HKG-SYD in economy is pretty good value. Used AA points getting there and need something to get back.


Using any fares ex HKG is a little misleading as the HKG government has limited the fuel fines that airlines can charge on these routes.

How much cheaper does oil/AVGAS need to be before fuel fines are eliminated completely is unknown however.
 
There are some sweet spots! Which is why I qualified in my post the 'potential' poor value. A fairly quick analysis shows that for round-trips, the points required represent some less than optimal savings. Sometimes on Jetstar you might save just a few dollars over their sale fares. Worth it for 50K points to save $100-200?
Agreed. For SYD-HKG return there is no value as taxes jump to ~AUD330.

Also keep in mind that SYD-HKG sale fares do not cover all dates. When Qantas had the AUD550 special recently for travel in June I could not get anything below AUD800 to return on 16 June. Not sure why because I was able to get award ticket for that date much later after sale had finished.

MNL-SYD/BNE is another excellent example.
 
Thanks. That is true - I could for example get the cheap $1099 each fare to San Fransico today, which is one of the places that I'm going to be driving to during the trip. But it requires flying there between January and March - which is pointless for us.
a. I never leave Melbourne between November and March - what's the point? That's when everyone else wants to fly here, and I live 5 minutes drive from the beach, and
b. It will be darn cold in New York, which is the other place we'll be going on this trip, and
c. If my experience with Europe is any guide, the longer I delay booking hotels, the dearer they'll get (as the value ones with good reviews disappear first).

I was fortunate enough to run across a friend on the weekend who lived in LA and New York for quite while. He rattled off a prospective driving itinenary for us which has us quite excited.
Regards,
Renato

They have been saying on TV just today how warm the temperatures have been in the US
 
Notwithstanding my earlier crack about LA, I think the OP did ok on this deal.


Some posters are citing extreme discount scenarios that often come with date blackouts and the like. It is more reasonable to compare his deal with the typical or average full service carrier walk-up rates for the dates he wants to travel.


The OP got return flights, on his desired dates, at the spur of the moment, for a pretty reasonable bunch of points + $
 
UPDATE --
After talking to my friend on the weekend who has been to the USA more times than he cares to remember, he gave me a suggested itinerary which got us quite excited - get a car and see LA, drive to San Diego, go to Tijuana, go to Grand Canyon, go to Las Vegas, go to San Fransisco. And at the other side of the country, he told me I had to go to a place in New York that has the best pastrami ( I said I wasn't that fond of pastrami, he said that after I eat this one, I will be).

Anyhow, I decided that we couldn't fit all this into the three weeks I had booked. So today I rang Qantas, and added six days to the trip, then paid the extra 3500 points each for changing the booking, plus an extra 10,400 points each to fly to New York, and an extra $8 each in taxes and charges (without additional debit card fee).

I figure it's better to fly to New York with Qantas than it is to do it with American carriers, who my friends keep describing as rubbish compared to what we're used to. That leaves two other flights to book in the US, plus eight more hotels.

Given that my strong preference - which I didn't explain in the Original Post - is to leave cold weather in Melbourne and go to warm weather somewhere else. If sales fares turn up in the future for the American near peak season when we will be travelling - then so be it. Relative to paying cash now for the non-sale fares, the Qantas FF points were very good value as far as I am concerned.
Regards,
Renato
 
They have been saying on TV just today how warm the temperatures have been in the US

There is warm and there is warm.
In Cinque Terre three years ago, most everyone was complaining about the cold 16C temperatures there. But Danes we met there couldn't understand it - the same temperature was quite warm for them.

I note that the temperature in New York is forecast to be a quite "warm" 16C over the next few days (after being 4C today).
Regards,
Renato
 
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