Reward Seat Release Patterns Have Changed Fundamentally

A few years ago, the easiest way to secure Business Class reward seats using points was to book as soon as your airline released the flight for sale. For Qantas flights, this meant booking just after 10 am, AEST, exactly 353 days before the date of the flight.

Booking frequent flyer redemption seats at the release date could still be a good strategy in some instances. But this doesn’t really work any more. In 2023, many airlines simply aren’t releasing reward seats that far in advance.

On which routes is Qantas releasing reward seats 353 days out?

For many years, Qantas has not released long-haul premium cabin reward seats to Bronze or Silver frequent flyers when the flights initially go on sale. But everyone would normally have access to Economy Classic Reward seats up to 353 days in advance.

Qantas would traditionally release Premium Economy, Business and First reward seats on most flights to Gold, Platinum and Platinum One members at the 353-day mark. Any remaining seats would then be made available to Silver frequent flyers with 323 days to departure, then opened up to others around 297 days out. (Note that this only applies to Qantas-operated flights.)

But even if you have Qantas status, the options at the 353-day mark are rather limited at the moment.

Australian Frequent Flyer recently conducted an audit of Qantas Frequent Flyer award availability. We checked to see what Classic Reward seats Qantas was releasing on its own flights to Gold, Platinum and Platinum One members at 10 am on the release date, 353 days in advance.

Unfortunately, there weren’t many flights with Classic Reward seats available at all – even in Economy. But there were a few exceptions.

The map below shows a summary of the Classic Reward availability that Qantas is currently releasing to each of its long-haul international destinations at the release date:

Here’s a summary of the Classic Flight Reward availability that we did find 353 days in advance on Qantas long-haul routes:

• Sydney-Johannesburg had up to 9 First Class reward seats available
• Sydney-Santiago had up to 4 Premium Economy reward seats available
• Brisbane-Los Angeles had some Economy reward seats available
• Melbourne-Los Angeles had some Economy and Premium Economy reward seats available
• Sydney-Los Angeles had up to 2 Premium Economy and up to 2 Business reward seats available
• Sydney-San Francisco had some Premium Economy reward seats available
• Sydney-Honolulu had some Economy reward seats available
• Sydney-Vancouver had some Economy reward seats available

It’s historically been quite normal for Qantas not to release Business Class reward seats to in-demand destinations such as London, Bangkok or Honolulu. But perhaps the most surprising discovery in our audit was just how few Classic Reward seats were available in Economy.

That said, the large amount of First Class award availability from Sydney to Johannesburg was a surprising (and welcome) anomaly!

Note that for this article, we’re just looking at long-haul destinations. We didn’t check availability for flights on domestic routes or to Papua New Guinea, Timor Leste, New Zealand or the Pacific Islands. That tends to be a bit better and less restricted. But, let’s face it – many Australians save up their Qantas Points with the aspiration of travelling to Europe, North America or Asia.

Qantas now tends to release Classic Reward seats in batches

Since the pandemic, as you can see, Qantas is no longer consistently releasing Classic Reward seats on most international flights as soon as they go on sale. Instead, Qantas seems to be releasing award availability in large batches and at random times.

This is why you might find that there are no Business Class reward seats on any Qantas flights to London at all – then suddenly the next day there might be multiple seats available on every single flight in May.

There are upsides and downsides to batch releases. The downside is that these are relatively unpredictable, and if you don’t happen to snap up a seat within a few hours of release, it will probably be gone. In the past, mass award seat releases that have been highly publicised have also crashed the Qantas website.

The upside is that the seats become more accessible to Silver and Bronze frequent flyers, as they have just as much chance to quickly snap up the availability as anyone else.

Some of these batch releases have been used by Qantas as publicity stunts, such as the “Points Plane” promotions. Other award availability releases are unannounced – but often get picked up quickly on forums such as AFF.

Qantas isn’t alone

We’ve seen similar trends with other airlines since international travel restarted following the pandemic.

For example, United Airlines and Hawaiian Airlines are now mostly releasing premium cabin reward seats in batches around 1-6 months out from departure. Emirates has also been less consistent with making redemption seats available at the initial release date – but often releases more availability closer to the date of the flight.

Why are airlines releasing award availability in batches?

In the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic, airlines have found it a lot harder to predict demand. Many airlines have also been able to command very high airfares from paying customers. Clearly, seats sold at full price are much more profitable for airlines.

Airlines control the availability of Classic Reward seats to try to maximise their revenue, while also trying to keep frequent flyers happy. It’s a fine balance, but airlines don’t want to “give away” too many reward seats when they could have sold those seats to full fare-paying customers. This is known in the industry as “high-yield spill”. So, many airlines have held back on releasing reward seats until they have a better idea of the demand for a particular flight.

On the other hand, when airline revenue managers notice closer to departure that fewer seats on a given flight or route have been sold than expected, they may release more reward seats to help fill up the flight.

Ultimately, airlines want to extract as much revenue as they can from every take-off. This means selling each seat for the highest possible price. But if a flight takes off with empty seats, those seats generate no revenue at all. So an airline would rather fill it with someone using their points than not at all.

This is all very hard to predict a year in advance – but even more so in the current uncertain environment. That’s why airlines have become slower to release award seats to frequent flyer program members.

Which airlines still release award seats 11-12 months in advance?

There are still some airlines that make award seats available as soon as flights go on sale. This includes Malaysia Airlines, Japan Airlines, China Airlines and Fiji Airways – all of which are Qantas partner airlines.

Previously, Qatar Airways also reliably released two Business Class award seats per flight around 355 days before departure. But this has become less consistent in recent months. (Qantas Frequent Flyer members can’t access those seats anyway, but Qatar Airways Privilege Club members could.)

British Airways, Iberia and Virgin Atlantic even guarantee a minimum number of reward seats on every flight. Finnair will make the same pledge after it adopts Avios as its new points currency next year.

Frequent flyers need new award booking strategies

If you’re planning an overseas trip up to a year in advance, you may still be able to find reward seats 11-12 months out using one of the airlines mentioned above. Or, use one of the (few) Qantas routes where Classic Reward seats are still released that far ahead.

Otherwise, you may find it easier to book closer to departure. These days, you’re more likely to find seats 1-3 months out than 11-12 months out. Some airlines, such as Emirates, have even got into the habit of releasing extra Business and First Class reward seats within just a few days of departure.

The unpredictable nature of reward seat releases in 2023 is also where award seat alerts come into their own. You can set alerts for award availability using tools such as Seats.aero, AwardFares or ExpertFlyer.

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.