Hi just wanting to know with either AA or alaskan air, in order to buy their points do you first need to join the f/ f program? & upon purchasing the 250, 000 miles once transferred to qantas f/f program be enough points to fly europe business class return for one person?
Thanks for any feedback.
Yes, you need to join AA or Alaska in order to purchase their points, otherwise you would have no account for the points to go into.
You cannot transfer AA or Alaska points to your Qantas account. There are very few programs that allow your to transfer points from one program to another. However, AA and Alaska are both partners with Qantas. What this means is you can use your AA/Alaska points to book Qantas flights. For example, if you went to the AA award search engine (https://www.aa.com/reservation/awardFlightSearchAccess.do) and searched for a flight from Melbourne to Sydney, it will show you Qantas flights and allow you to book them using your AA points.
It would cost 160,000 AA points to fly from Australia to Europe in business class return on Qantas, so 250,000 is more than enough. Additionally, you do not have to fly with Qantas only. You could also book a return flight on Qatar or Cathay Pacific for 160,000 AA points (or Etihad for 245,000 points).
You cannot use Alaska points to fly from Australia to Europe on Qantas, as Alaska only allow Qantas redemptions within Australia/NZ.
I think given 250,000 points would cost you $5800AUD in the current sale, you should really do some more research about how the programs work and what flights are available before spending that amount of money. You should also consider that you’re likely to be able to just buy a return business ticket outright for that amount of money, which would mean you would have more flexibility of dates and earn points/status credits.
Thank you so much, for your well informed feedback. Much appreciated 