Valuing points for international flights

[nutwood]

Curious as to how people value points for international use? I have a family member travelling to Munich at the end of the year. It's a group thing so we just fork over cash and they travel the cheapest way.
Out of interest, I investigated how it would work out if I were able to use Qantas points and book them J. I was amazed at how many would be needed. Could quite easily blow 1.5 M points ex Launceston return. At the usual $0.01/point value, that's very expensive travel. Even in Economy, the figures were terrible.
I almost exclusively travel domestically, so have no experience using points for international trips. Are the horrible figures simply the result of me being lazy and investigating via the Qantas search engine, rather than being creative? It's not going to happen so I was only being curious but compared to the value I'd get if I were to book J domestically, it seemed a very poor conversion. I could book twenty return trips LST -PER in J, for the same points as one LST-MUC. That'd be $80k's worth of taxpayers money if I were a politician!

 

[Saltywings]

You must have been looking at Qantas' prices for 'Any Seat' awards, with points prices tied to the actual cash price of the ticket. This will be expensive (with the small ancillary benefit that you still earn status credits and a token amount of points).

What you're looking for are the prices under the 'Classic Flight Award', which are priced according to distance zones. This AusBT guide covers it well.

 

[blu]

and limited to 280k points with a 'oneworld classic award':
"oneworld" award (140K/280K/420K) Planning - The Definitive Thread

 

[nutwood]

You must have been looking at Qantas' prices for 'Any Seat' awards, with points prices tied to the actual cash price of the ticket. This will be expensive (with the small ancillary benefit that you still earn status credits and a token amount of points).

What you're looking for are the prices under the 'Classic Flight Award', which are priced according to distance zones. This AusBT guide covers it well.

Ah-ha, I see what you mean . I thought I must have been missing something. It wasn't a serious search as I started off to simply compare prices with what we're being quoted as the group travel. Then I saw the points option, clicked it and nearly fell off my chair!
Many thanks for putting me straight.

 

[Pleb Status]

My current experience with QFF is that the 'value of QFF points' when looking to travel internationally in premium cabins is now irrelevant. If there is no J/F availability, then the effective 'value of QFF points' cannot be determined or is just zero.

As part of Project Burn, I was looking to book a J/F seat HKG-PER in July/August 2019 using QFF points. No J seats are available at all direct and it would appear that only three J seats (and no F) are available on any HKG-Australia flight during that two month time frame (two QF flights HKG-SYD, one flight QF HKG-MEL and nothing on CX at all). None of the options available were (remotely) preferable and flying via the East coast significantly adds to the total flight time and points cost.

As I am committed to travel, I ended up booking a SQ Saver J award seat HKG-SIN-PER. SQ had Advantage J seats available every day I checked and Saver J seats available on most days. Despite the SQ KF booking needing significantly less points (the recently elevated 36,500 KF vs 65,000 QFF) and taxes/surcharges, I would have preferred to book on the direct CX flight solely to burn some of my QFF points.

My QFF points had no value for international flights in this real world case....

 

[mviy]

If you have status, make sure you login before searching for seats. Also July/August is a busy time to travel (Northern Hemisphere Summer etc.)

To secure seats for around that time of year if released you’d want to have been looking sometime late in 2018 calendar year.

 

[Pleb Status]

If you have status, make sure you login before searching for seats. Also July/August is a busy time to travel (Northern Hemisphere Summer etc.)

To secure seats for around that time of year if released you’d want to have been looking sometime late in 2018 calendar year.

I have booked 'one or two' QFF award flights over the years and therefore have some idea how to do it. Thanks for your advice however.

Other FF programs have reasonable to plenty of availability over the same period I want to fly (and not when they want me to fly). Even VA (possibly surprisingly?) has at least 22 flights HKG-Australia with J availability (on their own metal) over the same July/August 2019 time period.

Summary of July/August 2019 J HKG-Australia availability (searching as a QF LTG, VA WP and KF nothing) - QF - 3 flights, VA - at least 22 flights, SQ - too many to count.

I have plenty of QFF points but cannot use them. QFF points value for international flights is basically irrelevant.

 

[RichardMEL]

I do tend to agree with Pleb Status' point that if you can't get what you're looking to use the points for then the value is essentialy 0.

As with all these schemes, IMO, it's an ability to be flexible and looking for the best options and probably having to even look to combining awards over programs (in PS's case, it wound up being just SQ). Now of course not everyone has the ability to do this and that makes it that much harder unfortunately. I myself have combined both QF and UA rewards(UA on SQ and TG J/F) to suit what I wanted to do and I was lucky I could. It can be difficult.

Of course if one CAN find the reward seats they want then the value can absolutely be there.. and every case is different and thus the "value" will be to.

 

[Longtoo]

The value of FF point is not based on rational economics. It depends on when, where to spend the points and who own them. It is best if you can plan 12 months ahead to redeem for classic award in J or upgrade to J if you are a frequent traveler and work would only pay for an economy ticket.

I have always advised friends and relatives to stay away from spending to collect FF points (unless they can transfer to me of course).

Back to the OP, a possible approach is to use your money, position yourself in an Asian city via a discount economy ticket, then get a cheap business ticket to Europe, then a low cost (or train) to the final destination. Of course, there is time and risk (of miss connection) with this.