I just noticed on Qantas app that I can upgrade my economy class flight (12 hours long) to Business for extra 69k points one way.
I've never been on Business class nor First, do you think it is worth upgrading to Business?
Edit: I will 100% follow the poll decision
another flight.
Wow a different kind of JV post. Usually they're useless, but this time you've actually provided bad advice instead. Lol
bad advice
Can get quite a few domestic flights for 69K points.
@jv: The best value use of QFF or any FF points is upgrades, not flights. You'll always get more bang for your buck doing it this way. This is OZB afterall.
The best value use of QFF or any FF points is upgrades, not flights.
Not really…
You can still get to your destination without upgrading…
I'd rather spend my money at my destination…
The only time I fly business/first is when someone else is paying.
@jv: Agreed.
Never been tempted to use points or money to upgrade, it doesn't get me to my destination any faster.
I used 80k flights + $300 to book a Qantas flight that would've costed around 2k. That was probably the most value I could've gotten out of my QFF.
@buckethat: Try being 6 foot 4 and a half with broad shoulders. basically any flight 2 hours or over I try and upgrade as the pain saved is significant. I once got off a flight in seattle in the 90's barely able to walk for 2 days due to the pain in my knees from 16 hours of the metal seat bar being pressed into them.
I travel a lot and manage my points well so it is easy to always upgrade on poitns and not sacrifise travel frequency, I currently have over 900k QFF even though I have already booked and upgrade 6 flights this year including 1 international.
@gromit: I'm also 6 foot 4 with broad shoulders and had to fly from Singapore to Sydney last week.
While I was in the exit row, I'm also cursed with a big arse so my thighs could barely fit in the seat and my tailbone was crying for mercy after we landed.
Aiming to fly business for long flights from now on.
@tallkid123: for me just the shoulders and knees (I basically have no butt), both shoulders will ache terribly from trying to be polite and curl my shoulders forward, even in business lie flat seats my shoulders touch the sides of the seat hood when reclined.
@coffeeinmyveins: Thousands of dollars so you can have some more leg room and a fancy slide out dinner while you watch Netflix. I've been on nice flights, it's a waste of money imo. I'd rather have the money and an uncomfortable sleep on a plane.
If I was a bit older, well do to, and had money to throw into the wind, I'd probably go for the upgraded flight.
Correct!
OP must weigh up all the options
This choice is not ours to make
I have a stubborn friend who refuses to like Business class. They're the 'as long as it gets me there' person.
You could be like them.
Or you could be like me: yes. Always upgrade. Always get the highest class you can redeem.
I have a stubborn friend who refuses to like Business class.
Have they tried it before? They probably don't know what they're missing out on.
I heard that that is why the airlines used to give free upgrades. It costs them nothing and once they've had a taste of it, they always look left at the business class area on their way to their economy seat whenever they fly…..
I guess they're just less spoiled than I was.
They probably don't know the struggle for a tall person having nowhere to rest their head to sleep.
I'm 6'6, FIFO @ a 2.5 hr flight, so spend a lot of early mornings airborne. I can sleep in a middle row and wake only when the plane touches down. It's a skill to sleep without your head dropping to the side, not quite as good as your own bed but a rough sleep is still blissful enough for me.
@RockyRaccoon: Read the comment I was responding to. The point is, it's possible to get a few hours sleep in cattle class. Then the LOTR extended edition binge can begin.
Business is better than economy, no doubt, but the cost is absolutely not worth it. Better to spend the cash in destination imo.
The full cost isn't worth it. But it's worth it when redeeming points.
I'm sure they've sat on a chair and watched tv before…
The comparison is 'sitting upright in a hard seat to watch TV for 12 hours' or 'lying down in a more comfortable position to watch TV for 12 hours'.
@bobbified: But bruh, being able to lie down is worth $5000 of extra "value" and that is why it is super worth it.
@watwatwat: Before covid, I'd more-often-than-not get upgraded for free by the airline. There's certainly a huge difference in comfort levels, but I definitely wouldn't pay the price difference in cash out of my own pocket. I'd be much more comfy sitting in economy with the extra thousands in my account! haha
However, for 69,000 points to upgrade a 12 hour flight, I'd say it's a no-brainer.
@bobbified: Yeah id upgrade on a 12 hour flight too if it was with the missus or, perhaps I'm landing early morning and want to be ready to go for the day.
Otherwise, I just can't appreciate, besides scarcity, what drives up the cost of the business seats.
