Has Qantas Stopped Releasing Business Class Rewards In 2025?

Less than a year ago in April 2024, Qantas announced one of the largest shake-ups to its loyalty program in years, with the introduction of Classic Plus Flight Rewards. Although rumours and leaks had circulated in preceding months, the launch itself was far from a smooth landing.

Classic Plus is marketed as an easier way for members to locate and book Qantas flights using points, following criticism from Qantas loyalists that there weren’t enough Classic Rewards available. At the launch, Qantas explained that in most cases Classic Plus would require more points than Classic Rewards, but would still “Represent some of the best value across the frequent flyer program.”

But critics saw the move as a double-edged sword. While it was great to have easier access to reward seats, some viewed this as a strategy to push members into more expensive redemptions. It also created a convenient opportunity for Qantas to reduce the availability of Classic Rewards, which was the original issue that members had raised.

At the launch, Qantas affirmed its commitment to deliver more than 5 million Classic Rewards seats across Qantas, Jetstar and its partner airlines each year. Although recently, that figure has felt more like wishful thinking than a guarantee - just like the WiFi signal on a plane.

Has Qantas Stopped Releasing Classic Rewards?

The current state of Qantas Classic Reward availability is nothing short of disgraceful. But it’s not just hard for a family of four looking for Eurosummer flights in Economy, it’s hard for loyal frequent flyers after just one Business Classic Reward on any long-haul Qantas flight.

As mainstream media recently reported, with surprising factual loyalty knowledge, there is not a single Classic Reward in Business Class onboard Qantas to Europe for the entirety of 2025. We searched every single day in 2025 across all four Qantas routes to Europe to confirm, and backed those searches with Seats Aero, which also showed zero premium cabin availability for each route.

We did however locate several Classic Plus seats at more than double the cost. While a Business Classic Reward from Sydney to London costs 144,600 Qantas Points, many of the Classic Plus seats we found clocked in excess of 510,000 Qantas Points - a whopping 252% markup.

It’s a similar story for those aiming for North America, where Qantas offers a more extensive network. Again, we checked every Qantas-operated route and located a total of just twelve dates with Business Class Classic Rewards available to North America. Four of those were to Hawaii, two to New York, one to San Francisco and five to Los Angeles.

50,000 Business Seats To Europe, But Not One Reward?

The flying kangaroo has set up a European connection hub in Perth, currently operating a daily Boeing 787-9 into London, and three times weekly into both Paris and Rome. These jets have 42 seats up the front in Business Class. Qantas’ other route into Europe is a daily Airbus A380 service from Sydney to London, via a short stop in Singapore. The superjumbo has space for 14 First and 70 Business Class passengers.

Furthermore, travellers from all over the country are fed onto the second leg of the famous QF1 service to London, via up to two daily flights from each Brisbane, Melbourne, Perth and Sydney. There’s even a five-times weekly service from Darwin to taking to the skies from March 2025.

All this means that Qantas offers 1,036 Business Class seats to Europe every week, and that’s excluding the many connecting flights into Singapore. Across the year Qantas will offer more than fifty thousand Business Class seats into Europe, but for some reason, not a single Classic Reward is currently available on these flights for all of 2025.

But It’s Not All Bad News!

The good news is that Qantas offers a far more respectable number of Business Class Classic Reward seats to Asia, particularly on flights to Jakarta, Singapore and Manilla.

Partner airlines also come to the rescue in terms of availability, especially for last-minute bookings. For example, last week saw a huge drop of Japan Airlines B777 First Class Classic Rewards from Sydney to Tokyo Haneda, with up to two First Class reward seats per flight.

If you’re having trouble finding availability, we’d recommend trying a tool like Seats Aero, as well as searching for seats into Asia first, and then beyond with partner airlines.

Summing Up

I’m not saying Qantas should have Business Classic Rewards available on every flight, that in itself would undervalue the program. Reward seats are hugely valuable and by nature should be hard to find, but not this hard.

To fail at offering a single Classic Reward to Europe for a full year is a pretty obvious reduction in availability. Qantas has created an environment that effectively devalues its loyalty program, not by increasing fuel surcharges or redemption rates, but by withholding premium cabin ability for members.

I’m not asking for the moon, Qantas - just a lie-flat seat so I can drift off dreaming of a world where loyalty programs reward loyalty, not blind patience. Right now, it feels less like a program for devoted members and more like a test of endurance to see who gives up first.