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Qantas premium economy award seats to Chicago now available

Kris
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Qantas premium economy award seats to Chicago now available

Qantas has been selling tickets on its new Brisbane-Chicago route for a fortnight now and I’ve been keeping an eye on award seat availability to see if I could snap some up in business class.

Unfortunately I’m not having any luck on that front, BUT I have noticed that the airline is releasing up to four premium economy seats on most days, which are available to all Qantas Frequent Flyer members regardless of status (but status does determine how far in advance you can book them).

While premium economy is obviously not as comfortable or stylish as business class, it’s still miles better than travelling at the back of the plane. Plus, the ability to book four seats will suit families and groups, since we almost never see that many business class award seats available on Qantas flights.

The Brisbane-Chicago service will first take off on 20 April 2020 as flight QF85, departing Brisbane at 3.30pm and reaching Chicago at 4.40pm the same day. This service will run Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays and Saturdays.

The QF86 return leg departs Chicago at 9.50pm the same day, arriving in Brisbane at 6.10am two days later.

Qantas is operating the route with a Boeing 787 Dreamliner, which features next-gen seats in premium economy. They are arranged in a 2-3-2 layout.

Qantas Dreamliner Premium Economy

Qantas premium economy detail

The seats are quite comfortable, though taller people may struggle with the leg room. Qantas scrimped a bit on this front, but otherwise the seats are great.

The one way price is 84,000 Qantas Points plus $300-400 in taxes and fees. The cost goes up a bit if you add a domestic connection, which would have to be in economy (eg. Melbourne-Brisbane-Chicago is 96k points plus $430 one way). A reminder that from 18 September, the points cost will rise but the cash component will fall.

Qantas makes seats available to frequent flyer members in stages, with gold and higher status holders getting first dibs. As of today, they can book award seats all the way to late July 2020, while silver members are limited to late June, and bronze members to late May.

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Has ANA just launched the world’s best business class seat?

Kris
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Has ANA just launched the world’s best business class seat?

Last month the Japanese airline All Nippon Airways (ANA) pulled back the curtain on brand new seats and cabins for its flagship Boeing 777 fleet, with the first upgraded aircraft taking to the skies this week.

Prior to the July announcement, ANA didn’t overhype things or raise massive expectations, as some airlines are wont to do (*cough* Qantas *cough*). But judging from the promo shots and initial reviews, ANA has produced something quite impressive. In fact, in business class, we may even have a contender for the new ‘world’s best’ seat.

Let’s quickly run through the other cabins first though.

All four cabin classes have received a makeover inspired by Japanese heritage and Western design principles. In first class, the new seat (dubbed “THE Suite”) is the most spacious ever seen on an ANA aircraft. It takes cue from luxury Japanese hotels and features stylish dark wood finishes, privacy doors and a crazy-large 43-inch monitor that is the world’s first 4K personal monitor on a commercial airliner.

ANA’s new Boeing 777 first class seat

New first class cabin

While the new first class cabin looks wonderful, I do have to point out that it’s nowhere near as luxurious and private as offered by Emirates and Singapore Airlines on some of their newest aircraft.

ANA has also given its premium economy and economy cabins a refresh, with new upholstery and upgrades to screens and headrests.

New premium economy cabin

New economy cabin

But it’s in business class where we see the most innovation. Dubbed ‘THE Room’, the seat design is inspired by modern, multi-functional Japanese living spaces. The sofa-like seats are DOUBLE the previous width, with doors for personal privacy that can also be adjusted to share the space with fellow travel companions.

New business class seat

Space galore

The seats go fully flat for sleeping (of course), and appear to have lots of discreet areas to store personal belongings, as well as a big screen to keep passengers entertained on long journeys.

Business class layout

Business class cabin

To bring warmth and a ‘home away from home’ feel to the cabin, the airline has included three different wood finishes inspired by modern Japanese homes – Rosewood, Light Japanese Ash and Dark Japanese Ash.

This of course will all be paired with ANA’s top-notch service and dining.

New business class seat

Some of these design aspects are reminiscent of Qatar Airways’ Qsuite, which many travellers consider to be the best business class product in the world (until now, at least).

While the promo shots and specs released by ANA all look amazing, what really matters is customer experiences – and on that front I’ve just seen the first review of business class published, by the blogger Gilbert Ott. He flew on the first upgraded aircraft earlier this week between Tokyo and London, and has made the bold call that this is the best business class product in the sky (even better than Qsuite). It’s worth reading his review and checking out the images, which are available here.

