QF Classic Reward Release Timing (Economy)

mungas on 06/01/2025 - 10:41

Howdy everyone

Status: Bronze
Class type: Economy
Route: SYD - HND
Timing - Late Dec25

Interested to hear your thoughts/feedback on how you're tracking the release schedule for CR seats with Qantas.

In a nutshell, I'm looking to travel SYD-HND leaving late Dec25, however the 353 day rule doesn't seem to work anymore. Using an example of 20 December 2025, there should theoretically be seats available, however no CR is available from 9 Dec 25 onwards (Eco).

What I'm really trying to pinpoint is when QF flights are released. JAL seems to be the only CR option available for the months in the lead up, however their taxes are substantially higher. I'm sure JAL would be great, but with the taxes, you may as well pay for the fare and save your points for another flight.

The 353/323/297 day rollout seems to only apply to premium long hauls. Assuming this to be business and higher.

Travel Airfare

Comments

  • askbargain on 06/01/2025 - 10:48
    +1

    midnight GMT or in 12 minutes

  • djkelly69 on 06/01/2025 - 10:52
    +1

    For most popular QF routes, those 'rules' no longer apply. Basically QF release sporadically, and you just need to keep an eye out or set up an alert. This is also true for a lot of other airlines post-Covid, particularly in terms of release of reward seats to other airlines in their group/alliance.

    Also look out for a dump (probably mid-year) when QF decides to release a whole bunch of CR seats at once to most/all destinations and make a big song and dance about it.

    • ryefig on 06/01/2025 - 13:02
      +1

      That is really crappy of them to remove the scheduled release of classic rewards seats, and it will probably get a lot worse now that they have Classic Plus flight rewards too..

  • afreedma on 06/01/2025 - 11:04
    +2

    I bit the bullet and paid for ExpertFlyer when trying to find seats SYD-LAX|SFO|DFW. Small price for not having to sweat seat releases.

    • mungas on 06/01/2025 - 11:08
      +1

      Oh sweet, did this pinpoint availability for CR or rather than actual seat availability? I thought Seats Aero/Gyoza/similar basically identified available CR seats, is ExpertFlyer different?

    • Duckie2hh on 06/01/2025 - 11:17

      Did it work?

    • WoodYouLikeSomeCash on 06/01/2025 - 12:02

      https://seatfinder.tech/

      I’ve found this to be pretty good.

  • capslock on 06/01/2025 - 13:48
    +3

    There may be rare exceptions but Qantas does not generally release classic reward seats for international flights out of Australia for the Christmas holidays. They are well aware that these flights will sell for a premium.

    • try2bhelpful on 07/01/2025 - 07:36

      Yup. They can sell these seats so why release them for points. I’ve noticed Qantas is getting a bit more random in their releases as well.

  • try2bhelpful on 07/01/2025 - 07:55

    I usually start with checking with “multicity” and selecting flexible. It allows me to see a month’s seats available by classes. However, seats that show up aren’t necessarily really available.

    The reward seats are really just a form of publicity. A way of ensuring loyalty to various schemes to get points.

    The best way to use the scheme is to be flexible on dates and try not fly to popular destinations.

    • mungas on 07/01/2025 - 09:33

      Thanks for the suggestion, yep this has been my approach with using the multi city function to help identify available days. I might need to simply push to early Jan 26 by the looks of it and hope SYD-HND release QR flights

      • try2bhelpful on 07/01/2025 - 12:39
        +1

        I'm finding something weird with the site when I try to use it at the moment. I can see some classic points available for December 30th but I can't select the date. Might be worth a look over the next few days to see if they are suddenly selectable. they might be an illusion but worth keeping an eye out. Best of luck.

        • mungas on 07/01/2025 - 16:08

          Thank you!

          • try2bhelpful on 07/01/2025 - 18:46

            @mungas: Genuinely best of luck, I know show frustrating this dance can be.

            We usually try to save our points for business class seats to Europe.

Login or Join to leave a comment
Login Join