Qantas Classic Reward & Upgrade Devaluation on 5 August 2025

[burmans]

Question is whether or not it goes further than that even… book a SYD-MEL and change it later to a SYD-LHR in business.

Seems like a reasonable risk to take, a lot more potential upside than downside!

 

[kpc]

Are you sure? The website says this, but I'm not sure what to make of it:

What happens if I have an existing Classic Flight Reward booking and want to make a change?​

Existing Classic Flight Reward bookings will retain the conditions in place at the time the booking was made. Any changes to Classic Flights Rewards booked before 5 August 2025, will not be charged the new points levels.

What's the maximum validity of an award flight? If i book for July 2026 now (maximum forward date available) can I later change it to November 2026?

One year from the scheduled departure date of the first flight of the classic award itinerary.

Do note that after you have flown the first departure changes are not permitted for partner airlines.

Frequent Flyer Terms and Conditions | Qantas

These Terms and Conditions form the basis of Qantas Frequent Flyer, to protect both Members and the Qantas Group.

www.qantas.com

Question is whether or not it goes further than that even… book a SYD-MEL and change it later to a SYD-LHR in business.

I presume that if it keeps the same PNR, it'd keep the old pricing as it'd be an existing booking.

Just trawling through the T&Cs on changes which are (generally) as follows:

Changes after ticketing and up to 24 hours prior to commencement of any travel on your Itinerary

14.5.10 Subject to this clause 14.5, the following changes are permitted and a Change Fee per passenger will apply (see the Fee Schedule):

(a) change to flight number;
(b) change to date of travel;
(c) change to class of travel;
(d) change to any Segment routing or airline [segment being the portion of a journey between two consecutive points listed on an Itinerary]; and
(e) change to name (only for Flights with a Qantas (QF) flight number on the ticket that are operated by Qantas).

Changes to a wholly domestic Australian Itinerary after commencement of travel and up to 24 hours prior to commencement of any subsequent Flight Segment

14.5.11 Subject to this clause 14.5, the following changes are permitted and a Change Fee per passenger will apply (see the Fee Schedule):

(a) change to flight number;
(b) change to date of travel;
(c) change to class of travel; and
(d) change to a direct or indirect Segment routing without a Stopover (provided that the origin city, the destination city, and the airline remain unchanged).

Seems like a reasonable risk to take, a lot more potential upside than downside!

Just quoting and bookmarking for future reference.

Two days before the 20% increase in Qf award costs, I booked:
1) Syd-Cmb in J for 2 for May 2026....I want to push this out later when we have time to travel
2) Syd-Mel in J for 2 for Apr 2026...based on the discussion here, I hopefully can change the date and destination later at the pre increased award costs

If it doesn't work out, cancellation costs are only 6K Qf points per ticket per pax, suggesting it is a no brainer for me

 

[MEL_Traveller]

Looking more closely at the terms and conditions, it might not work to change a domestic into an international…

Changes to a wholly domestic Australian Itinerary after commencement of travel and up to 24 hours prior to commencement of any subsequent Flight Segment

14.5.11 Subject to this clause 14.5, the following changes are permitted and a Change Fee per passenger will apply (see the Fee Schedule):

(a) change to flight number;
(b) change to date of travel;
(c) change to class of travel; and
(d) change to a direct or indirect Segment routing without a Stopover (provided that the origin city, the destination city, and the airline remain unchanged).

(d) seems to indicate origin and destination must stay the same.

For international bookings, changes are permitted to any segment routing or airline. ‘segment’ is defined however as:

'Segment' means the portion of a journey between two consecutive points listed on an Itinerary. Segments may either be Flight Segments or Surface Segments;

Potential wriggle room there that you could only change the routing of an existing segment.

edited… scrap that as per below…

 

[MELso]

Looking more closely at the terms and conditions, it might not work to change a domestic into an international…

Changes to a wholly domestic Australian Itinerary after commencement of travel and up to 24 hours prior to commencement of any subsequent Flight Segment

That's only where travel's commenced.

I also realised 14.5.12 is of relevance if you're within 24 hours of a flight segment.

Changes within 24 hours of departure of a Flight Segment

14.5.12 The following changes are permitted to Qantas Flight Segments. A Change Fee will apply (see the Fee Schedule):

(a) change to flight number; and
(b) change to date of travel.

(No changes permissible for partner airlines within 24 hours per 14.5.13.)

 

[MEL_Traveller]

That's only where travel's commenced.

I also realised 14.5.12 is of relevance if you're within 24 hours of a flight segment.

Changes within 24 hours of departure of a Flight Segment

14.5.12 The following changes are permitted to Qantas Flight Segments. A Change Fee will apply (see the Fee Schedule):

(a) change to flight number; and
(b) change to date of travel.

(No changes permissible for partner airlines within 24 hours per 14.5.13.)

Yes, completely missed the ‘after commencement’!

However I do wonder if they might look more closely at the definition of ‘segment’ which is defined as the journey between any two consecutive points listed on an itinerary.

If you had a MEL-HKG, those would be the two consecutive points on your itinerary, and you could change the routing or airline. But could you change it to MEL-NRT? That’s not changing the routing of the flight segment, it’s a whole new itinerary.

 

[AIRwin]

How I get from Singapore to Australia is a different question... SCOOT sale?

SIN-MEL on JQ (with access to QF lounges in SIN)?

 

[Aeryn]

I was happy with OWA i booked a few weeks ago but that included routing via BKK and id rather not fly there given the war they are waging with Cambodia and the recent shootings at markets. Plus wanting to shorten trip.

Guess im going to have to see what I can find tonight by way of alternatives or gamble that routing and dates can be changed after 5th at old rate.

 

[AIRwin]

Well I went to book an award flight before my stock of points gets devalued tonight, as you do, and the QF website threw a new curve ball when I selected "rewards" and then the obscure town of SYD. Wondering if the QF script kiddies were tasked with making it harder to make points bookings this weekend. Deselecting the rewards button allowed me to pull up both revenue and points fares on my selected dates so I booked a points itinerary - despite the dire warning.
View attachment 462482

Perhaps it got confused between Miles (WLE) and Points?

 

[kpc]

On Channel 7 news tonight, a segment about booking award flights before the price rise on August 5th.

 

[MELso]

On Channel 7 news tonight, a segment about booking award flights before the price rise on August 5th.

 

[Noah Count]

Such insightful commentary, the masses will most likely jump on to the QF website and try and book anything and then start complaining if they cannot find anything to book.

 

[k_sheep]

Oops .... I completely forgot to book anything up

Too much work and not enough play makes my points increasingly worthless.

 

[Trekky1]

I had 200k points and today, was able to get business class to Singapore (& return) in May next year. Qantas going there via Darwin and Malaysia Airlines via KL coming back. It took me hours to find though. Particularly when I had no idea where I wanted to go, just that it would be in May/June. I looked at Vancouver, Austria, Hong King, Toronto , Rome and London.

 

[tonynhe]

Oops .... I completely forgot to book anything up

Too much work and not enough play makes my points increasingly worthless.

Just got off the phone with an agent in AKL.

I currently have a booking with AY from HEL to KIX over the Christmas period but don’t have enough QF points to book the departing leg from Australia.

I asked her whether, if I add another leg to this booking (e.g., PER–CDG) on top of HEL–KIX, which redemption table would apply. She confirmed that it would use the rates before 4 August and said it was “reasonable” for me to do so, with the only additional cost being the change fee.

I’m eyeing flights to Europe, which will increase by roughly 20k points from tomorrow, and she confirmed that I’d save 15k points if I make changes to this PNR in the future instead of making a completely new booking.