The Qantas Classic Rewards With No Taxes or Charges

When redeeming Qantas Frequent Flyer points to book reward flights, you’ll always need to pay taxes and charges in addition to the points. Well, almost always!

The taxes and charges on frequent flyer redemption bookings comprise of two parts. The first part is the third-party government taxes and airport fees that apply to all tickets. These are also payable when buying a commercial airfare with money, where they simply are included as part of the ticket price.

The second component is carrier charges, which are sometimes known as fuel surcharges. This payment, if applicable, goes directly to the airline operating your flight.

Fuel surcharges were originally introduced due to rising fuel costs and were aligned to the price of fuel. They are now little more than a cash grab by airlines looking to make a bit of extra money when someone redeems their points for a seat.

The amount of fuel or carrier surcharges payable on reward flights varies wildly between airlines. Some airlines don’t charge them at all, while Qantas and Virgin Australia have moderate carrier charges. On Emirates, the carrier charges are so outrageously expensive that they can add up to over $4,000 on a return ticket!

Qantas partner airlines with no carrier surcharges

As the carrier charges payable are dictated by the operating airline, you can avoid paying these by redeeming Qantas points for Classic Flight Reward tickets on partner airlines that don’t have them.

Of Qantas’ 25 partner airlines, the following generally pass on no or low carrier surcharges:

• Air New Zealand (redemptions only possible on domestic routes)
• Alaska Airlines
• American Airlines (carrier charges may apply on certain routes)
• Air Vanuatu
• Fiji Airways
• El Al
• LATAM Airlines
• Westjet

When redeeming Qantas points to fly with any of these airlines, you’ll just pay any third-party taxes that may apply to your itinerary.

On bookings with low taxes and no additional carrier charges, the co-payment could even be less than $2. For example, regional flights within New Zealand where there is no security screening (and therefore no associated airport fees) have very low taxes.

But there’s one specific type of Qantas Classic Flight Reward that attracts no carrier charges and zero taxes!

No taxes or charges on Japan Airlines domestic flight rewards

When redeeming Qantas points for a Japan Airlines (JAL) domestic flight, there is currently no co-payment whatsoever. You won’t pay even a cent out of your own pocket.

We checked a range of domestic routes within Japan. The taxes and carrier charges on all combinations of Qantas Classic Flight Reward bookings for travel on Japan Airlines were zero Japanese yen. (Converted to Australian dollars, that’s… well… $0.)

Connecting itineraries attract no taxes either, as you can see from the flight amount breakdown shown below.

This doesn’t quite work when redeeming Qantas points for Jetstar Japan domestic flights because there is a carrier charge of JPY968 (~AU$10).

When buying domestic airfares within Japan, there is normally a “Japan Passenger Facility Charge Domestic Departures” charge of around JPY710-790 (~AU$8) per ticket. It appears this isn’t currently being charged when booking a Classic Flight Reward ticket through Qantas Frequent Flyer.

Taxes and carrier charges do apply when redeeming points for Japan Airlines international flights.

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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.