7 Partner Airline Rewards You Can’t Book with Qantas Points

Qantas Frequent Flyer members can redeem their points to fly with a total of 26 airlines including Qantas, Jetstar, all Oneworld airlines and a host of other unaffiliated partners such as Emirates, WestJet and El Al.

This gives frequent flyers lots of ways to spend Qantas points in the air. But not every seat is available to book on every partner airline.

Of course, some airlines restrict award availability on popular routes and could impose “blackout dates” where frequent flyer redemption seats aren’t offered over peak periods. But there are also some specific routes and cabin classes on Qantas partner airlines that are never available to book as Qantas Classic Flight Reward seats.

There is simply no way to redeem Qantas points for these seats as the functionality doesn’t exist within the Qantas Frequent Flyer program…

1. Iberia Premium Economy

Iberia offers Premium Economy on its long-haul Airbus A330-300 and A350-900 flights.

Award seats are available to book through other Oneworld frequent flyer programs including British Airways Executive Club and American Airlines AAdvantage. But even though Iberia introduced Premium Economy back in 2017, it’s still not yet available to book using Qantas points.

2. Air France First Class

This next one isn’t unique to Qantas Frequent Flyer. Although you can redeem Qantas points for Air France flights in Economy or Business Class, Air France does not release First Class award seats to any partner airlines.

In fact, even most members of Air France’s own Flying Blue program can’t redeem their miles for a seat in Air France’s prestigious “La Première” cabin. You need to have Flying Blue Gold or Platinum status for the privilege of spending a large quantity of Flying Blue miles on that!

3. Air France Premium Economy

Unfortunately, it’s also impossible to redeem Qantas points for a Premium Economy seat on Air France. In this case though, it’s not because Air France is saving these seats for their own top-tier frequent flyers – Qantas’ systems just don’t see them.

Unfortunately, the lack of access to Premium Economy awards on partner airlines is a common issue in the airline industry which we’ve covered previously.

4. Emirates Premium Economy

Emirates began rolling out Premium Economy on selected aircraft last year. But for some reason, the airline is not yet even selling Premium Economy seats for cash – let alone making the seats available to book using points with other airlines.

Presumably, this will change soon once more Emirates planes are fitted with Premium Economy cabins and the airline starts selling the seats properly.

5. WestJet Premium & Business Class

Canadian airline WestJet offers Premium Class on many of its domestic flights, as well as Business Class on its long-haul flights between Canada and Europe. Unfortunately, Qantas Frequent Flyer members can only access Economy reward seats on WestJet.

This isn’t Qantas’ fault – WestJet just doesn’t make its premium cabin seats available as reward seats. In fact, WestJet doesn’t even have a designated fare class for premium cabin award inventory.

6. Air New Zealand international flights

Qantas Frequent Flyer members can redeem points for many Air New Zealand domestic flights within New Zealand. But that’s where this partnership ends – there is no possibility to redeem Qantas points on any Air New Zealand international flights.

In fairness, the codeshare partnership between Qantas and Air New Zealand only covers domestic connections within New Zealand anyway. It’s not a fully fledged frequent flyer partnership, and nor is it likely to ever be.

7. China Airlines flights to destinations other than Australia

Qantas Frequent Flyer members have access to reward seats in Economy, Premium Economy & Business Class on China Airlines flights from Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane to Taipei. In fact, award availability is currently wide open in every class of travel on most flights (which isn’t surprising given Taiwan is currently closed). But there is no possibility to redeem Qantas points on any other China Airlines routes.

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

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.