Disclaimer: 184cm tall, healthy weight and genetically blessed with a back that can endure plane seats.
They're the 'as long as it gets me there' person.
Some people have different priorities and don't mind a short leg of crappy experience compared to the rest of the holiday.
My partner is the same. SHe doesn't care about economy or having a nice car, as long as it gets her there. I'm the opposite.
Just do it.
I assume you do not need to pay extra airport tax?
I don't believe you pay additional taxes on upgrades. At least I've not noticed it.
On a 12 hour flight, I would have snapped that upgrade up faster than it took you time to write this post :)
That's like one decent credit card churn of points, you'll likely remember the flight experience for longer than it would take you to churn another cc.
I have collected points for Round the trip ticket with my missus later when opportunity arises, but this trip I go on my own for a family matter.
I will feel sorry if I am using it for business class myself.
Why would you feel sorry for pampering yourself? Besides it's not hard to re-earn the 69K points by another cc sign-up.
Travelling on your own is the best time for business imho.
I am almost sold at your comment.
It will be a lot harder to redeem for a RTW at later date for two people. If planning a RTW, it will open up more options if paying instead of redeeming.
Whats RTW stand for?
Round The World
You can always accumulate more points later. This could be a great experience for you.
We have a fair few points but haven't looked into the option of Round the World trips yet. How easy are they to book using points alone and how many points are we talking? Half a million a person?
I have a feeling they're very hard to get.
132,400 per person in economy (plus taxes ~$1K), limited to 5 stopovers and 16 sectors, will become easier to get in the years ahead when all of our points holdings run down
Wait what, that is much lower points than I expected. I read somewhere it was about 300-500K points a few years back.
Excuse my ignorance but whats the difference between a stopover and a sector?
@Smol Cat: A stopover is to actually be able to choose when you wanna fly next, and a sector is usually a short layover that you just stay at the airport until your next flight (usually the next available one to your destination)…
Eg. SYD-SIN-LHR if you wanna stay in Singapore for 2 days to explore, that's considered a stopover.
@immrnonamehello: Ah ok thanks understood. So essentially on this 'round the world trip', you'd only be visiting a max of 5 countries?
@Smol Cat: You're allowed open jaws, so you'll be able to cover most of Europe by flying into Milan and on to the US from London (Heathrow). So it's more like 5 continents
@Smol Cat: Where you arrive in one city but depart from another. When you attempt a Oneworld Classic Reward redemption via Qantas the itinerary will debit 132,400 if your total journey is less than 35,000 miles. However I've found in the past the open jaw is size-limited, e.g. flying into JFK and continuing on from LAX may not work. Yes, these tickets are hard to redeem and it becomes a bit of a hobby to find one that works. My party of four has so far redeemed this award for three separate 6-week trips over the year end school holidays. I use MileCalc to check the distance
@sumyungguy: I booked an RTW with an open jaw flying into JFK and out of LAX. I believe you're limited to two open jaws total.
@Autonomic: Thanks for sharing that. I just checked the AFF OWA thread and now understand they're called surface sectors. Seems as long as the total number of flight plus surface segments doesn't exceed 16 and total distance is less than 35,000 miles the itinerary should be allowed. However the reality of booking multi-city online is that anything too complex will error out for reasons that aren't always clear. I've completed a few OWA itineraries with two surface sectors but found they only worked if they weren't too distant. However have no idea what the actual rules are.
Effectively $690… but you can't put a price on comfort.
Flaunt it if you've got it.
Depends on how you use the points. 69k is enough for a business medium haul redemption which can cost 3k and up cash
But were you ever willing to fork out 3k for that flight in the first place?
Points are only worth as much as what you're willing to otherwise pay!! Therein lies the fallacy of points valuation!
it all comes down to perception
am I going to pay? no. but if I had an 8 figure networth and had money to throw around? yes
hence you are still getting 3k value of seat, whether you would pay for it in cash is moot. you can't put a dollar figure on enjoyment it's subjective for everyone
Assume it costs $1 to earn 1 QFF point. My last oneworld Classic Flight Reward returned 3%, therefore your points spend is worth $2,000 - making the upgrade way cheaper than if you'd purchased a ticket in business. But it depends on your current points balance and future travel aspirations
My last shop at Woolworths ($125) yielded 5600 EDR points, so 2800 Qantas points. They're much cheaper than $1/pt if you hunt around.
Sure, you can earn more for a single shop or bonus point offer. My yield for 2022 across all credit cards was 217,788 points at 1.23 points per dollar - how about you?
