How to Use Qantas Points to Book Emirates Flights
In this step-by-step guide I'll walk you through the process of using your Qantas Frequent Flyer Points to book reward seats on Emirates and how to maximise value.
Can you use Qantas Points on Emirates, and how does one go about doing so?! You certainly can, and that’s what this guide is all about, so let’s get started!
Although Emirates isn’t part of any alliance (Qantas being part of Oneworld), they have a very close relationship with Qantas, opening up a world of reciprocal benefits for both Qantas Frequent Flyers and Emirates Skywards members.
One of these benefits is, of course, the ability to use your Qantas Points to book Emirates award seats. This is also known as a Qantas Classic Flight Reward (if you’re new, that’s essential reading), where you use a fixed set of points to redeem flights onboard Emirates in either Economy, Business or First Class.
You may notice the absence of Emirates Premium Economy, that’s because it isn’t bookable on points just yet!
In this guide, I'm going to walk you through exactly how you can use your Qantas Points to book Emirates flights. This guide is focused on beginners, but who knows, maybe there are some tips for the more experienced amongst you! And if you have any pro-tips to add, I love hearing from you in the comments section.
Booking Emirates with Qantas Points
To calculate how many Qantas Points you need to book an Emirates award seat, we need to refer to the Qantas Classic Flight Reward Table. You can use the interactive Qantas Points Calculator, but the most accurate way is to calculate the cost yourself.
Qantas uses a distance-based award chart, which is the gold standard for frequent flyer programs. To figure out the distance of a certain route, we’ll need a tool to help us. My favourite is Great Circle Mapper — it might seem basic and dated, but it’s highly accurate.
Example: Perth to Dubai with Emirates booked using Qantas Points
When we look at a flight from Perth to Dubai, all we need to do is refer to the Qantas award chart after putting the airport codes into Great Circle Mapper.
Once you map the results, you can see that the total distance is 5,608 mi. When we cross-reference this number to the Classic Reward table, you can see that the points required falls in zone 6 on the chart, which means an Economy reward seat will cost 36,200 Qantas Points, Business 98,400 Qantas Points and First Class 147,700 Qantas Points.
FYI, I’m referring to the award chart effective from 5 August, book before this date to get a better rate, as August is when the latest devaluation will kick in.
Now what if we want to book a flight from Australia to Europe with Emirates using Qantas Points? We repeat the exact same process but now add a stop in Dubai as part of the calculation. The total number of miles will then translate into how many points you need. Let’s continue the example.
Example 2: Perth to Dubai to Paris with Emirates booked using Qantas Points
In this case, we will enter the following data into the Great Circle Mapper tool: PER-DXB-CDG.
As you can see, the total mileage is 8,868, this translates to zone 9 on the Qantas Classic Flight Reward table and means we’ll need to pay the following number of points depending on class of travel: 58,900 Qantas Points for Economy, 151,800 Qantas Points for Business and 227,800 Qantas Points for First.
Now, provided you have enough Qantas Points in your account, we can go ahead and make a real booking.
- Step 1: head on over to Qantas.com and make sure you’re logged in.
- Step 2: don’t waste your time on the home page, instead go to the multi-city flights tool found here: Multi-city flights
- Step 3: Click “book with Rewards”
- Step 4: Enter your departure city and destination.
- Step 5: Press “search flights”, you'll now get a whole month worth of award seats!
You may have noticed we’re doing all this on the desktop version of the Qantas website. Here’s a little tip for you: mobile phones are handy, but they’re a rookie’s tool when it comes to booking award flights. Frequent flyer programs are purposely designed to be “hard to use”, so you’re only limiting your own potential by using a mobile browser or app.
Pro Tip: Use Qantas Multi-City Search
Instead of doing a regular reward search which only shows you results day by day, use the Multi-City search tool to see a whole month of Emirates award seats!
How to find flight availability with Emirates
Let’s be honest, finding available award space on flights you want can be challenging and time-consuming. Seats can be released at any time and of course you’re competing with a huge pool of fellow frequent flyers to redeem one of those limited seats on the dates you want. It’s therefore important that you’re A) somewhat flexible and B) use tools to your advantage! My favourite tools are Seats.aero (see video demo below) and SeatFinder; both have the ability to quickly scan Emirates award inventory and even set alerts so when a seat opens up you can snag it!
The second part to this is being flexible in where you depart from and fly to. You can increase your chances of finding a seat (especially in Business or First Class) exponentially by expanding your horizons, so to speak.
