Qantas Frequent Flyer Devaluation 2025: More Points, Higher Fees

Qantas is putting up the price of Classic Reward bookings using points, as part of changes to the Qantas Frequent Flyer program in 2025. Upgrades using points will also become more expensive. For the good news, members will soon earn up to 25% more points on Qantas domestic flights, and gain access to further reward availability with partner airlines.

Qantas Loyalty CEO Andrew Glance was enthusiastic on the program update, mentioning travel remains the number one priority for members.

“With a number of airlines making changes to their loyalty programs recently, we wanted to give our members as much notice as possible… These adjustments will ensure we can continue to invest in enhancing the program for the long-term and continue to grow the levels of Classic and Classic Plus Reward seat availability for members year on year.”

“We’re also introducing the lowest reward seat fare in Australia… This is just the beginning of a broader suite of changes to Jetstar rewards that will deliver even greater value for members.”

Qantas Frequent Flyer’s program changes will roll out over the next 12 months;

• 22 July 2025 - Boosted points earn when taking Qantas domestic flights.
• 22 July 2025 - Status Bonus cap removed for tiered members in premium cabins.
• 5 August 2025 - Jetstar Economy Classic Reward lead-in points reduced.
• 5 August 2025 - Increase to points and taxes for Classic Reward bookings.
• Late 2025 - One million additional partner Classic Reward seats.
• 2026 - Jetstar Business Class upgrades allowed using Qantas Points.

1. Increase To Classic Reward Pricing

From 5th August 2025, the number of points required to book nearly all Classic Flight Rewards will increase by up to 20%. That includes reward bookings travelling with Qantas and Jetstar, as well as Oneworld and all partner airlines.

Classic Rewards for travel on Emirates will be moved to the Qantas table, meaning the points cost for Qantas and Emirates flights will align. This results in a reduction to current Emirates Economy Classic Rewards, but an increase for Business and First Class redemptions.

Finally, Qantas will also increase the cash component for Business and First Class Classic Reward bookings, matching the higher fees that are currently applied to Classic Plus redemptions.

Qantas will publish its updated reward tables by 5th May 2025, but until then, here are some examples of the increase to Classic Reward pricing.

From the limited examples provided, we find Qantas Business Class between Sydney and Melbourne will require 5% more points and 38% more cash, whereas Sydney to London sees a 15% increase in points and 37% increase in the cash component.

Furthermore, the cash-grab that will apply to Business and First redemptions is pretty bad on some routes, like the 97% fee hike on Qantas' direct Auckland to New York service from NZ$379.88 to NZ$748.92.

2. Increase To Upgrade Pricing

From 5th August 2025, Qantas will make points upgrades more expensive.

While we wait for the revised Classic Upgrade Reward tables to be made available, below are a few examples from Qantas. In most cases, Qantas points upgrades will require 10-20% more points.

3. One Million Additional Classic Reward Seats In 2025

From late 2025, Qantas claims they will add a further 1 million Classic Reward seats to the 5 million Classic Reward seats they already offer each year. But instead of adding reward seats across their own flights, Qantas will offer those additional million across its network of airline partners. That’s a strange promise because in most cases, airlines have zero control over reward inventory onboard partner airlines.

Of that million, 200,000 Classic Rewards are unlocked by allowing Premium Economy redemptions onboard Finnair, Air France, KLM and Iberia.

The remaining 800,000 Classic Rewards come from bringing forward Hawaiian Airlines redemptions. Hawaiian are set to join the oneworld alliance in 2026, so it’s nice to see Qantas offer early access to redemptions onboard the aloha carrier.

Considering Hawaiian Airlines? Check out our Hawaiian B787 First Class review.

4. Some Jetstar Rewards Will Cost Less

Qantas Frequent Flyer claims they will soon offer the lowest Economy Reward seat fares in Australia. That’s of course onboard Jetstar, Australia’s only budget airline.

From 5th August 2025, Classic Reward seats on nearly half of Jetstar’s flights will start from 5,700 Qantas Points, a reduction of 700 points or just over 10%. This applies to zone 1 Jetstar redemptions only, with zone 2 and above Jetstar redemptions increasing by around 15% (more above).

5. Boosted Points Earn When Flying With Qantas

From 22nd July 2025, members will earn up to 25% more Qantas Points when taking a Qantas domestic flight. The airline is yet to release its updated earning tables, so we can’t fully explore the scale of these changes for now.

Qantas did provide two examples of the boosted earn rate, based on a Bronze member;

• Sydney-Perth in Economy will earn 1,815 Qantas Points (up from 1,450)
• Melbourne-Brisbane in Business will earn 2,625 Qantas Points (up from 2,100)

Qantas Frequent Flyer will also remove the Status Bonus cap for Silver and above tiered members flying in premium cabins. Previously, bonus points were capped at the Flexible Economy earn rate, but now members will earn bonus points on the full base fare of their flown cabin. For example;

• Sydney-Melbourne in Business as Platinum member will earn 3,500 points (up from 2,000)
• Sydney-Los Angeles in Business as a Gold member will earn 25,594 points (up from 21,375)

6. Jetstar Business Upgrades With Qantas Points

From 2026, members will also be able to use their Qantas Points to upgrade to Business on Jetstar flights. This change comes as Jetstar refreshes its B787 cabins, including adding WiFi and more than doubling Business Class capacity to 44 seats.

Jetstar’s cabin upgrade is set be completed during scheduled aircraft maintenance, with the first aircraft due to be refitted in February 2026.

The red roo notes that this is the first increase to Classic Reward seat fares in six years, and the second since 2004. While all frequent flyer schemes suffer devaluation over the years, mostly due to rising redemption costs, it would also be a natural expectation that with higher prices comes more availability. That’s especially the case for premium cabins onboard Qantas metal, which are suffering from a severe lack of Classic Reward availability.

Summing Up: Is This Good News Or Bad News?

Overall, the announced changes are a mixed bag for Qantas Frequent Flyers. It’s nice to see a boosted points earn on Qantas domestic flights, Jetstar Business upgrades becoming available, plus the expansion of partner Classic Reward seats.

Claims of “the lowest Economy reward seat fares in Australia” do ring hollow when price hikes affect all zones beyond the cheapest. Jetstar is also Australia’s only true budget airline, so it makes sense they’d require the fewest points.

The promise of one million additional Classic Reward seats sounds impressive, but being tied to partner airlines, that availability remains uncertain. Adding Premium Economy seats with European carriers and early access to Hawaiian Airlines is a small win, but it doesn’t address Qantas’ severe lack of Classic Reward availability on its own flights.

Furthermore, until the full redemption and upgrade tables are published, the true impact of these changes remains unclear.