This was published 1 year ago
Qantas to fly 100 'points planes' for frequent flyers to Noumea, New Caledonia
Qantas will make all seats on 100 flights to Noumea available for booking on frequent flyer points.Credit: iStock
Frequent flyers will be able to access thousands of rewards seats to Nouméa following Qantas' latest "points planes" promotion.
From 9am Wednesday, more than 100 flights from Sydney and Brisbaen to New Caledonia's capital will be turned into "points planes", where every seat in every cabin, including business class, can be booked using frequent flyer points.
The promotion includes services between August and November, with the points seats available to claim throughout the rest of July, until sold out.
Travellers can book one-way economy seats from 18,000 points and business seats from 41,500 points (plus $199 in taxes, fees and carrier charges), with seats on these flights also available to book with cash.
Qantas Loyalty chief executive Olivia Wirth said flights remained the most popular way for frequent flyer members to spend their points.
"Since flights recommenced in June, we've seen hundreds of Australians take off to New Caledonia for tropical holidays each week, and now frequent flyers can book any available seat across most flights using points," Wirth said.
Wirth said there are still millions of reward seats available across Qantas and Jetstar's domestic and international routes for the remainder of the year.
"Qantas frequent flyers have used points to travel on points planes to New Zealand, Rome, London, LA and across Australia, with more to Korea and India in the coming months," said Wirth.
The promotion comes a month after Qantas restarted its direct flights to the Pacific islands nation, with the carrier now operating five return flights per week on Boeing 737-800.
The carrier is also marking 80 years of flying to New Caledonia.
New Caledonia ended al COVID-19 related restrictions on June 12 following a decline in local cases.
Qantas loyalty members have been spending points accumulated during the pandemic in record numbers, the airline says, with more than 40 per cent of points used on premium seats.
The pent-up demand has led to many loyalty customers complaining online about a lack of rewards seats available.
However, Points Hacks editor-in-chief Daniel Sciberras recently told Traveller that the current lack of rewards flights is the result of reduced route capacity and extraordinary demand.
"That combination of higher demand, lower supply is making it much harder to find those reward seats at the moment, but in terms of the number of reward seats on offer, it's probably the same [as pre-pandemic]."
The airline has recently come under fire over high levels of delays and cancellations, along with issues around baggage. Qantas had its worst month on record for on-time performance in April.
Some domestic routes will be cut by 10 per cent until March next year, including on the busy Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane inter-city routes. Qantas chief executive Alan Joyce blamed high oil prices for the cuts.
See also: Flight delayed or cancelled? Here's what you need to do
See also: Airline review: Our verdict on Qantas' new non-stop flight to Europe
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