Airlines are increasingly looking for ways to engage with loyalty program members in non-traditional ways. This week Qantas announced their first ever "points plane," where they'd fly an A380 from Melbourne to Tokyo on October 21, 2019, and would exclusively…
Qantas has announced that they plan to offer a series of dedicated frequent flyer redemption flights across their network with seats only available to those redeeming Qantas points. They're calling this concept "Points Plane," and the first such flight…
Qantas has announced that as of December 4, 2019, their daily Sydney to San Francisco route will be operated by a Boeing 787-9. This is currently Qantas' last remaining US mainland route to be operated by the 747-400, so with that change, the airline…
Since early March, the US Citi ThankYou program has been offering a 25% bonus when you convert points to Qantas Frequent Flyer. Points ordinarily convert at a 1:1 ratio, though during this promotion you can convert 1,000 Citi points into 1,250 Qantas…
After checking out the American Admirals Club, we decided to check out the Qantas Lounge. Narita Terminal 2 sure does have a lot of oneworld lounge options! Our flight was departing from the Terminal 2 satellite gates, and conveniently that's also where…
Alaska Mileage Plan is one of my favorite frequent flyer programs, given their unique array of airline partners, combined with their generous mileage earning rates. At the moment Alaska has quite a few promotions for flying. They're offering double miles…
For those of you not familiar with Amex Offers, it’s a program available through most Amex cards, where different cards are eligible for different savings and bonus offers. In many cases the offers can be huge, and more than offset the annual fee on…
In March 2018, Qantas launched daily nonstop flights between Perth and London using the Boeing 787-9. At the time this was the world's second longest flight, at just over 9,000 miles (Qatar's Auckland to Doha flight was slightly longer). However, within…
In 2017, EL AL and Qantas launched a partnership, allowing reciprocal mileage redemptions. This really came in handy, given how few airline partners EL AL has. American AAdvantage used to partner with EL AL, though that ended in 2014. Not only is it…
I had spent most of the day in the United Polaris Lounge prior to this flight (I had access because my flight from Tahiti landed the same morning). At around 6:30PM I headed from the G gates to the A gates in the International Terminal, which required…
Welcome to my next trip report, covering travel in business class on Qantas and Singapore Airlines, first class on Singapore Airlines and Japan Airlines, and something inbetween on Malaysia Airlines ("Business Suite"). Ford and I took a trip to Bora…
Qantas has 12 Airbus A380s in their fleet. The airline has been satisfied, though not thrilled, with these planes. That's to say that Qantas has been flying them for many years now, and has no plans to retire them. As a matter of fact, Qantas will be…
There's no doubt that there has been a lot of innovation over the years when it comes to the onboard products offered on planes. From Emirates and Etihad having onboard showers in first class, to Qatar having fully enclosed suites in business class,…
It’s no big industry secret that airlines overbook flights. They have complex algorithms to determine how full each flight is likely to be, and know that not every passenger booked on a flight will actually board. Some passengers will change to…
"Ask Lucky" forum member LivinLIfeFrankly posed an interesting question today that I figured I'd chime in on, and I'm curious what you guys think. You can read the entire original post here, but to summarize the situation:
Good morning from Melbourne! I just took the 15 hour flight from San Francisco to Melbourne on the Qantas 787-9, which features their latest business class product. Amazingly enough this was my first time flying longhaul in Qantas business class (I've…
The big benefit of checking in online for a flight when you don't have any luggage to check is that you can usually bypass the check in experience completely. This means not lining up for check in, and not having to speak to any airline staff until you…
Pistols at dawn! Qatar's (in)famous CEO Akbar Al Baker is known for saying all sorts of things on behalf of his airline that he doesn't mean (how's that new route to Las Vegas going?), but recently he has insisted that Qatar Airways is considering leaving…
Nowadays we're seeing more ultra longhaul flights than ever before. This is largely possible thanks to new planes that are long range and fairly low capacity, which makes these routes viable for the first time in history. For example, I recently wrote…
A few months ago I wrote about the problem Qantas had with their Singapore lounge. It is a shared business and first class lounge, and was built when Qantas A380 flights to London routed via Dubai, rather than via Singapore, as they do now. While the…
When you credit an eligible flight to Qantas Frequent Flyer, the loyalty program of Qantas, you can earn both Qantas points, and Qantas status credits. I've written before about what I believe to be the best uses of redeeming Qantas Points. Qantas is…