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Snap them up! Qantas award seats to the USA available in October and November

Kris
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0
Snap them up! Qantas award seats to the USA available in October and November

Qantas has released a stack of award seats to the USA this October and November, including in the sought-after business and first class cabins.

This is a great opportunity to fly to the States in style using your Qantas Points.

A quick search of flights between Brisbane/Sydney/Melbourne and Los Angeles shows at least two award seats available in each cabin on most days.

There’s also availability to Dallas and San Francisco, but unfortunately not New York. Travellers from other cities in Australia should be able to secure domestic connections with Qantas in business class.

If you want to fly premium economy or business class, try to secure a route with a 787 Dreamliner aircraft, rather than the dated A380s (but if you want first class, the A380s are your only option).

Qantas promised recently that it would make more award seats available, so hopefully this is a sign of things to come. This new batch of award seats will be booked out quickly, so don’t miss out.

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Myer joins the Qantas Shopping portal: earn bonus points on purchases

Kris
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Myer joins the Qantas Shopping portal: earn bonus points on purchases

Myer has been added to the Qantas Shopping portal, giving Qantas Frequent Flyer members the opportunity to earn lots of points when shopping with the popular department store online.

Qantas Shopping, like Virgin Australia’s Velocity eStore, provides an easy route to rapidly increasing your points balance, as I’ve written about before. The shopping portals can connect you to hundreds of retailers, and regularly offer bonuses of up to 10 points per $1 spent. Many stores also offer free delivery.

I use Qantas Shopping and the Velocity eStore to buy personal and household items all the time. It’s convenient, cost effective and very points-lucrative!

Myer was one of the major missing links in Qantas’ offering, and it’s great to see the retailer now come onboard.

Until Monday 5 August, shoppers can earn 3 Qantas Points per $1 spent with Myer (a 50% increase from the regular earn rate of 2 points per $1 spent), plus you can get free standard delivery on orders over $49.

Make sure to click through from Qantas Shopping to get the deal, and of course, pay with a high points-earning credit card to bank even more points.

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EXTENDED: Get 20,000 Qantas Points with a new AustralianSuper account

Kris
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EXTENDED: Get 20,000 Qantas Points with a new AustralianSuper account

Here’s a good deal for points hackers who are happy to put in a little bit of effort to earn a nice pile of points.

Qantas has partnered with AustralianSuper, Australia’s largest industry super fund, to offer 20,000 bonus Qantas Points to new customers of the fund.

This offer has been around for a while and has been extended to 31 December 2019.

To take advantage of this deal, you need to join AustralianSuper via this page and contribute at least $350 to an eligible account within the first six months of membership.

Of course, you’ll need to consider if AustralianSuper’s products are suitable for you and judge if the effort is worth it. You will incur some admin and investment fees.

You can view all the T&Cs on the offer page here and the fund’s fees are shown here.

You’ll receive the Qantas Points 2-3 months after meeting the eligibility criteria.

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Get 10,000 bonus Velocity Points on flights to Los Angeles

Kris
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0
Get 10,000 bonus Velocity Points on flights to Los Angeles

Virgin Australia has a “4th of July” promotion on right now, offering 10,000 bonus Velocity Points on any eligible return flight to Los Angeles booked with Virgin Australia or Delta Air Lines.

This could be a good opportunity to bank some bonus points if you have a trip to LAX in mind.

The booking date must be between 4-28 July 2019 for travel to 23 June 2020 and you have to activate the offer here.

An eligible flight is a return international flight in any class of service from Sydney, Melbourne or Brisbane to Los Angeles operated by Virgin Australia or Delta Air Lines with one of the following flight numbers: VA1, VA2, VA6, VA7, VA8, VA9, VA23, VA24, VA6552 and VA6551.

If you’re flying with Delta, it’s essential the flight carries a VA code above.

Virgin Australia has a sale on right now offering return flights to LA from $1099.

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How good a deal are Qantas economy reward seats now?

Kris
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How good a deal are Qantas economy reward seats now?

Here at The High Life we mostly focus on using points to fly at the ‘pointy’ end of the plane, and for good reason: it’s how you get the most ‘bang’ for your points ‘buck’, plus it’s obviously a much more fun way to travel than economy!

Still, we do know that lots of readers use points to fly economy, and that’s fine of course. For many people, points are the gateway to travelling more often, and if that means landing somewhere with a slightly numb bum, so be it!