Emirates operates flights to Sydney, Melbourne, Perth, Brisbane and Adelaide, sometimes looking at all these departure points will greatly increase the possibilities of booking an Emirates flight with your Qantas Points.
Another strategy often deployed is to travel to a nearby country where availability might be greater. For example, if you’re on the east coast you could look at departing from Auckland, New Zealand. Those in Perth and Adelaide might find a raft of availability when hopping over to Jakarta, Denpasar, Singapore and Kuala Lumpur.
Emirates taxes and fees
In recent years, Emirates has started charging excessive “fuel surcharges”, which is essentially another way airlines try to raise extra revenue from their award seats. These taxes are so high that it really begs the question if using your Qantas Points for Emirates flights is even worth it. On flights from Australia to Europe, you will be slugged with almost $4,000 in fees for Business and First Class on a return trip. That’s crazy!
More reasonable are flights from Perth to Dubai, which will set you back just over $2,500 return in Business and First Class. Tag on an extra flight to Europe though and expect to pay around AU$1,885.07 on a route such as Perth to Brussels via Dubai in First Class.
How to avoid Emirates fuel surcharge?
In general, it’s impossible to avoid the high fees Emirates imposes on award tickets these days. This is both good and bad: good if you can easily earn a lot of points, and bad if you can’t. Let me explain — due to the high surcharges, there’s generally more award space available, however, one might argue that the value of award tickets on Emirates is greatly diminished due to these charges.
You can also make sure to depart from a destination that doesn’t charge high taxes, for example, avoid flying out of London (pick Amsterdam instead) due to the insane departure tax, or start your trip in Asia as the taxes are slightly lower.
For example, by starting your Emirates First Class trip in Singapore, you’ll only pay 149,800 Qantas Points + SG$1,128.70 in taxes and fees on a trip from Singapore to Brussels via Dubai in First!
The only routes where fees aren’t surcharged excessively are those which we would call “fifth freedom” routes. This is when an airline operates between two cities which are not its own home base. A good example of this would be the Sydney to Christchurch route which Emirates operates as a fifth freedom. They do this because there’s not enough demand out of Christchurch to fill an A380, along with other strategic reasons (I’m sure they save on parking fees in Sydney just by tagging on Christchurch).
Emirates fifth freedom routes
Since we’re on the topic of Emirates fifth freedom routes, let’s explore which other routes you can book using Qantas Points and save a whole bunch of fees in the process.
- Sydney – Christchurch
- Singapore – Phnom Penh
- Bangkok – Hong Kong
- Bangkok – Da Nang
- Bangkok – Siem Reap
- Mahe – Antananarivo
- Larnaca – Malta
- Athens – New York
- Milan – New York
- Barcelona – Mexico City
- Miami – Bogota
- Rio de Janeiro – Buenos Aires
- Lusaka – Harare
- Accra – Abidjan
- Conakry – Dakar
These routes allow Emirates to make flights to less popular destinations economically viable as well as for operational reasons where they otherwise might not have the reach from Dubai direct. For example, Mexico City can’t be operated from Dubai at full capacity due to Mexico City being at an elevation of 2,240m! As an added bonus, booking these routes using your Qantas points is much more affordable with the award fees only being around the $100 mark.
Last minute strategies to book Emirates with Qantas Points
Emirates can be stingy for award space out of Australia booked in advance, but they are well known to open up most, if not all, seats for redemption closer to departure. This means you will often see Emirates release First Class award space and Business Class seats around 48 hours before departure, sometimes even earlier. This is great for those who like to plan last minute or “chance it”, so to speak.
You can also combine the last minute Emirates strategy with a lower seat redemption, for example, if you “must” travel on a certain date, book Economy or Business using Qantas Points. When a seat in First Class gets released a few days before departure, you can simply log in to Qantas, go to Manage Booking, change flight and pick the higher class. You’ll simply pay a 6,000 Qantas Points ticket change fee and the points difference between your initial booking and the new booking! You can further boost your chances of getting the seat you want (first class - obviously!) by setting an alert via Seats.Aero (you need a pro plan for this), which will send you an SMS or email when a seat opens up so you can snap it up before anyone else.
Does having Qantas Status make it easier to book Emirates award seats?
No! While Emirates does recognise Qantas status for lounge access and extra luggage allowance etc., there’s zero benefit when it comes to redeeming Qantas Points for Emirates operated flights. The only airline where your Qantas Status gives you greater access to award space is… Qantas themselves!
