When it comes to booking Qantas reward seats, knowing a few tricks can give you a huge advantage.
That’s truer than ever in 2025, with so many Aussies collecting Qantas Points and seeking to use them for flights.
To give our readers an edge with finding the best seats, we’ve compiled a few key tips.
Want more Qantas Points? Get a huge 100,000 bonus points + an annual $450 Qantas Travel Credit with the ultimate card for Qantas Points, rewards and benefits: the Qantas American Express Ultimate Card – ends soon!
Classic v Classic Plus reward seats
Qantas Frequent Flyer members can now access two different types of reward seats: Classic reward seats (which have been around for many years) and Classic Plus reward seats (which launched in 2024).
Classic reward seats have a fixed price based on distance and cabin class. They are issued by Qantas and partner airlines like Emirates, but availability is extremely limited.
Classic Plus seats, on the other hand, are only available on Qantas operated flights. There’s a lot more of them, but they’re also a lot more expensive.
Classic Plus seats have a flexible points price that fluctuates based on the underlying cash fare. In short: 100 Qantas Points will cover $1 of an economy fare, $1.25 of a domestic business class fare, or $1.50 of an international premium economy, business or first class fare.
Classic Plus availability is also restricted – just because cash fares can be purchased doesn’t mean Classic Plus seats are available – however they are much more plentiful than Classic reward seats.
Significant price difference for Classic and Classic Plus seats
The best time to book Classic Plus seats is when cash fares go on sale, as the number of points required will also drop.
Qantas domestic and short-haul international Classic reward seats
Qantas releases economy and business class Classic reward seats on domestic and select short-haul international (e.g. New Zealand) routes at 353 days out from departure.
These seats are available to all frequent flyer members regardless of status.
Only a small number of seats (i.e. low single digits) are released in each cabin, and once they’re snapped up, Qantas doesn’t provide any more – except in special ‘batch’ releases that occur occasionally (more on that later).
Qantas long-haul international Classic reward seats
Getting Classic reward seats on long-haul flights is the goal of most travellers.
Qantas used to automatically release seats from 353 days out from departure on most of its flights, but that is no longer reliably the case.
When it does occur, Gold and higher status holders get access first. Any seats that remain become available to Silver members at 323 days out, and Bronze members at 297 days out.
If you don’t have gold status but a close family member does, they may be able to book the seats for you as soon as they are released.
Qantas batch seat releases
For most Qantas international flights, by far the best way to book reward seats is when Qantas releases a large batch at once.
Qantas has on several occasions in recent years made thousands of seats available to all frequent flyers.
Often, these batch releases are not announced ahead of time, which makes it hard to plan. The business and first class seats are also snapped up within a few hours.
Your best bet is to monitor availability closely and be ready to book. We always alert our e-news subscribers about batch releases via email – if you want to sign up, you can do so at the bottom of this article.
Partner airlines
Qantas doesn’t control how or when partner airlines release reward seats. Those airlines are responsible for the timing and quantity of seats released, and their methods vary.
Sadly, we’ve seen a trend the last few years of partners releasing fewer and fewer reward seats, particularly in premium cabins.
Due to high demand, airlines are favouring their own loyalty program members by giving them preferential access to reward seats while restricting access by partner airlines.
That means it’s now much harder to use Qantas Points to book seats with partners at the pointy end of the plane.
When they are released, they are available to all Qantas frequent flyers. Status doesn’t matter.
The seats will show up in searches on the Qantas website.
Other things to know
Qantas seats are released at exactly midnight GMT, which is 8 am in Perth and 10 am in the east (or 11 am during daylight savings).
When searching for international seats, we recommend using the multi-city tool on Qantas’ website, even if you’re only looking at one route. The advantage is that it gives you results in a handy monthly calendar view, unlike the default search tool on Qantas’ homepage. Just make sure to select “Use points – Classic Flight Rewards only” and “Flexible with dates for all flights”.
When there’s a big release of seats, we always let our readers know. If you’d like to be informed, subscribe to our e-news below.