I have the FFFL Citi card so am in Velocity, and the earn rate on the card is not that crash hot these days (most transactions are 0.5 points per dollar). Overall, I earned only about 50k Citi points (25k) Velocity points (only pump about $3k per month on my card; I really should take advantage of PayAll more!).
But as we all know, it's churning and bonus offers where the real points riches are to be had. In my case, I got 100K Flybuys (50K Velocity) points for Ready Credit for a $199 spend (and fixed $60k in debt at 2.9% for three years too), plus another 40K Flybuys points (20K Velocity) from bonus offers. No churning yet, although if NAB ever ditches the FFFL Citi Premier card I'll start.
@MELso: Pre-pandemic I needed to save 530K Qantas points to redeem four RTW tickets and we were able to achieve this every three years. So I always think in terms of how much spending was needed to earn the 530K
@sumyungguy: With a few credit card churns, you should be able to get the 530k points for considerably less than a $400k spend…
A few cases of Qantas wine with bonus points ('buy Qantas points, get free wine' may as well be their slogan) and some decent churning offers (e.g. Citi's 100k Qantas points for a $7500 spend on the Prestige card and Amex's 325k points convertible to Qantas points 2:1 for $5k on the platinum card), and you might be able to get the 530k points for a much lower spend.
I got given a frequent flyer credit card couple years back by my broker, must have been some deal or whatever with the bank at the time ive never applied for a credit card in my life.
Pretty sure I used to get 1-1 back when it started, now it seemed capped at 3k month points, is this the norm or would I be better off swapping to another card?
I can easily put 10-20k through the card for my business a month, i never actually use the credit always have the cash to repay it straight back off but I only use it to collect a few points I might use one day, have 300k odd at the moment just from over the years.
I earned over 500,000 QFF points in the last 12 months for an average cost of acquisition of $0.002 per point (ie the cost of credit card annual fees).
This means that upgrade of 69K points would cost me $138. Well worth it for 12 hours of lay flat comfort.
@vetopower: So you earned 500K from churning with no minimum spends? Is this sustainable or more like a lottery win?
@sumyungguy: Completely sustainable. Indeed, that's a far underestimation of the full figure. Including my partner and our US-based credit card earn, we're doing closer to 1.5 - 2 million points per year across all programs. And that's small fry compared to the big US churners.
Once you get into that range, your average cost pushes up closer to $0.005 per point, but the US cards have excellent cash out opportunities (eg those points can be cashed out for $0.0185 per point, yielding a minimum 3.7x return on spend, but we prefer to spend most points on 5* hotels & business class flights).
@sumyungguy: Actually, anyone can, but it involves a lot of research, some effort and careful planning. It's advanced level churning.
If you're earning qff by spending $1 per point then you are being obliterated by the people earning 180,000 by churning credit cards
Are there classic award seats in business (it'll require less points that way)? And if so, can you cancel your cash flight? And do you have status? (People up the pecking order get their upgrades first.)
But if you can, do it for the experience - the risk-free cash value of the points at Woolies is $690/$670 (if 69K or 67K points; 2000 points = $10 Woolworths spending = 1000 Qantas points). It may save you from buying an expensive business seat down the track if you know you don't value it (but on the other hand, it does make it hard to go back).
12 hours, yeah it’s a fair deal.
Where in your trip is this leg? That is, are you going to Europe and it’s the first of two legs there, and then you’ll have two economy legs home?
69k points is worth 690. Better to spend that on something else?
Up to you
As above - this is $690 you're giving up.
I personally think it's a complete waste of money and if you're used to Economy than Business isn't that different to be honest. It's maybe $100 worth of a difference but not $500+.
Others seem to love throwing their points into business but your call at end of day.
$690 is fantastic to upgrade to business class on a 12hr flight
Apart from the fact that to get the $690 you have to assume a little risk. The gift card value is more like $460.
But if you somehow think a $2-4k+ upgrade is only worth $100 is taking the piss.
If you honestly value a business class upgrade at $2-$4k I think you are taking the piss lol.
I travelled with my partner and genuinely thought it was a worse experience than economy. If you're a single traveller it's probably better - but for me the seats were way too separated and deep so it felt like I couldn't see or talk to my partner at all during the flight. Wasn't really worth it IMO.
Otherwise the food is about the same, don't give a shit about alcohol, the entertainment is the same, and the seat comfort is probably a bit better so worth maybe $100 or so, but it's not like 10x better by any means. Everyone is different though and that's fine too, but I also think anyone who genuinely thinks it's worth $1000+ is absolutely full of it as there is no way you get that much value there.
