Qantas Announces Resumption of International Flights, Increases Award Space

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Qantas is resuming international flights to the U.S. starting Monday! In several pieces of news, Qantas has published start dates and routes, announced extra award space availability, and also extended its flexibility policy into early 2022.

Qantas Resuming International Flights

The biggest piece of news coming from Qantas is that they will restart select international routes between the following city pairs:

• To / from Sydney
  • Los Angeles (resumes November 1, 2021)
  • London Heathrow (resumes November 1, 2021) — via Darwin
  • Singapore (resumes November 23, 2021)
  • Delhi (resumes December 6, 2021) — via Darwin
  • Nadi, Fiji (resumes December 7, 2021)
  • Vancouver (resumes December 18, 2021)
  • Tokyo Haneda (resumes December 19, 2021)
  • Honolulu (resumes December 20, 2021)
  • Johannesburg (resumes January 4, 2022)
  • Bangkok (resumes January 14, 2022)
• To / from Melbourne
  • Singapore (resumes November 22, 2021)
  • London Heathrow (resumes November 27, 2021) — via Darwin
  • Los Angeles (resumes December 19, 2021)

To stay up-to-date, you can bookmark the Qantas route network page.

Requirements for Flights

For those who want to fly with Qantas, bear in mind the following rules:

• Must be vaccinated with an approved vaccine.
• Initial flights are limited to Australian citizens, permanent residents and their immediate families, and certain visa holders.
• You'll need to comply with documentation requirements and possible quarantine requirements at your destination. Info on that is here.

Qantas Makes More Award Space Available

In addition to announcing dates for when international flights will resume, Qantas added extra award space availability to these flights. This is a great move for points & miles hobbyists since it comes on the heels of a recent transfer bonus to Qantas. That means people may have extra Qantas Frequent Flyer miles ready to use.

Here is the availability for increased access to award space:

• The first three return flights on the following routes have 100% of seats available for Classic award bookings
  • Sydney – Singapore
  • Sydney – Fiji (Nadi)
  • Sydney – Bangkok
  • Sydney – Johannesburg
  • Sydney – Delhi
  • Melbourne – Singapore
  • Melbourne – London Heathrow
• 50% more award availability for Classic award bookings until December 31, 2022 on
  • selected routes in Australia
  • all trans-Tasman routes
  • all other international routes

Just note that this award availability is only open to Qantas Frequent Flyer members. If you need Qantas points, you can transfer points from:

• American Express Membership Rewards (1:1 transfer rate)
• Capital One Rewards (1:1)
• Citi ThankYou Points (1:1)
• Marriott Bonvoy (3:1 with a 5,000-point bonus for transferring 60,000 points)
• Accor Live Limitless (1:1)
• Brex Rewards (1:1)
• and several other hotel partners

Flexibility Policy Extended

In addition to all of this, Qantas has extended its flexibility policy for bookings. This applies to international flights booked by February 28, 2022 with travel dates between November 2021 and December 2022. You can change the dates of your flights as many times as you want with no change fees.

If you want to change more than just dates, you'll need to request a voucher to apply as a credit toward a new booking. Fare differences may apply when changing your bookings. To see which routes and dates are covered by this extended flexibility policy, read more here.

Bottom Line

Though travel trends are increasing, there is still uncertainty with some international routes. It's good to see that Qantas is extending its flexibility policy with international bookings.

As it announces dates to resume international flights, the best part of this news out of Qantas is the increased access to award space. These flights are sure to be popular, so this extra award space should make it a lot easier to book these flights. For now, Qantas flights to Australia are not open to everyone, but that should come after this first phase (hopefully).

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