SYDNEY – Qantas Airways will make millions more seats available for frequent flyers, but passengers will need to use more loyalty points to secure their tickets, as chief executive officer Vanessa Hudson overhauls a model that had increasingly frustrated customers.
Frequent flyer members will have access to 20 million new seats for travel over a 12-month booking window, the airline said on April 8. They will be available for booking immediately on all international and domestic routes and in every class of travel.
Ms Hudson is attempting to appease passengers who have struggled to swap their points for flights to the destinations they want. The change adds to a growing list of initiatives pushed through by the new CEO since she took over from Alan Joyce in September.
The points required to book reward seats under the new programme, which Qantas calls Classic Plus, will vary like normal airfares. They will be lower during off-peak periods or when booking early, and higher during peak periods.
The current Classic reward model remains. It typically requires fewer points for a seat but doesn’t offer the same scope of redemption options. The airline will continue to offer more than five million seats under this programme. BLOOMBERG