Should I pay to top-up the Qantas points I need for a multi-city Business Class trip?

Flights & Airfares
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Hi all,

Not sure if I have this in the right section, so apologies in advance if it should be in a different category.

I have two questions I was hoping to get some advice on.

First question:

I am planning a multi-city trip next year with Qantas and partner airlines that will take me from Melbourne - Tokyo - London - Paris - New York - San Francisco - Sydney - Melbourne. As the stay in Tokyo is technically a stopover (thanks Point Hacks for the idea! - Fly around the world in Business with Qantas and oneworld - Point Hacks), I’ve managed to squeeze in this return trip for 280,000 Qantas points.

I currently have 235,000 points, which means I’m short 45,000 points. I have two options to make up the 45,000 points I need:

a. Pay Qantas directly for the top-up. Based on their website (Top-up Points | Qantas Frequent Flyer) it looks like it would cost $1,118 to buy 45,000 points.

b. There are various credit cards offering Qantas reward points. Amex have 100,000 points on offer for an annual fee of $450 (need to spend $1,500 within 90 days), and Qantas have their own card offering 60,000 points for an annual fee of $149 (need to spend $3,000 within 90 days).

My first questions is, which of the two options above am I better off doing? It would be cheaper to go with a credit card, and I would easily meet the minimum spend with my normal spending habits, but I know they generally only guarantee payment of the bonus points within 90 days of meeting the requirements. I’m not against paying $1,118 now to pay for the points I need to make sure I can book the tickets now instead of waiting and hoping Amex or Qantas pay up sooner rather than later.

Second question:

Given my proposed itinerary, there will obviously be taxes and charges on top. I tried using matrix.itasoftware.com but couldn’t seem to get it to work.

The itinerary is as follows (all Business class airfares):

Melbourne to Tokyo (Narita) - Qantas
Tokyo to London (Heathrow) - British Airways
London (Heathrow) to Paris (CDG) - British Airways
Paris (CDG) to New York (JFK) - British Airways
New York (JFK) to San Francisco (SFO) - American Airlines
San Francisco (SFO) to Sydney - Qantas
Sydney to Melbourne - Qantas

My second question is, would anyone have an idea of how to work this out, or a rough idea of what the total charges out of pocket (after Qantas points are deducted) that I might expect to pay?

Thank you to anyone who has read this far. If you can assist or offer advice on either/both questions, I would really appreciate it. Thanks in advance!

Andy

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Hi Andy,\r\nI got an email informing me you have commented on my response yesterday: \r\n"Thanks w-hiew. Your idea of buying some wine from Qantas Epiqure is brilliant! I do drink wine, a…"\r\n\r\nThanks for the positive feedback.\r\n\r\nHowever, I can’t see this comment on this page. Do you mind trying to resubmitting a comment to my response below? I just like to troubleshoot that it is not a bug on the page.\r\n\r\nCheers.

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my own view is if you see the seats available now and are not adverse to paying $1118 do it. waiting for a new card and minimum spend will mean months and your preferred flights won’t be all available… which could stuff up your itinerary or mean you’ll have to purchase some legs.

good luck!

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Hi Andy,

Mark makes a good point on availability changing by the time you get the points.

Another different suggestion is to buy a couple of cases of wine via Qantas Epicure to get those last 45k of points. I have heard from friends that the points arrive very quickly (within 24 hours). If you are a wine drinker->bonus. If not it will make good gifts or you could offload them if you can find a buyer.

On taxes and surcharges, I would use an estimation using Google Matrix on the individual flights. May not be accurate but it is probably the worst case estimation. Another factoid is: I had a friend, who has done a multi-city redemption recently and departed from HKG. As HKG does not charge any YQ, her whole itinerary had bugger-all taxes/surcharges. She had to position herself to HKG with a separate redemption but she saved a bucket load by avoiding paying YQ.

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Hi Andy and Mark,

Thanks for your comments. I tried viewing the comments but I think there is a bug in the commenting system at the moment.

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