How to upgrade your Emirates flight with Qantas Points?
Cancel your ticket and book the class you want using points! Honestly, that’s the only way. Emirates only allows points upgrades on flights booked with their own Skywards frequent flyer miles. The same goes for cash tickets, often people think that because they booked a codeshare Qantas flight operated by Emirates that they can use their points to upgrade. This is incorrect, and no upgrades will be possible with points!
Can I upgrade an Emirates economy flight booked with Qantas Points using cash?
The results here are mixed. From personal experience I wasn’t able to upgrade my Emirates Business Class ticket booked with Qantas Points to First Class, however this might be a restriction simply from Business to First as I’ve heard from others that Economy seats booked with Qantas Points can be upgraded to Business at the check-in counter for a fee. These fees vary based on the flights and no doubt the load capacity, so the only way to find out the costs is to ask when you get to the airport.
Emirates is generally very good at selling upgrades and even allows and facilitates upgrades during the boarding process with card machines on hand to take payment.
Can I get Chauffeur Drive on Emirates flights booked with Qantas Points?
Emirates offers a complimentary chauffeur service for passengers travelling in Business and First Class. This service is offered on both departure and arrival, but unfortunately it’s only for tickets paid for in cash. Upgraded tickets and Qantas Points redemptions (and Skywards redemptions) aren’t eligible for the complimentary chauffeur.
How to book Dubai Connect on an award Ticket
Dubai Connect is a program for all passengers flying Emirates in Economy, Premium Economy, Business or First Class. Essentially, you get a free hotel room during your extended layover. However, there are some rules you need to abide by to get Dubai Connect. The main rules are that your connection needs to be longer than 8 hours and no more than 26 hours. The second hard rule is that your booking should utilise the best available connection. So if a connection is available to your final destination shorter than 8 hours but you purposely select a connection of 8 hours or more, you will not be eligible for Dubai Connect.
To book Dubai Connect, you will need to take the PNR number provided by Qantas and head on over to emirates.com and plug these details into the manage my booking section. There you’ll be able to request Dubai Connect for your stopover if you’re eligible.
When does Emirates release award seats?
Emirates doesn’t have a “set in stone” time when they release award seats like many other airlines, but you can expect to see things opening up around 330 days in advance at a minimum. While researching for this article I could find award seats from 346 days in advance. That said, Emirates tends to release premium cabins later on, so expect more seats last minute.
Can I convert Qantas Points to Emirates or Emirates Points to Qantas?
Nope! While both Qantas and Emirates are very close partners, their frequent flyer programs don’t mix and points transfers aren’t possible. If you have an American Express Platinum, for example, you can choose to either transfer points to Emirates Skywards or to Qantas Frequent Flyer.
Which cabins can you expect onboard Emirates?
Emirates has a range of aircraft and cabin configurations, not every seat is equal, so make sure you know which aircraft type and configuration is operating your route before booking!
A380: this is the safest bet, you will be comfortable in all classes and, of course, the First Class cabin features the shower suites, and Business Class guests can enjoy the onboard bar. Business on the A380 is also in a 1-2-1 configuration, which is the gold standard.
B777-300ER: be cautious with this one! Some of these jets still feature the very dreadful recliner Business Class in a 2-3-2 configuration where the seats don’t even go fully flat. First Class suites on these are actually very similar to the A380, but you won’t get the shower. As an upside, the cabin is smaller so service should be more attentive.
However, some of the aircraft are configured with the latest “game changer” First Class suites, you can track the call signs via these links to see if your flight features the new seats:
A350: Emirates now has a few A350s in its fleet, these sport the latest iteration of Business Class and Premium Economy. These would also be my number one choice for Economy seats. Emirates will launch an A350 to Adelaide in 2025, but apart from that you will find them on medium-haul and short-haul routes predominantly.
Summing up – using Qantas Points for Emirates award flights
Using your Qantas Points on Emirates flights can offer a fantastic experience, especially in First Class. Personally, I wouldn’t redeem my Qantas Points on Business Class or lower with Emirates simply because the surcharges are so ridiculous. Using your points in First Class can be the sweet spot here, and for Economy you’re better off paying cash in most cases.
Tip: Earn more Qantas Points with a sign up bonus!
Looking for more Qantas Points? Check out our partner Qantas Credit Card offers for huge sign up bonuses.
