Qantas Guts Emirates Awards With Price Hike & New Restrictions

Using Qantas Points for Emirates flights is about to become both more expensive and more difficult. From early 2026, Qantas will introduce a range of new restrictions to Emirates Classic Flight Rewards.

As well as banning young children from First Class redemptions, Emirates First reward seats will only be accessible to Qantas Silver and above members. Qantas is also significantly increasing the number of points required to redeem Emirates awards. The change will mean Qantas has increased the cost of Emirates redemptions twice in seven months.

A spokesperson for Qantas told Flight Hacks that these latest changes are Emirates-driven, describing them as a response to similar restrictions introduced by Emirates Skywards in 2025. It’s an interesting dynamic, with Emirates having considerable influence over how Qantas runs its loyalty program. Especially when it comes to pricing and who’s allowed to make a redemption.

Here’s what’s changing with Emirates Redemptions booked via Qantas in early 2026.

TL;DR

• 21 January 2026 - Children aged under 9 will not be permitted to fly Emirates First using Qantas Points.
• 18 February 2026 - Only Qantas Silver members can redeem points for Emirates First Class.
• 31 March 2026 - Qantas will increase the points required for all Emirates Classic Flight Rewards by 5 to 30%.

1. Qantas Devalues Emirates Redemptions Again

From 31 March 2026, Qantas will increase the number of Qantas Points required to book Emirates Classic Flight Reward seats. Emirates will be moved to its own redemption table from this date, having been moved to the Qantas table only five months ago during the August 2025 Qantas devaluation.

First Class awards will require around 20% more Qantas Points, Business jumps by 5-10%, and Economy around 10%. Although Emirates Premium Economy redemptions are currently not bookable via Qantas, these awards are the worst hit, climbing by a whopping 30%.

Here’s the new Emirates Classic Flight Reward table, which applies to bookings made from 31 March 2026.

How Bad Is This Qantas Devaluation For Emirates?

To get a feel of what these changes will actually mean, let’s take a look at a few examples.

As is the case flying from Australia’s East Coast to most of Europe, currently you’d need 249,400 Qantas Points to fly Sydney-Dubai-Brussels in Emirates First Class. But from 31 March, the same flights will require 299,300 Qantas Points, an increase of 20%.

The same route in Business Class jumps 9.98%, from 166,300 Qantas Points at today’s rates to 182,900 from 31 March.

Perth-Dubai-Rome in Business Class jumps from 130,100 Qantas Points to 143,000 points, an increase of +9.92%.

2. Emirates First Awards Limited To Elite Qantas Members

From 18 February 2026, Qantas Frequent Flyers will need to hold Silver or above Qantas status to be eligible to book Emirates First reward seats. That means Bronze Qantas Frequent Flyers will be blocked from booking Emirates First Class with their Qantas Points.

This change wasn’t entirely unexpected, with Emirates Skywards making a similar move to ban its base-level members from First Class awards and upgrades back in May 2025. At the time, Emirates said its changes would be “implemented to provide our premium and loyal members with more rewards.”

When this was announced, many Australian frequent flyers wondered if it would affect Qantas members. The answer back then was that it wouldn’t, but that’s now changed. It also clears up some questions we had about Emirates blocking Qantas members from some First Class redemptions.

This Change Didn’t Happen Overnight

After Qantas’ August devaluation last year, we noticed that Emirates had ‘revoked’ access to First Class award space with Qantas, for almost every route that didn’t touch Australia. This meant Qantas Frequent Flyers looking to book flights such as Europe to Dubai or the US to Europe could no longer do so in First Class.

This change coincided with Emirates’ above-mentioned limitation on First Class awards to Silver and above Skywards members. It seemed that many savvy members who couldn’t redeem Emirates First via Skywards were instead redeeming via Qantas. Our theory is that Emirates didn’t like this and therefore stopped making First Class available to Qantas Frequent Flyers, unless the itinerary touched Australia at some point.

At the time, Emirates declined to comment on our request. Qantas denied that any changes had been made, but said that availability was controlled by Emirates. Then, the same thing happened with other partners like Aeroplan.

With these newly announced changes, that position now makes more sense. We know that Emirates does not like reward bookings, and it seems that they were indeed blocking partner airline access to First Class redemptions. With only elite Qantas members soon to access Emirates First awards, we can only hope Emirates will once again open up seats on routes that do not operate to or from Australia.

3. Children Banned From Emirates First Awards

From 21 January 2026, all passengers must be at least 9 years old to travel in Emirates First Class using Qantas Points.

This change isn’t too surprising, as back in September 2025, Emirates quietly introduced the same age restriction to First Class Rewards and Upgrade Rewards booked via its Emirates Skywards program. It seems that Emirates has forced Qantas to apply the same rules to Emirates First Class redemptions booked via Qantas Frequent Flyer.

To be clear, there are no restrictions on booking Emirates First Class cash tickets for children. This minimum age only applies to points bookings.

Summing Up

With sky-high carrier charges, yet another devaluation and fierce eligibility rules, booking Emirates First Class with Qantas Points is about to be harder than ever.

What makes these changes particularly noteworthy is the level of control Emirates appears to have over Qantas’ loyalty scheme. With these updates, Emirates seems to have dictated not only who can book First Class rewards but also how many points they cost.

The lack of notice is equally striking. According to the Qantas Frequent Flyer Terms and Conditions, changes to “the ways in which Qantas Points are earned and redeemed,” “Rewards or Benefits,” and “Reward restrictions or conditions” should be announced with at least three months’ notice if the benefit is provided by Qantas, or 30 days “where possible” if provided by a third party.

In practice, members received no advance notice about the age restriction, 28 days for the status restriction, and two months for the points devaluation.

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Thanks to David for flagging the quiet page update to Qantas' website.