Maximise your Avios, air miles and hotel points

NEW: Credit KLM and Air France flights to Qantas, and then redeem the miles on British Airways

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Qantas and Air France-KLM have a launched a new partnership which allows you to collect Qantas Points on ALL Air France and KLM flights.  As you can redeem Qantas Points for British Airways flights, this opens up interesting new opportunities.

Before I cover this in detail, let’s look at the background to this deal.

Qantas and Air France-KLM have an established codeshare

Late in 2018 we covered the new codeshare agreement between Qantas and Air France-KLM.  This is an interesting deal because the airlines are part of different alliances – Qantas is a member of oneworld, alongside British Airways, whilst Air France and KLM are core members of SkyTeam.

Earning Qantas points with Air France KLM

We have previously covered one strange little quirk from this new arrangement.  If you fly on KLM or Air France from Amsterdam or Paris to Singapore or Hong Kong, booked under the Qantas codeshare so your flight has a QF flight number, you can credit it to British Airways Executive Club and earn Avios and tier points.

You can do the same with Emirates.  As this article shows, book an Emirates flight with a Qantas flight number instead of an ‘EK’ Emirates flight number and it earns Avios and tier points.

It is important to note that Qantas is the only oneworld airline which lets you earn Avios and tier points when your flight has a oneworld flight code BUT is operated by a non-oneworld carrier.  The reasoning behind this is lost in the midst of time but relates to the now-dissolved BA and Qantas joint venture between the UK and Australia.

The Qantas joint venture with Air France-KLM has evolved

Last week, Qantas and Air France-KLM announced a deepening of their relationship.

You can now earn Qantas Points on ALL Air France and KLM flights.  They don’t need to have a Qantas flight number – any flight with an AF or KL flight number which is operated by Air France or KLM (no codeshares) counts.

What does this mean for you?

For UK residents, this opens up an interesting option.

If you fly Air France or KLM on a regular basis, you could start crediting your flights to Qantas Frequent Flyer instead of Flying Blue or any other SkyTeam frequent flyer partner.

This would allow you to redeem your points for British Airways flights, or indeed any other oneworld partner flight, via Qantas.

This isn’t necessary as great as it sounds though.  There are a few reasons why this may not be a great idea:

Firstly, you can’t merge your Qantas Points and Avios together.  You could book a one-way British Airways flight on Avios and book the return flight using Qantas Points.

Secondly, it isn’t easy to top-up your Qantas Points if you are short of what you need for a redemption.  They are not a UK American Express Membership Rewards partner, for example.

Thirdly, the Qantas Frequent Flyer reward chart is not hugely generous.  Take a look here at their chart for redemptions on partner airlines such as British Airways (the original is here) and remember that this is one-way pricing:

Qantas Frequent Flyer redemptions

Fourthly, you would be paying full taxes on European British Airways redemption flights – which is how most HFP readers would use a small pot of Qantas Points – instead of the reduced Reward Flight Saver fee of £35 return in Euro Traveller.  These flights will also, in general, require more Qantas Points than BA would require Avios.

Don’t forget the Virgin Atlantic / Air France / KLM partnership either

Starting VERY soon, you will be able to credit all Air France and KLM flights to Virgin Flying Club.

This is probably more attractive than crediting them to Qantas Frequent Flyer, because there are far more options for topping up a Virgin Flying Club balance.  It also opens up a new wave of airlines on which you can redeem.

I am expecting an announcement in the next few weeks on when you can start crediting Air France and KLM to Virgin.

Conclusion

If you have occasional Air France and KLM flights but have zero interest in Flying Blue miles, this new Qantas partnership gives you a new option which can see you ending up with a British Airways redemption.

For many HfP readers, however, I think Virgin Flying Club will soon be a more natural place to credit their Air France and KLM activity.


How to earn Avios points from UK credit cards

How to earn Avios from UK credit cards (December 2021)

As a reminder, there are various ways of earning Avios points from UK credit cards.  Many cards also have generous sign-up bonuses!

There are two official British Airways American Express cards with attractive sign-up bonuses:

British Airways BA Amex American Express card

British Airways American Express

5,000 Avios for signing up, no annual fee and an Economy 2-4-1 voucher for spending ….. Read our full review

British Airways BA Premium Plus American Express Amex credit card

British Airways American Express Premium Plus

25,000 Avios and the UK’s most valuable credit card perk – the 2-4-1 companion voucher Read our full review

You can also get generous sign-up bonuses by applying for American Express cards which earn Membership Rewards points, such as:

Nectar American Express

American Express Preferred Rewards Gold

Your best beginner’s card – 20,000 points, FREE for a year & two airport lounge passes Read our full review

American Express Platinum card Amex

The Platinum Card from American Express

30,000 points and an unbeatable set of travel benefits – for a fee Read our full review

Run your own business?

We recommend Capital On Tap for limited companies. You earn 1 Avios per £1 which is impressive for a Visa card, along with a sign-up bonus worth 10,500 Avios:

Capital On Tap Business Rewards Visa

The most generous Avios Visa or Mastercard for a limited company Read our full review

You should also consider the British Airways Accelerating Business credit card. This is open to sole traders as well as limited companies and has a 30,000 Avios sign-up bonus:

British Airways Accelerating Business American Express card

British Airways Accelerating Business American Express

30,000 Avios sign-up bonus – plus annual bonuses of up to 30,000 Avios Read our full review

Click here to read our detailed summary of all UK credit cards which earn Avios. This includes both personal and small business cards.

(Want to earn more Avios?  Click here to visit our home page for our latest articles on earning and spending your Avios points and click here to see how to earn more Avios this month from offers and promotions.)

Comments (25)

This article is closed to new posts. Discussion continues in the HfP Forums.

  • MoJack says:

    *necessarily @rob slight typo

  • Kenny says:

    OT. I’ve got a 241 BA Amex ticket, and am thinking of flying to Nassau next Dec 2020/Jan 2021.. but am horrified that 10 nights stay at Nassau Hilton is over £2k (based on what I saw for next month).. and that’s like 50% promotional rate! Anyone knows the best way to have a nice stay without going broke? Thanks..

  • Shaheer says:

    Is it possible to move existing Flying Blue points to Qantas and then to Avios? I have about 70k Flying Blue points but those of are not much use to me

  • Martin says:

    How to do this? I don’t see Qantas as an option in the dropdown when adding FF number.

  • Chris says:

    What about vice versa? If flying with Qantas, would I be able to credit the points to AF/KLM’s Flying Blue?

    And with the new VA / AF / KLM partnership, would I be able to earn FlyingBlue points when flying Virgin non-code-shared?

This article is closed to new posts. Discussion continues in the HfP Forums.