How to Earn & Redeem Points with Qantas Hotels

Qantas Hotels is an accommodation booking service with benefits for frequent flyers. You can earn at least 3 Qantas points per dollar spent on your hotel stay – or even more if there’s a promotion! Plus, you have the option to pay for all or part of your tariff at over 460,000 hotels worldwide using Qantas points.

The service is managed by Hooroo, a wholly owned subsidiary of Qantas, and a third party is used to facilitate bookings. Hence, your booking email may come from Hooroo and your hotel welcome may include, “Ah, yes – I see you booked through Expedia.”

How to book with Qantas Hotels

Book your hotel on the Qantas website under the Hotels menu. The process is self-explanatory with a simple switch to select between paying with cash or points.  

We recommend checking the price against other aggregators such as Booking.com, Agoda, Hotels.com, TripAdvisor – pick your favourite! – and the hotel’s own website. But make sure you’re comparing like with like. The cheapest price quoted by booking sites is generally non-refundable and you may want a more flexible option.

When booking accommodation through Qantas, you’ll be charged in Australian Dollars.

Using vouchers to reduce the cost

There are several ways you may be able to reduce the cost of a Qantas Hotels booking, including as a Qantas Points Club member:

• Points Club members receive a $50 voucher to use once per membership year at Qantas Hotels
• Points Club Plus members receive a $100 voucher annually
• Qantas sometimes sends out complimentary $30 vouchers following flight bookings
• Other Qantas partners offer vouchers as giveaways, e.g. BP gave away $50 vouchers in December 2022
• American Express offered a cashback opportunity on some cards earlier this year: Spend $500 at Qantas Hotels and receive $100 cash back. 

Vouchers are generally non-refundable, so plan to use them on a booking you’re unlikely to cancel.

What if you need to cancel your Qantas Hotels booking?

Under “My Bookings” when logged into your Qantas Frequent Flyer account on the Qantas website, your hotels bookings should be listed along with your flight bookings.

You can cancel easily a Qantas Hotels booking online, but first check the cancellation policy on your booking.

If you booked with points, your Qantas points refund should be instant. If you paid using cash, the refund to your original form of payment usually processes within a week.

If you part-paid with a voucher, this will be forfeited on cancellation. You can change the booking dates to retain the voucher value, but you will need to pay the difference if the tariff has gone up.

If you need to contact Qantas Hotels, there is an email address, a live chat and phone numbers provided. I’ve found the staff to be responsive and helpful.

Earning points with Qantas Hotels

Each booking with Qantas Hotels earns a minimum of 3 Qantas points per $1 spent.

Special deals offering double points – i.e. 6 points per $1 – are offered on some properties. For Australian hotels, these are listed under Hotel Deals. 

From time to time, Qantas Hotels even runs a triple-point offer! In other words, you’ll earn 9 points per $1 spent. That’s a great deal!

The latest was a flash five-day sale from 27 February to 3 March 2023, but with a 12-month booking window. Canny frequent flyers took advantage and booked all their hotels for the upcoming year.

Earning extra Qantas points

Here are a few other tips for maximising your points with Qantas Hotels:

• If your business is a member of Qantas Business Rewards, you can earn an extra 1 point per $1 by quoting your ABN when booking
• Points Club members earn a 25% bonus, and Points Club Plus members 50%, on all Qantas Hotels bookings
• Green tier members earn an extra 150 Qantas points per night for stays in eligible eco-accredited hotels.

How long does it take for the points to credit?

You only earn points after your stay. The terms and conditions state that “Qantas Points will be credited to your account at least eight weeks after check-out”, but my experience puts this between four and five weeks.

Other ways to earn Qantas Points for accommodation

Earning Qantas points with Airbnb

You can book Airbnb properties through the Qantas Hotels booking page, but your booking will be with Airbnb rather than Qantas. The link provides your Qantas Frequent Flyer number to your booking. You earn 1 Qantas point per $1 spent.

Note that you can’t use Qantas points to book with Airbnb.

Earning points with Luxury Escapes

Luxury Escapes previously partnered with Qantas Frequent Flyer. However, they are no longer partners. Instead, you can now earn Velocity points with Luxury Escapes.

Earning points through direct hotel bookings

If you hold membership with a hotel chain’s rewards program, you will want to access the perks afforded by status and to build that status. To do this, you need to book directly with the hotel. Generally, hotel status benefits are not honoured with bookings made through aggregators such as Qantas Hotels.

That said, there are ways of earning Qantas points when booking direct and still accessing hotel loyalty perks!

• Link your Qantas and Accor Live Limitless (ALL) accounts to earn Qantas points on Accor stays within Asia-Pacific, as well as your usual ALL reward points
• Earn Qantas Frequent Flyer points instead of the program’s own currency – or convert hotel points earned to Qantas points – with ALL, Choice Privileges, World of Hyatt and IHG One Rewards
• Book direct and earn points with hotel chain loyalty programs such as Marriott Bonvoy, Radisson Rewards and Hilton Honors, then transfer the hotel points to Qantas Frequent Flyer
• Earn Qantas points by including your frequent flyer number when booking with Swiss-Belhotel and TFE Hotels, whose properties include Travelodge, Vibe Hotels and Adina Apartments.

Using points to pay with for hotels

Is it worth using Qantas points for hotel bookings? This rarely, if ever, represents great value. But if you’ve accumulated a large stock of Qantas Frequent Flyer points, and you’re finding it difficult to use those points on Classic Flight Rewards or don’t fly that often, then you may consider this option to offset the cash cost of your holiday.

In 2022, Qantas improved the value of redemptions on hotel bookings. Redemptions now cost “30% fewer Qantas points than before”. In 2023 you can get upwards of 0.85 cents per point in value. 

Classic Hotel Rewards offer the best value redemptions (over one cent per point which, let’s face it, is still poor value compared to redeeming for premium cabin flights or upgrades). These offers are limited to specific properties, room types and dates. Find them under Hotel Deals on the Qantas website. 

As well as paying outright with points, you can choose to pay with a combination of points and cash. Select the Points Plus Pay option and use the slider to select your combination of each.

Is booking with Qantas Hotels good value? 

You may not find a cheaper price at Qantas Hotels, but usually they’re on a par with other booking sites – and every booking earns a minimum of 3 points per $1 spent. If you have a Points Club voucher or an Amex cashback offer then it’s a no-brainer.

There are two main downsides. Firstly, booking direct with a hotel can bring its own rewards in status, perks and discounts. Secondly, you may find better value booking with another aggregator via a cashback program such as Cashrewards or ShopBack.

Qantas no longer offers a price promise guarantee on hotel bookings.

You need to weigh up what is most valuable to you, then check and compare the options.

Bronwyn Turner

Bronwyn is a journalist and author whose passion for points collecting and travel planning led her to the Australian Frequent Flyer community. As a consultant with Frequent Flyer Concierge she helps clients travel better and further using their frequent flyer points. As a traveller she enjoys using points for the same benefits.

Bronwyn posts on the AFF forum as @BriarFlyer.