If you’re an economy traveller, you’ve probably heard the good news that Qantas has reduced the cost of reward seats. You now need 10% fewer points on most routes, and the associated taxes and fees have been slashed by up to several hundred dollars.

For example, a return economy flight from Melbourne to Los Angeles with Qantas now costs 83,800 points plus $393, down from 90,000 points plus $513. That’s a saving of 6,200 points and $120.

Great news, right? Shall we book??

Well, it depends.

Let’s stay with this Melbourne-Los Angeles example. You can often buy an airfare on this route during a sale for $1,000 or less. In fact, there’s a sale on right now with fares priced at $949. This booking will also earn at least 9,000 points and 90 status credits.

So what’s the better choice, spending 84k points + $393 on a reward seat, or $949 for a paid fare that comes with 9k points and status credits?

You can flip this equation another way: is saving $556 in cash with the reward booking ($949 – $353) worth the cost of the 93k points (84k for the booking + 9k forfeited)?

You’re getting around 0.6 cents of value per point here ($556/93,000). That may sound like a good deal to you, but it pays to compare your options.

It’s certainly better value than using the points for gift vouchers (there the value is as low as 0.5 cents per point). However, you’d get more than 2 cents of value per point by booking a reward seat in a premium cabin or getting an upgrade.

But assuming you really want to travel and are happy to stay in economy, you should also consider the option of “paying” for a cash fare using points. This is different to booking a reward seat, which has limited availability. Rather, in using points this way, you can purchase any published fare on Qantas’ site using points, where the points will be converted to dollars at a fixed rate.

For example, the $949 Melbourne-LA airfare above can be purchased with 141k points. You’ll also earn 9k points with the booking, so the actual cost is 132k points. That means you’d get around 0.72 cents of value per point ($949/132000), which is 20% better than with the reward booking.

Of course, if you value status credits (which you’d earn on the ‘pay with points’ option but not a reward booking) it skews the value even further.

Another way to reduce travel costs with points is to use them for a hotel booking, either by ‘paying with points’ or by getting a “classic hotel reward”. The latter will be better value, but availability is more limited.

Again, you’ll need to crunch the numbers to see what best works for you. One classic hotel reward I looked at earlier came in at around 0.8 cents of value per point.

Here’s what that means in real dollar terms. If you have 150,000 points to spend, you could cover as much as $1,200 of hotel costs. If you were to use the points to ‘pay’ for an airfare, you’d get about $1080 worth, whereas with an economy flight reward, you may only get $900 of value.

It really does pay to compare your options.

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Velocity members now get 20% off lounge entries with No1 Lounges

Kris
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Velocity members now get 20% off lounge entries with No1 Lounges

Virgin Australia’s Velocity Frequent Flyer program has added No1 Lounges as a partner, allowing members to get 20% off lounge entries in various cities while also earning Velocity Points.

The No1 Lounges network includes ‘The House’ at Sydney and Melbourne international terminals, which were until recently operated by Etihad Airways. Eligible Etihad, Virgin Australia and British Airways passengers, like those in business or first class or holding elite status, still get complimentary access to the spaces, while everyone else can pay to enter.

The House looks quite stylish and offers full waiter service a la carte dining and drinks. With the 20% discount, the price drops to $68 per adult and $29 per child aged 2-11. There’s no entry fee for infants.

The House, Melbourne

The No1 Lounges network will also include ‘My Lounge’ at Brisbane international, set to open in September. This appears to be a more modest space, offering “grazing snacks” as well as self-serve wine, beer and cocktails”. With the discount, the cost is $48 per adult and $24 per child aged 2-11 (free for infants).

No1 Lounge also operates spaces at London’s Heathrow, Gatwick and Luton airports, as well as Birmingham and Edinburgh airports. You can find out more on its website.

Guests can use the lounge three hours prior to the flight time and buy extra hours in advance or while there – if the flight’s delayed and you want to stay longer, for example.

Passengers travelling with any airline and in any ticket class can pay to enter these lounges. Reading the T&Cs, it looks like Velocity members don’t have to be flying with Virgin Australia or one of its partners to get the 20% discount and earn points.

As well as the 20% discount, Velocity members will earn Velocity Points with every booking. Red members will earn 3 points per $1 spent, Silver members will earn an additional 50%, Gold members an additional 75% and Platinum members an additional 100% of points.

To take advantage of these deals for Velocity members, you need to pre-book online at https://no1lounges.com/velocity

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