Which frequent flyer program is best for business class travel from Sydney to London?

Flights & Airfares
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My wife and I want to fly from Sydney to London Business class around mid September 2017 returning approximately 4 weeks later. Trying to minimise our cash outlay.
I have approximately 540,000 Westpac Altitude points and between us we have around 250,000 Qantas FF points .
What is the best option for us e.g convert Altitude to Virgin or KrisFlyer or some other FF program?
Thank you

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Hi,

You have 270k Enrich or Velocity or 216k Krisflyer or Asia Miles AND 250k Qantas. So you have more than a few options, which is good.

I found some options for redemptions.

  • Via Enrich, its 87k per person 1 way, options to fly with American Airlines, Cathay or Etihad.
  • Via Krisflyer, its 80.75k per person 1 way, options to fly with Singapore Air or 95k with Air Canada, Asiana, Thai, United.
  • Via Asia Miles, its 110k per person 1 way, options to fly with Cathay, American Air, Malaysia Airlines. 175k return.
  • Via Velocity, its 127.5k per person 1 way, options to fly with Delta, Etihad and Singapore Air.
  • Via Qantas, its 128k per person 1 way, options to fly with American Air or 139k with Emirates, Cathay, Malaysia Air.
 

Some tips if you don’t already know:

  • AU-EU or AU-US award tickets are hot commodity and popular so availability can be slim
  • Cash outlay with US based airlines are generally the lowest but would have to fly via US and availability can be an issue (see above point).
  • Krisflyer charges quite high surcharge for redemptions. Qantas does similar for Emirates redemption. Virgin redemption with Eithad has high surcharge per leg.
  • If you can, avoid flying internationally out of London because surcharge is high. Can consider taking intra-EU flight and catch flight out of Paris, etc.
  • If you have to fly in Sept 2017, you have to flexible as to which airline you are flying with as some flights like Qantas gets snapped up rather quickly when they are released 11-12 months in advance. (e.g. Sept 2017 flights would be released Sept/Oct 2016)
  • I suggest you could fly outbound with 1 carrier and inbound with another as you don't have enough points for 4 one way business. This allows you to experience difference airlines, which is a plus to me.
  • Or you can redeem a return flight with Cathay (cost less points than 2 one way redemption) for 1 passenger and redeem for the other passenger with Qantas (flying with Cathay on the same flight).
  • Award availability is key factor.
Good luck.
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Thank you for comprehensive response. I’m going to spend the next few days reviewing the options !

Thanks again…much appreciated

 

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