Best ways to book a family for Business class return using Qantas points from Sydney to London via Dubai?

Hi there,

Love the website! getting really good at collecting the points but need some help in using them efficiently and effectively.

I want some assistance finding out how best to book a family visit to London (2 adults, 2 kids) efficiently and using QFF points for Business Class. I’m a Platinum FF and have over 1.5 million points. Can you recommend anyone to help me with this? Even someone that offers this as a service?

Hi,

Based on a quick check on the Qantas website, you would need 274k QFF pts per person for a stopover in Dubai and London. Redemptions for kids above 2 years old costs the same as adults.

Depending on how challenging you find booking 4 seats, you can consider using paid award booking services. One such example of businesses that provides this service is iflyflat. Tell Steve you are from PointHacks.

Good luck.

 

Hey there,

I’m not really aware of any companies that act as agents and will book QFF points redemptions on your behalf. Qantas try not to monetise their program, in that it’s there for their members to make use of to gain rewards for their loyalty and not for private agents to profit off to make money for by using it to their advantage. They’re quite strict on this point and have been known to cancel memberships and reclaim points, cancel award tickets etc if they feel that someone or a company has sold points or manipulated services offered by the program for monetary gain.

As a Qantas platinum member you’ll find it easier than the rest of us, but you’re basically either on your own navigating their site to find the seats which you need or you can call their frequent flyer service centre.

Booking on the site you would need to search for a multi-city award booking, and to then piece together the itinerary you want flight by flight. It should be relatively easy for you to do, as you’ve got top of the pile priority for access to the seats.

Otherwise if you’d rather you can call Qantas and have one of their agents make the booking for you. From memory they charge a service charge of about $30 per ticket when making award bookings over the phone, however if you’re unsure of whether or not you’ve done the best job to utilise your points then this would be best for you as you will have a QFF employee walking you through it and piecing it all together for you.

Hope that helps!

personally I’ve heard from others I wouldn’t recommend iflyflat. it’s very expensive and service is indifferent, he charges $2500 per return booking. so you would pay $10,000 for your family of 4. which is more than one return business ticket to Europe. Which is for at most a few hours of searching or sometimes less.

you can easily book flights to London yourself . the Qantas Frequent flyer rewards flight search is very easy to follow, just be flexible on dates. the only caveat is you are unlikely to get 4 seats together . another alternative as Jimmy said is call Qantas directly. as a platinum you get premium service so they will find flights for you, it’s actually $70 per person (from 1 May) or 6,000 points which you could easily use (not sure if this goes up). for for a small fee of 24,000 points or $280 (+ taxes)  vs $10,000, you choose.

 

best to have flexible dates in mind.

you have 2 airline options to get to London using QFF points via Dubai

  1. Qantas via Dubai
  2. Emirates via Dubai (although some bookings are via Bangkok then Dubai)
however using these other airlines may give you more options on available seats. Qatar would have similar journey time
  1. British Airways via Singapore
  2. Cathay via Hong Kong
  3. Malaysia via Kuala Lumpur
  4. Japan Airlines via Tokyo
  5. Qatar via Doha
Although some flight options particularly via HK and Singapore or even Bangkok may mix up airlines.

if you want longer than a 24 hour stopover it will be treated as 2 leg bookings and cost more points.

 

hope this helps