How to book domestic QantasLink flights in Australia with Avios points

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• Nate says:

  11 May11 May 05:36

  OT. On my Amex card I have 2 Harvey Nichols offers saved. One is spend £100 get £30 credit, and then also spend £100 get £20 credit.

  My question is will the offers stack up – ie if I spend £100 will I get a £50 credit? Secondly I can see the offer states specifically that gift cards are excluded but in the past for Harrods the same rule applied but it worked fine when purchasing gift cards (as the system could not distinguish). Does anyone know if this is the case?

  • Shoestring says:

    11 May11 May 07:03

    yes – stacking reported – though often only 1 success email goes out

    giftcards – that’s a yes normally when bought in-store, not sure about online

  • d4ve says:

    11 May11 May 10:01

    I only have one offer and intend going in today to get a gift card. Have done successfully for the last 3 or 4 offers at HN. Not tried online.

• iain wilson says:

  11 May11 May 06:14

  or book for cash on jetstar. much cheaper, although the service is not the same.

  • Lyn says:

    11 May11 May 08:48

    Not necessarily cheaper than using Avios on a Qantas flight though.

    Jetstar has a surprising number of restrictions regarding luggage, lounge access, seat assignments, earning points, and even airport bus transfers in Sydney. I think some of these restrictions also apply if you book Jetstar flights via Qantas, but I don’t know if this applies if booked with avios, or indeed if they are even bookable using Avios,

    • Callum says:

      11 May11 May 09:22

      Jetstar isn’t bookable with avios.

      It’s a budget airline, it behaves pretty much how any other budget airline does so I’m not sure what’s surprising about it? Or what you mean by them having a restriction on Sydney airport bus transfers?

      • Lyn says:

        11 May11 May 10:49

        Re my comment Sydney airport bus transfers – if you book an international Qantas award flight into Sydney International terminal with an onward connection to, say, Melbourne, apparently it makes a difference if the connection is on a Qantas or Jetstar flight. If it is Qantas, they check your luggage through and you go the Qantas connection point airside and take their free bus, arriving airside in the domestic terminal. If it is Jetstar, you are on your own to transfer to domestic, and have to go landside, and pay for the transfer yourself. Not sure if you have have to take your luggage with you, but I think you may have to. All of which adds extra time during the connection, which you have to remember to factor in. Since Jetstar is owned by Qantas, and Qantas is issuing the award, I find that surprising.

      • guesswho2000 says:

        11 May11 May 17:53

        JQ is a LCC, but it’s owned by QF. QF status does hold weight on JQ though, in that you can access QF lounges, etc. but that’s a QF benefit, not a Oneworld benefit.

        JQ will only interline baggage with their partners on intl-intl transfers, such as from AKL-SYD on JQ connecting to an onward QF SYD to SIN, with few exceptions. This is annoying, however if it’s on the same ticket (as it can be with QF), then it doesn’t matter.

        The intl-dom transfer situation at SYD is a pita, VA transfers go landslide and take you along normal roads with all the traffic, however QF operate the one which covers only Oneworld flights, and while still a pain, this is airside and there’s no need to pass through security again (although you do go through immi on landing at SYD from overseas, obviously).

• Mark Hunter says:

  11 May11 May 06:46

  For domestic and trans-Tasman flights the availability of reward seats shows on the Qantas website without having to be a member of their scheme – no need to log in.

• Scallder says:

  11 May11 May 06:55

  For domestic Air NZ flights also look on their main .co.nz website as flights are much cheaper in NZD than GBP. When I bought some last year the figure was the same number in both NZD and GBP meaning the UK website was 80-90% more than the NZ one!

