Want to Fly to Europe? Collect a Flexible Points Currency!

A few years ago, Qantas Frequent Flyer points were a very useful currency if you wanted to fly from Australia to Europe in Business Class. You could relatively easily redeem points for Business Class seats to Europe on Emirates, Qatar Airways or China Eastern. Unfortunately, this is no longer the case.

Qantas points still have value, and there are still options if you want to use your points to get to Europe. But finding Qantas Classic Flight Reward availability in premium cabins has become supremely difficult, especially if you want to fly during peak periods.

Qatar Airways is now blocking Qantas Frequent Flyer members from accessing most of its Business Class reward seats. In addition, Emirates is releasing very few seats to Australia (plus, those that do exist now cost more points and come with insane fuel surcharges). And with China still closed to tourists, China Eastern is off the table for now.

Instead, most of the Business Class reward flight options that are available to Europe on Qantas points now involve multiple long layovers and blown-out travel times.

Redeeming Singapore Airlines KrisFlyer miles to Europe

At the same time, redeeming Singapore Airlines KrisFlyer miles to Europe is relatively easy. You can often find up to four Business Saver award seats – and sometimes even six seats – on many Singapore Airlines flights from Australia to Europe.

Plus, the number of KrisFlyer miles required is lower than the amount of Qantas points you’d need for an equivalent Qantas Frequent Flyer redemption. To top it off, Singapore Airlines has no carrier or fuel surcharges!

Redeeming Velocity Frequent Flyer points to Europe

Meanwhile, Velocity Frequent Flyer has re-emerged this year as a useful points currency for travel to Europe. You can now book many of the Qatar Airways reward seats that were taken away from Qantas Frequent Flyer members using Velocity points. Velocity points can also be redeemed to fly with Etihad and Singapore Airlines to Europe.

There are often up to two Business Reward seats available to book on Qatar Airways or Etihad out of Australia with Velocity points. Unfortunately, Velocity does now impose carrier charges on Etihad, Qatar Airways and Singapore Airlines redemptions. But at least there is some reward seat availability.

For Velocity members, that’s a vast improvement over the situation throughout most of 2020 and 2021 when you couldn’t redeem Velocity points to fly on any partner airlines. Compare this to the situation less than three years ago, in April 2020, when many panicked Velocity members could not “cash out” their points fast enough!

Earlier this year, Velocity also switched back on transfers to the Singapore Airlines KrisFlyer program. This provides another useful avenue for Velocity members to be able to use their points to fly to Europe.

Points collected today are for use in the future

If you were trying to redeem points to fly to Europe right now, you’d have to say that Singapore Airlines KrisFlyer miles (or Air Canada Aeroplan points) would arguably be the most desirable currencies to have. But that doesn’t necessarily mean that will still be the case a few years from now.

Here’s the thing: If you’re collecting points now, you’re probably collecting them because you want to redeem them to travel in the future. Looking at current and past award availability trends is useful. But as they say, past performance is not a reliable indicator of future performance.

In a few years’ time, the tables could have turned completely. Qantas Frequent Flyer might have much better reward seat availability to Europe, or Singapore Airlines may have drastically increased their prices or decreased availability. Who knows!

Indeed, Qantas Frequent Flyer actually did release a rare batch of Classic Flight Reward seats in Business Class to London last week. The airline has also hinted that it will create more Points Plane opportunities in the coming months. That said, at this stage Qantas has only committed to releasing “up to 50% more” Classic Flight Reward seats until 30 June 2023. After that date, Classic Flight Reward availability could plummet again… we just don’t know yet.

Credit card rewards programs offer great flexibility

For this reason, if you’re earning many of your points through credit cards, it’s a really good idea to collect a flexible points currency such as Amex Membership Rewards, ANZ Rewards, NAB Rewards or Westpac Altitude points.

By earning points with a bank-operated rewards program, rather than a co-branded credit card that exclusively earns Qantas or Velocity points, you can spread the risk of one particular frequent flyer program currency losing value through price increases or a lack of award availability.

Most Australian bank loyalty programs provide the option to transfer points to multiple different airlines, as you need them. Those points generally don’t expire as long as your card account remains open. (The exceptions are ANZ Rewards, NAB Rewards, HSBC Rewards Plus and Bankwest More Rewards points which expire after 3 years.)

This gives you the ultimate flexibility, allowing you to transfer the points into whichever frequent flyer program has the best reward flight pricing and availability when you actually want to use the points.

Transferring Australia credit card reward points

The AFF Credit Card Points Transfer Matrix shows a full list of the frequent flyer programs that you can transfer Australian credit card reward points to.

Many Australians seem to just collect Qantas points by default. Some people will indeed get good value out of their Qantas points, but others may realise several years later that the points are harder to use for their desired redemption than they thought. This is partly because so many Australians only collect Qantas points – meaning a huge number of people are competing for finite award availability on Qantas and its partner airlines.

If you collect Qantas points exclusively, you’re stuck with Qantas points. But if you collect a flexible points currency, you have other options.

If you’re collecting points because you want to travel in a few years’ time, have a good think about which currency you’re collecting and why. It may be wise to switch to a credit card that lets you earn a flexible points currency which can be transferred at a later time to multiple different airlines, as this gives you much greater flexibility and a better chance of attaining your travel goals.

You can leave a comment or discuss this topic on the Australian Frequent Flyer forum.

To learn more about the current situation with award availability and the benefits of collecting a flexible points currency, you may also be interested in the most recent episode of the AFF on Air podcast!

Matt Graham

The editor of Australian Frequent Flyer, Matt's passion for travel has taken him to over 70 countries… with the help of frequent flyer points, of course!
Matt's favourite destinations (so far) are Germany, Brazil & Kazakhstan. His interests include economics, aviation & foreign languages, and he has a soft spot for good food and red wine.

You can connect with Matt by posting on the Australian Frequent Flyer community forum and tagging @AFF Editor.