And you can just sell points directly for $690, not gift cards.
Selling points is against the ToS of the QFF program - that's the risk part I'm talking about.
You've got some…nitpicks about business class so it seems like you're just finding ways to justify being happy in economy. Dunno. If I'm going on a holiday, I'm gonna get there comfortably and not tired so I can enjoy said holiday.
Anyway…for me points are reserved exclusively for high value redemptions. The dollar value is irrelevant since there's no way I can get a First class ticket for $1700 to LAX, but I can (and did) with points.
If you honestly value a business class upgrade at $2-$4k I think you are taking the piss lol.
That's not what I said.
I don't think it's actually worth the full price either, but it's worth way more than 10%.
Did you get a proper business class seat with a lie-flat seat (and not just the dodgey Jetstar-style "business class")?
@bobbified: It was Singapore Airlines about 10 years ago now. So it wasn't full lie-flat seats to be fair, but as far as I understand Singapore Airlines is considered a proper full airline.
But yeah - I think I'm just easy-going - don't mind the food in economy at all. It's a nice way to live life when you're not picky! Also helps I'm a bit shorter than average so leg-room etc. isn't a big deal.
If the food was about the same, then I highly doubt that you were on proper business class. Seat comfort "a bit better", were you on domestic business?
the seats were way too separated and deep
"And the food was too freshly cooked it burned my tongue, the hostess too hot and friendly it made me uncomfortable, the inflight movie was something I was planning on seeing at the cinema anyway, and the blanket and pillow was way too soft that I fell asleep too quickly"
@AustriaBargain: Lol if anything I'm the opposite of what you're suggesting here. I find Economy fine and not a problem, whereas others are saying they need to pay $1000+ in order to survive their next 20 hours or so.
@DingoBilly: The flight sets the mood your your holiday or next working day. A miserable flight can start your holiday off in a miserable mood. Whereas a relaxing flight you can step of refreshed, not seething with hate for your SO and kids.
69(k)
Mate you’re practically obligated to.
Just do it. Unless the wife is expecting to use them
69k
Edit: I will 100% follow the poll decision
Welcome to Ozbargain, Elon
Worth It?
Nope
depends if is overnight flight~ if yes I will totally spend it for a gd sleep!
check what kind of business class seat it is, the business seats on a narrow body plane isn't that much of an improvement.
I don’t believe Qantas operate any 12 hour long narrow body flights (the OP states a 12 hour long flight in the singular).
Is this just a Classic Rewards upgrade?
For a long haul flight, there’s practically very little chance it will clear unless you’re at least Gold, if not Platinum.
Even with Platinum status, you’ll have less than a 50/50 chance on the most business-heavy routes (e.g. to LAX / LHR).
109% this. Don't get excited until you have the business class tix allocated to you..
Spot on.
OP - How many FF points do you have, and what status are you, and where are you travelling?
If this is a flight to the USA and you aren't platinum you have nearly zero chance of an upgrade. I know from past experience - only once I've scored an upgrade from premium economy to business, and I hover between gold and silver tier.
Ive managed to snag upgrades for 2 on multiple occasions with my peasant bronze status. Maybe there is a lot of demand right now since we had closed borders for 2 years but depending on things like the route, day of the week, time of the day etc, you still have a pretty good shot.
This 100%. I was flying on a nearly empty plane during covid and despite having 1 million points I couldn't get an upgrade (bronze status). Yes you should 100% apply for it but its nearly certain you won't get it.
Out whole family was sitting in a Qantas international flights when some bikies started bickering at our kids about how nerdy their dad was. Staff let us move to the business class. First time for us. Leather seats, bottled orange juice, branded headphones, clean reading material, even apologies that our free upgrade was not planned in the meal section but with patience we got extra yummy stuff. So far so good. Now Aircon set to 12 degrees, closer to engines = more noise, everybody had to use to pee 10 times because of the cold, near end of 7h flight the urine was flowing from under the toilet door. Yep safest airline, everything else might be a culture conflict?
Well that escalated… like a plane crash
Actually I have more good luck at Jetstar than Virgin. Short haul: Qantas group anytime. Long haul there is good competition.
Not worth it if it's a 737 (but i don't think they fly the 737 for more than 3-4 hours)… anything else is worth it (a330/a380/789 etc)
What are you going to use the points for if you don't?