Rough Guide: Where Can I Go With My Frequent Flyer Miles?

Lots of friends ask us where they can go with their frequent flyer points and as a pair of points geeks we usually go straight to the detail. However many of our readers just want a rough guide on how many points they need to go somewhere nice in Business or First Class.

For Australians there are only a handful of programs that matter:

Qantas Frequent Flyer
Virgin Australia Velocity
Singapore KrisFlyer
United MileagePlus
Alaska MileagePlan

Let’s use Sydney as our base (given the points redemption is similar for Melbourne) and focus on key destinations that are popular Australian frequent flyers:

London
Milan
Dubai
Hong Kong
Singapore
Perth
San Francisco
New York

Oh, and we are going Business Class. For Economy, try Flight Centre!

Sydney to:	Qantas Frequent Flyer	Virgin Velocity	Singapore Airlines KrisFlyer	United Mileage Plus	Alaska Mileage Plan
London	289,200	n/a	232,000	160,000	145,000
Milan	319,200	n/a	232,000	160,000	145,000
Dubai	216,800	208,000	172,000	n/a	120,000
Hong Kong	136,800	130,000	130,000	100,000	60,000
Singapore	136,800	130,000	124,000	100,000	n/a
Perth	83,000	71,000	n/a	50,000	40,000
San Fran	216,800	n/a	242,000	160,000	110,000
NYC	289,200	n/a	258,000	160,000	110,000

In this post:

Qantas Frequent Flyer

One of the easiest programs to get points for Australians given many premium credit cards come with a sign up bonus of 100,000 Qantas points. That means from a standing start you are 3 credit card applications away from a return Business Class trip to the US or Europe.

Given its popularity, Qantas Frequent Flyer is also one of the hardest to redeem without forward planning. Three considerations:

Qantas Frequent Flyer Platinum (Drew) and Gold members get first pick of award seats at 353 days from the date of travel, with Silver and Bronze (Milton) have to wait until 297 days
The Qantas website isn’t the best at finding you all available routings. Use the Premium Award Booking Magic Trick to find Business and First Class routings that Qantas won’t show you
Consider redeeming flights out of Hong Kong with Cathay, Emirates or Finnair (Drew’s favourite slippers). A flight from Hong Kong to Milan is 209,000 Qantas Frequent flyer points and has much lower taxes as airline fuel surcharges are illegal in Hong Kong.

Virgin Australia Velocity

Velocity is the second easiest program for Australian’s to accumulate points given the numerous credit cards with generous sign up bonuses.

The award charts are almost identical to Qantas and you can redeem on quality airlines including Virgin Atlantic, Singapore Airlines and Etihad.

Award availability on Virgin Australia flights is typically better than Qantas.

Singapore Airlines KrisFlyer

The big advantage of Singapore Airlines is they usually have great award availability as they limit most Business and First Class seats to their own members.

The downside is their points expire after three years. It is also hard to quickly accrue direct points using Australian credit cards. As a last resort we have shifted points from Virgin Velocity to Singapore for redemptions at 1.55 Velocity points for 1 KrisFlyer mile (one of the only transfers allowed between frequent flyer programs in the world).

While they are a Star Alliance member they rarely show partner award seats, and charge a premium to redeem them.

United MileagePlus

We love using the United Airlines website to find and redeem awards. They have a lot of flight options available including the Thai Airways flight from Sydney with reliable First Class award availability.

As a Star Alliance member you can direct all your points there if you fly a lot. Similar to Qantas you can book hotels and Airbnb via their site to accrue points. There are no cards programs to accrue points.

One hack is to wait for a bonus points offer (but only when the Aussie dollar is strong) to buy miles outright. We have purchased points to fly Business/First from Narita to Bangkok and on to Sydney.

Alaska Mileage Plan

Our new favourite child.

Mileage Plan is a no brainer for redemptions between Australia and the US.

It’s more complicated for Australia to Europe redemptions as you need two awards (Australia to Asia, Asia to Europe).

Earning with Alaska Mileage Plan is challenging for frequent spenders as there are no direct earn cards in Australia, but they are unique in having 15 airline partners that cover OneWorld and Star Alliance, including the airlines Australians fly most frequently:

Qantas (OneWorld)
Emirates
Singapore Airlines (Star Alliance)
Cathay Pacific (OneWorld)
Japan Airlines (OneWorld)
British Airways (OneWorld)
American Airlines (OneWorld)
Fiji Airways

You can credit your flights on all airlines above to your Mileage Plan account to build up your frequent flyer points in a single account.

Emirates Skywards and Etihad Guest

It is easier to use Qantas to redeem Emirates and Virgin Velocity to redeem Etihad, rather than crediting miles to these programs.

Links to Frequent Flyer redemption tables and calculators

What If I Don’t Have Enough Points?

Australia has some of the largest credit card sign on bonuses in the world, comparing favourably with the UK and competitive with the US.

From a standing start, many people are 3 credit card sign up bonuses away from a return Business Class flight to Europe or the US.

And if you are a few thousand points short, Qantas Wine often run bonus points promotions on wine purchases of up to 20,000 points per case.

Summary

Most people don’t realise they can be flying Business Class to Europe with a bit of forward planning and a good credit score.

At a run rate of a new card every 4 months you can easily accrue enough points to redeem a $7-10k Business Class flight to Europe or America in under a year.

And given most people already have Qantas or Velocity points, it will often be sooner!