Should I use frequent flier points or Air Miles to travel to Australia?
Is it best to use frequent flier points or Air Miles to book flights to Australia, or is it better to save them up for flights elsewhere?
Air Miles to Australia?
One question I am frequently asked is whether it is worth using frequent flier points or Air Miles to book a ‘free’ flight to Australia. My answer, as usual, is that it depends on the circumstances.
Competitive flight prices
My gut reaction, however, is to say “no”. There are a few reasons for this, and the major one is that prices on flights to Australia are relatively competitive. The UK to Australia route is plied by a lot of airlines, and this keeps prices down – certainly in relation to the distance flown.
British Airways Executive Club
I’ll use the British Airways Executive Club scheme (of which I am a member) as an illustration. To use BA Miles to fly to Sydney, I need 100,000 for a return flight. It takes an awful lot of spending/ other flights to rack that amount up.
Alternative flights
For that 100,000 BA Miles, I could get any of the following combinations:
- Return to Ghana (40,000), Kuwait (40,000) and Ukraine (20,000).
- Return to the Cayman Islands (50,000) and the Turks and Caicos Islands (50,000).
- Return to Bermuda (50,000) and the Maldives (50,000).
- Return to Belgrade (15,000), Budapest (15,000) and Buenos Aires (70,000).
- Return to Algeria (20,000), Moscow (20,000), Namibia (50,000) and Berlin (9,000).
I could go on, but I think you get the picture. All of those options would cost a great deal more than the sub-£700 returns to Sydney that BA was recently offering.
Distance vs cost
As a general rule, frequent flier miles should be used for the most relatively expensive flights, not the longest distances – use them on routes where there isn’t much competition.
Australia flights = more points
The second reason is that in terms of distance, Australia is about as far away as you can get. This means that if you have a frequent flyer account with an airline, buying a flight to Sydney or Melbourne is the best way to ramp up the amount of points you have.
BA Miles for Sydney flights
British Airways is a bad example for this, as it is shockingly stingy with the amount of miles it hands out, but I will use BA for consistency. A London to Sydney return flight in economy will earn you 10,565 BA Miles. That’s enough for a return flight in Europe. Again, other airlines are more generous.
Repeat visits to Australia
But as I said, whether you should use frequent flier points depends on circumstances. Not everyone is like me, wanting to go to as many obscure places across the globe as possible. Some people go to Australia every year to visit family and don’t go anywhere else. And of course these people may as well use their frequent flier points/ miles.
Peak season flights
There’s also the issue of peak season flights. The sub-£700 flights to Australia are only generally available between April and June. You can add another 50% to 100% on to that in December, and a fair bit more at other times of the year. If you’re flying at peak season and it is possible to redeem award flights at this time, then it suddenly becomes a very attractive option.
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Comments
Surely, to collect enough points for a free flight to Oz, you’d have to fly with the same airline once a week for about ten years?
I collect points on trips to Oz, and usually redeem them on flights to Europe … furthest I’ve been on them is Amman (and I didn’t collect those; I won them in a TV travel quiz show)
And, I wonder, is there any central system where you can collect points from several airlines?
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Lovely article – many thanks for your thoughts!
To continue with your BA example, if they are so stingy at giving out points for a trip, this should be factored into your calculations. You may save £ 50 or £ 100 on a trip compared to (for the sake of argument) Qantas, but if the difference in miles is substantial, it may make it worth using Qantas. In this day and age of alliances, you can also use your Qantas points on BA
The Unexpected Traveller