TL;DR
- My situation – I generally fly once or twice a year, prioritising cheap fares over loyalty or comfort.
- Typical Qantas Points valuations feel off – Commonly touted numbers like 1.5c–4c per point often don’t hold true for my type of travel.
- My real-world calculation – After factoring in taxes/fees and cheaper competitor fares, I found I was only getting 0.22–0.65c per point.
- August 2025 devaluation: Qantas is making award flights cost even more points, likely reducing these values further.
- Still might be worthwhile?: If you have different wants to me, and go after big credit card sign-on bonuses it can still be worth going after Qantas Points. But it’s definitely worth doing the maths for your own situation.
The value of the points just didn’t seem right
I was thinking about signing up for another Qantas credit card today. But with the recently announced devaluation of the Qantas redemption scheme, it got me thinking, am I actually getting good value from these points?
I’d read all the usual advice: Qantas Points can be worth 1-2 cents each in Economy or up to 3–4 cents if you aim for Business Class. But I felt that there was a key flaw in all these valuations and that they might not apply to someone like me—who basically just wants the cheapest flight possible, even if it’s not the most comfortable.
This is because I suspect that the valuations aren’t taking into account what competitor airlines offer on the same routes, and only consider the value of the the same Qantas cash fare, which I expect is on the higher end.
Not to mention many places putting out these valuations are trying to get you to sign up for credit card referrals.
Common Valuations You’ll See Online
Looking at places like the QantasFrequentFlyer subreddit (or frequent flyer forums in general), you’ll see charts like these suggesting you can get pretty great value out of your Qantas Points.
But in my case? I’m typically booking one or two international trips a year. I’m not picky about which airline I fly, as long as I get there in one piece. I usually only carry one bag and don’t mind a less comfortable flight (because I can usually sleep through it and then splurge at the destination instead).
In fact I have this weird experience every time I fly where on the way there I longingly look at the business class seats and think, damn, I wish I spent the extra money, but as soon as I get to my destination I do a complete reversal and am so glad I saved the money to spend on my holiday instead.
Visual Breakdown: How to Actually Value Points
See below for my pretty crude breakdown of both a points redemption fare and a standard cash fare.
In column a) we have a Qantas redemption ticket. It consists of both points, and then unfortunately, some amount of taxes, fees, fuel surcharges, etc. Essentially even when you use points you still also need to pay some amount of cash.
Next to that in column b) we have the equivalent ticket when paying with all cash and no points.
Finally, we have the cheapest reasonable ticket in column c) for the same time and route, and its also all cash.
All these common valuations I expect are comparing column a) and b) but in my case, I am not tied to Qantas so I compare a) and c) instead.
Now how do we actually value them? Well thankfully its fairly simple because we just look at three things:
- The all-cash price (i.e. what I’d pay if I just bought a ticket with cash). The blue amount in cash in column c).
- How many Qantas Points a rewards redemption costs. The red amount in points in column a).
- The taxes/fees/surcharges Qantas still charges even if I’m using points. The grey amount in column a).
Then we can use the following formula:
(Cash Ticket - Taxes/Fees) ÷ Qantas Points = Cents per Point
The Plan of Attack
- Check the cheapest cash flights I’d actually consider if points weren’t an option.
- Compare them to Qantas Reward flights (similar dates/destinations) to see how many points and how much in fees are required.
- Work out the c/pt for each route and see if it lines up with those commonly cited values.
1. Check the cheapest cash flights
For this exercise, all the flights will be international return legs out of Melbourne. I’ll look at weeklong trips (being flexible) over the next year. For the locations, I’ve picked the following:
- Japan – Tokyo
- China – Shanghai
- UK – London
- NZ – Queenstown
Firstly, to work out what I would pay if I was booking a cash flight I jumped on Google Flights and picked out what I would consider a few reasonable flights for each destination.
For example, looking in early May I found this flight to Shanghai for a pretty good price.
Or this Xiamen Air flight at around the same time.
These don’t even go as low as some of the sale fares offered, such as Jetstar’s recent return for free sale which had prices down as low as about $550 return to Japan but is a more typical flight cost around this time of the year.
In the end I got results for each location in May and November this year, as that actually lines up with my international holidays this year.
The table below shows the results for all the cash fares I found.
| Destination | Flight 1 | Flight 2 | Average |
|---|---|---|---|
| Tokyo | $781 | $796 | $798 |
| Shanghai | $576 | $527 | $552 |
| London | $1181 | $1450 | $1316 |
| Queenstown | $381 | $393 | $387 |
2. Compare them to Qantas Reward flights
Now, for the same destinations on similar dates, I checked the Qantas website for points redemption flights on the same legs. Interestingly, in some cases, Qantas’s own Classic Plus redemption was cheaper in points and/or fees than a standard partner redemption (e.g., JAL), because Qantas seems to often add hefty surcharges on partner flights. Either way I picked the best value redemptions I could find.
Anyway, here’s what I found for the “best” Qantas Reward deals:
| Destination | Qantas Points | Fees & Taxes |
|---|---|---|
| Tokyo | 61,000 | $389 |
| Shanghai | 78,400 | $379 |
| London | 105,800 | $729 |
| Queenstown | 28,800 | $263 |
3. Work out the c/pt
Using the basic formula (Cash Fare – Taxes/Fees) ÷ Qantas Points, here’s what I got:
| Destination | Cents per Point |
|---|---|
| Tokyo | 0.65 |
| Shanghai | 0.22 |
| London | 0.55 |
| Queenstown | 0.44 |
These are way less than 1c per point for some routes, and nowhere near the 1.5–4c range. It basically means that even if I just assumed 1c per point, I’d be overvaluing them by up to 450% in certain scenarios. And with Qantas due to hike up the points needed for Classic Rewards in August 2025, it could get even worse.
So, what am I doing with this information?
Well this definitely helps me make some decisions on credit cards to sign up for, and indeed under the 1 c/pt almost all the current credit card sign ups were quite good value but when points come down to only 0.65 c/pt, well some actually don’t outweigh their annual fees, so that’s helpful. It also helps me think more about whether I am better off just paying the cash fares instead of looking to book Qantas redemption tickets first.
Other things
But, but, but what about business class? Or what if I have to take the flights during school holidays when the cash prices are higher I hear you say!
The thing here is that this is a pretty personalised approach, and so the results are really only applicable to someone in my situation (flexible dates, specific locations, no checked bags needed, etc). But if that’s not you, I’ll put out another post later which explores some of these other scenarios.