First timer right here! I am looking for some insight on how to go about booking a trip for August/September 2025 from Melbourne to Europe whilst making good use of the One World Classic Flight Rewards option.
Key destinations are London, Rome, Barcelona (maybe Athens)
Within Rome and Greece, there will be travel within the country to the coasts.
Open to a visit to NYC if needed.
Q1:
Do I have to go to the Americas in order to qualify for the OWCFR? My hope is that I can fly to europe with the necessary stopovers, internal flights and return to Melbourne?
Q2:
Regarding “segments” and arranging my own internal travel within europe, does that mean if i took a train from London to Paris, that this distance would be calculated into the 35,000mile limit?
Q3:
Any advice on when I could reasonably start looking to book my flights? I am concerned that If I want to the the One World Classic Flight Reward then I wouldn’t be able to book all flights return at the same time as my flights out of Australia would be available for booking first and my flight home a month later would not be available for booking at the same time? Am I best to wait until bookings have opened up for all dates I need to travel over the course of a month or does that risk loosing out on reward seats if i am not jumping to book as soon as they become available?
Q4:
Has anyone use Point Hacks Concierge? Any thoughts or advice or idea of what my rough travel might cost me to get their help?
ANY thoughts and advice, will be most appreciated!
Q1. Qantas OneWorld Round The World redemptions is limited by distance (35000miles) only. You can keep going circles around Asia if you wish.
Q2. If your itinerary goes XXX-LHR then CDG-YYY, then you have to include the distance between LHR-CDG into the total distance calculated.
Q3. Best to book as many flights as you can on the website and ring up at a later stage to add more flights to it. Changes will cost 5-6k Qantas points each time. Once you take your first flight, you no longer can add flights or change flights on your itinerary.
No experience with Point Concierge to comment on. I can only speculate (a wild guess) that it ranges between $100-500 per flight or $500-$2000 per itinerary (depending on complexity).
Why don’t you reach out to find out and report back your findings?
Post edit: it looks these are no longer called RTW redemptions. They are called Qantas OneWorld Classic Flight Rewards.
Thank you for the insightful responses! Your help is invaluable as I try to plan this! A few more questions that have now arisen…IF I may?
If I find myself short on points for a full 35,000-mile itinerary, could I instead create a shorter itinerary that starts and ends in Dubai, covering fewer miles, and therefore requiring fewer points? I would manage the Melbourne to Dubai legs separately. Would this approach be compatible with the Oneworld Classic Flight Rewards rules?
For the requirement to fly with at least “two other Oneworld airlines” besides Qantas, does this mean my itinerary should include flights on a total of three different Oneworld carriers, and is Qantas allowed to be one of them?
Regarding your advice on booking flights, is it mandatory to book all segments at once under the Classic One World Flight Rewards to enjoy the capped points based on total miles, or can I book each segment as it becomes available? For example, could I book Melbourne to London as soon as possible, and then add subsequent flights later, while still maintaining the advantage of the maximum points cap?
Reads to me like you only need a minimum of 2 non-Qantas oneworld members. I.e. Cathay Pacific and Japan Airlines.
You can keep adding flights (at a later stage) to the same itinerary at a later stage and the point costs will stay at 318,000 pts for business class for distance 19201-35000 miles. Taxes and surcharge (paid in cash/dollars) will increase.
With the max 318,000points… do you know how they go about charging taxes? Would it be one set tax that covers ALL segments or would it be taxes as normal per segment?
For instance, I can get 2 ppl one way MEL-DXB-LGA for 318,000 points +$3752 in taxes…which is a fair bit…right?
That looks to me like an Emirates route. If you are still intending to go for the Qantas OneWorld Classic Flight Rewards, please leave Emirates out of the itinerary as Emirates is not part of the OneWorld alliance.
Emirates taxes via Qantas point redemption is known for being exorbitant. It is part of the deal if you want to use Qantas points on Emirates redemption.
Taxes add on as you add more flights to the itinerary. Fundamentally, the relevant countries charges the respective taxes → unlikely you can get away from paying these. Some airlines like Qantas choose to charge surcharges on top of these taxes.
Thanks Warren, certainly looking that way for Emirates!
I am doing further digging and find better tax deals out of Asia and into Europe.
Asia to Europe Flight Booking:
If I book a suitable flight from Asia to Europe with a One World partner for 210,000 points, and later on, say in a month’s time, I book a flight from Europe back to Asia that satisfies all the rules of the One World Classic Flight Reward, would the system then only charge me the difference between the 318,000 points required for the Classic Flight Reward and the 210,000 points I initially spent?
Separate Melbourne to Asia Booking:
If I were to book return flights from Melbourne to Asia completely separately from this One World Classic Flight Reward, would these separate bookings contribute towards the miles calculation for the Classic Flight Reward, or would they remain independent?
If you keep the flights on the same itinerary (1 PNR or reference number), you just pay the difference only in points and taxes.
As it is a separate PNR, they are independent of each other. E.g. they won’t search your profile for other PNR amd add up all the distances. Since it costs more to have multiple separate itineraries.