Honeymoon future plans - best chance of upgrade?

[emu1802]

New to this forum. Planning my honeymoon in April 2026 and it's always been a hope to fly Business Class for this trip!
Would love some experienced advice on best chance to make that happen.
We could travel from Perth, Adelaide, Melbourne or Sydney to London or Milan (ideally Milan given honeymoon starting Italy but we can be flexible on destination, e.g. could fly to Paris as another option).
I am a Silver member, my partner is Bronze. We have ~ 400,000 points and plan to increase this by a few 000,000 before we travel with credit card sign on bonuses etc. We are currently thinking:

• Fly from Perth to London or Paris for QF legs whole way through. Any thoughts on whether an upgrade is more likely on the London or Paris leg?
• Any days during the week which are more likely / less busy? We can be flexible.
• Are we better off booking flights using points (then accumulating more points for upgrade chances) or cash? I know it's best not to book sale tickets in cash.
• Would booking Premium Economy using cash or points give us better chance of upgrade than Economy, or is Status always considered first? If we booked PE in cash but on sale, do you think we would be prioritised over someone who booked a fully flexible Economy flight?

Any other tips generally would be most appreciated!

 

[masco131]

Hi emu1802, welcome to AFF and congratulations!
Regarding your question. Personally, I wouldn’t rely on upgrades for a honeymoon, as they're never guaranteed and often quite competitive. Can I ask, do you only have Qantas points? If yes, might be worth looking at leaving from southeast asia airport like Kuala Lumpur or Bangkok
Right now, Velocity is probably the easiest option for getting from Australia to Europe using points. They’ve been consistently releasing at least two reward seats on various routes from Australia to Europe. I just had a quick look and saw several seats available from both MEL and BNE to CDG.

 

[Andy72]

Flying Hong Kong to Milan in first on emerites. Lots of availability. Grab a paid or economy reward to Hong Kong and enjoy the F experience

 

[emu1802]

Hi emu1802, welcome to AFF and congratulations!
Regarding your question. Personally, I wouldn’t rely on upgrades for a honeymoon, as they're never guaranteed and often quite competitive. Can I ask, do you only have Qantas points? If yes, might be worth looking at leaving from southeast asia airport like Kuala Lumpur or Bangkok
Right now, Velocity is probably the easiest option for getting from Australia to Europe using points. They’ve been consistently releasing at least two reward seats on various routes from Australia to Europe. I just had a quick look and saw several seats available from both MEL and BNE to CDG.

Many thanks for the reply. Yes, only Qantas points (or negligible amount of Velocity points) - 37k. We have thought about flying to Hong Kong and gathering Cathay points for the next leg… Will look at Bangkok /SEA options. I assume these are with Emirates and via Dubai

Post automatically merged: Yesterday at 11:25 PM

Flying Hong Kong to Milan in first on emerites. Lots of availability. Grab a paid or economy reward to Hong Kong and enjoy the F experience

Thanks Andy - is this via Dubai?

 

[Cloud9]

Many thanks for the reply. Yes, only Qantas points (or negligible amount of Velocity points) - 37k. We have thought about flying to Hong Kong and gathering Cathay points for the next leg… Will look at Bangkok /SEA options. I assume these are with Emirates and via Dubai

Post automatically merged: Yesterday at 11:25 PM

Thanks Andy - is this via Dubai?

Dude, first of all congrats!!!

Without wishing to pour cold water on things, I am P1 and don't ever count an upgrade on any flight as a given. Number of runs from Mel/Syd just to Singapore where J is booked out are unreal.

By all means look to try and maximise chances; however, I wouldn't wanna put false hope on a leg to Europe being feasible.

We do hear (an increasing number of) tales of folks headed out to the US as bronze being bumped. And these are great when we hear of them.

Just keep it as a "this would be awesome as a bonus" and we will all be keeping our fingers crossed for you.

Congrats again!!!

 

[masco131]

Many thanks for the reply. Yes, only Qantas points (or negligible amount of Velocity points) - 37k. We have thought about flying to Hong Kong and gathering Cathay points for the next leg… Will look at Bangkok /SEA options. I assume these are with Emirates and via Dubai

Post automatically merged: Yesterday at 11:25 PM

Thanks Andy - is this via Dubai?

You don't need to accumulate Cathy Asia miles. You can definitely use Qantas for Cathy flights. SEA can be via muscat on Oman or via Dubai on emirates. Just watch out for those high fees on emirates

 

[MEL_Traveller]

I was looking for europe in february next year… flying Jetstar business to bali connects to emirates business (no F on the midnight departure) and first class from there to paris. Around 215k points per person one way.

You can save 30k point by flying qantas economy for the short 5 hour hop to bali. And another 50k by flying business c,cough dubai to paris. You could even stop in bali for a few days too!