  • Shoestring says:

    11 May11 May 07:03

    sweet

  • Mikeact says:

    11 May11 May 08:20

    This is exactly what we’ve done on our last two visits, amazing value to get around Aus and NZ, including Avios as well, and very easy to book. Business class exceptional value, if you can get seats, which we did, but the rules may have changed….down the back only. We also took advantage on the Qantas runs to get over to Fiji, again, on Avios…but be aware they only have a couple of Island destinations from Brisbane, Sydney or Adelaide and high season seats are tough to get , but with patience while over there, we did it. And then over to Hobart….excellent Avios redemptions. Some of the locals just couldn’t believe where we had been/were going, and at such low cost. It probably helps that Australians are in the minority when it comes to Avios as it is not a main player down there…KrisFlyer is the big one.

    • John says:

      11 May11 May 09:58

      Well you can’t even join BAEC with an Australian address

    • guesswho2000 says:

      11 May11 May 17:38

      I think you’d be surprised at how many of us use Avios…as is noted, QF domestics can be insanely expensive, and they offer better value than using QFF points on short hauls, even buying the points outright in a promotion is fairly common.

• William Denby says:

  11 May11 May 07:22

  I used this all year when living in Perth WA and I can tell you it gets incredible value for your miles. A lot of QantasLink routes are just them flying it and the fares are high. Perth – Exmouth for Ningaloo Reef was an excellent example.

• NigelT says:

  11 May11 May 07:34

  We use Avios for internal Oz flights every year. I have found the award nexus website the easiest way to find availability especially for business class flights which are very expensive

• Jay says:

  11 May11 May 08:28

  OT: Morning all, I’m pretty new to this game of collecting AVIOS and taking advantage of all the hotel promos. this site and community is great and extremely helpful!

  I hold an Amex Plat, and am building up a good amount of HH points, and have just recently transferred 25k Accor to Iberia,..

  My question is: I’m weighing up whether to grab the Virgin credit card, I might do one long haul trip a year to USA in future, but normally would be looking at European city breaks. The Tax+charges puts me off Virgin Flying Club. * Will my effort and time be better spent on building up a stash of BA points rather than Virgin Flying Club? or do you think with KLM/Air France partnership with Virgin coming up, their European offering will be better? Thanks, Jay

  • Shoestring says:

    11 May11 May 08:36

    You can’t really say no to 12,000 easy miles on the free card unless you have a mortgage or loan application coming up, I guess (credit check)

    Easy to keep Virgin miles alive – can always use for hotels if no flights appeal

    It’s like: do you want 12K easy free miles? or not?

    • Shoestring says:

      11 May11 May 08:57

      And a neat one from Charlie last night if you want 1000 AAdvantage miles for free:

      OT: I needed a few American AAdvantage miles, and found their US e-shopping portal, works similar to the BA one. Anyway there’s an offer for 2 months of electronic edition Wall Street Journal for $1+tax, awarding 1000 miles. Must remember to cancel otherwise it will renew at full price.

      I managed to get this to work fine, using a pretend zip code.

      • Lyn says:

        11 May11 May 10:55

        I added a comment on yesterday’s post this morning. Also should work on Alaska, but only for 700 miles. There is a 45 day restriction in the Alaska / American terms, so in theory you only have a period of a couple of weeks in which to cancel.

  • Mikeact says:

    11 May11 May 08:48

    I think you’ve answered your own question……Iberia you mentioned…then it’s probably Avios. One trip a year to the US via Avios/Iberia out of Madrid….save a ton of money and Avios.

  • Rob says:

    11 May11 May 10:57

    Truth is that we don’t know how the VS/KLM thing will end up.

    I am doing a piece tomorrow on Virgin partner redemptions in general which may give you some more ideas over what you could do with them. Your Amex points give you an easy way of topping up Virgin if necessary.

• Dan says:

  11 May11 May 08:30

  I would echo what others have said , used many times and it’s amazing value with taxes incredibly low.

  Qantas (mainline) have a great product on the longer trans con flights mostly using A330s.

  On some occasions when arriving early at the airport staff have even moved us into earlier flights without cost, this must completely depend on staff discretion as we have also been politely refused.

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