Want more Qantas Points? Get a huge 100,000 bonus points + an annual $450 Qantas Travel Credit with the ultimate card for Qantas Points, rewards and benefits: the Qantas American Express Ultimate Card – ends soon!
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Hi Kris,
First time reader, first time poster. I’m looking to book multi-city flights from Syd – Ath – Male – Syd, mid to end of May / June 2025, with points in Business, but I’m finding it impossible to even get to anywhere in Europe with points in Business.
Am I missing something?
Hi Jacqui, it’s really hard to find business class seats to Europe at the moment. Try going via SE Asia – there’s more availability that way.
Good morning!
Looking to fly BNE to AMS in April 2025 in Business or First (we had emirates A380 First class return booked for June 2020, but let’s not talk about when happened in 2020!). I check reward flights multiple times a day. Plenty of seats in March, and even some from mid May; but none (even economy) have come up for April. Not a one, and I check multiple European cities to cross check. This seems strange. Anyone else notice this?
It could be because of school holidays and Easter, which is a really popular time to travel. Some airlines don’t release reward seats over this period.
Hello Kris,
I hope you are doing well.
I wanted to book a flight from Sydney to Dubai with the points rewards program during December. Although, there are no classic or classic plus reward seats.
Have I missed out on the rewards seats or will they be available closer to the date?
Thanks in advance!
Hi Mahdi, Emirates have been very stingy with releasing reward seats to partners. It’s very unlikely you’ll be able to fly direct with them on this route, unless they release some last minute seats (within a few weeks of travel). Btw you can’t book Classic Plus because this is only available on Qantas operated flights.
if we wanted to book a round the world ticket on points do we have to wait for the last flight date to be released to start the booking or can it be done in legs with a cap on the points?
Hi Sandy, you don’t have to wait. Book the first seats as soon as you’re able and then add more as they are released. Be aware the cap will only be triggered once you have at least two oneworld airlines in the itinerary other than Qantas.
Hi, Long time lurker, first time poster. Looking to book award seats in economy PER to ZQN via MEL (preferably) or SYD. My son and I want to do the Milford Track and I need to arrive on a specific date as the trek date is set. Can’t seem to find anything with QF as a return package (via MEL or SYD – says no flights at all are available), but when I break it down (PER-SYD+SYD-ZQN+ZQN-SYD+SYD-PER) I can find some seats, but almost all require a stop over in each direction AND cost more in points AND worst of all, some of the flights are JetStar (which I am hoping to avoid). Looking to fly April 2025 – I know the earliest flights would appear would be 353 days out (I’m looking currently to research what I can do – almost dummy run scenarios), but I can’t find ANYTHING in February or March. Is there a real risk of booking the trek and QF not releasing ANY award seats through MEL or SYD to ZQN? I really want to use our points opposed to booking a cash fare, but I never seem to recall it being this hard to use my points – Its very frustrating 🙁
Hey Simon, it’s weird that there are no seats at all next Feb or March. I’m not sure what’s going on – I haven’t really monitored reward seats to ZQN in the past. Since Qantas is going to announce major changes to the FF program by the end of the April, including a new way to use points for seats, I suggest waiting for that announcement if you can.
Does Qantas batch release rewards seats to Bali throughout the year?
Not that I’ve seen.
Hi,
I am a newbie to Qantas classic reward flights. I have had a credit card earning Qantas points for 20+years and have never done anything with them.
Your article suggests as a bronze member I’m fairly knackered when it comes to cashing these points in for international flights (from Akld, NZ) – is this correct?
Three dumb questions;
1. Your article references partner airlines – how do you find classic reward flights on partner airlines?
2. When I look on the Qantas site at Classic reward flights (from Akld, NZ) only a handful of destinations show up (e. 6 in Asia, 2 in Nth America etc). Are we limited to these destinations?
3. Is trying to get flights from AKL to Japan (one of the options) in Jan 24 peak time, and therefore highly unlikely?
Thanks!
Partner airline seats show up in regular searches on Qantas’ website.
You’re not limited to any destinations and can book seats with any oneworld airline plus other Qantas partners like Emirates (but availability is very low right now).
Yes, it’s extremely hard to find seats during Jan.