Why does Qantas insist on making it very undesirable to book classic awards?

Why does Qantas insist on making it very undesirable to book classic awards? I'm looking into return from Perth to UK in 2016 and all flights leaving Perth appear to go to the UK via Adelaide onto an Emirates flight (with a + 10 hour wait chucked in for free). Fantastic routing and great timing also!! I then checked on Adelaide - and those folks get the joy of being routed back through Perth on the return leg. I've also seen Sydney flights going via Brisbane. Is this simply a scam to put FF off claiming classic awards?

Its not just reward flights that are difficult to fathom, the same goes for normal fares as well, why is it cheaper to fly via a second city than direct on many occasions, supply and demand I would imagine.

Because you pay for the convenience of direct flights.

on the flights i have tried from ADL they often route via MEL (with a wait thrown in!) - hence changed to emirates direct as much simpler - have you tried them? especially as you have luxury of a380 (depending on which UK airport of course - BHX is my 'home' airport and no a380 yet!)

sorry just realised reward flight!

Similar situation using the AA web site for the same journeys from Perth, it's almsot a Captain Cook tour getting from start to finish.

I've found the same thing in booking reward and conventional fares. I'd have to assume, despite it being frustrating, that there's no malice. Probably the algorithm is set so it grabs less occupied flights over direct routing, which would also often give cheapest broken down fares but often not the case in multi-leg trips. 

PER-JFK will generate a directish routing via HKG on CX should they be available.  Fancy a few days in NYC before heading to the UK (on your own $$ of course).  

How far into 2016 are you looking?  

Qantas would rather you wasted spent your points on toasters.

I read the title and thought you were going to be complaining about the taxes, versus a discount cash fare

Again, not booking award seats, but paid business class seats on QF for my wife Perth-Taipei, and have been given 4 choices;  variations on via Melbourne, Sydney or Brisbane, then Hong Kong, then Taipei with flight times around 20 hours, with the same 4 options for the return leg.

Booking on CX, I can get her there in around 11 hours via Hong Kong only.   

For flyer classic reward in business is the best possible value to burn points. Some may argue that upgrade little better, but I disagree – upgrade is uncertain up until flying and sometimes up until gate. So if it damn good value for you it automatically became very poor value for Qantas. So Qantas issue very little classic award seats and uses most unpopular routes where it has difficulty to sell full aircraft. And yet Qantas much prefer you to p!ss points in their “store” then book international business flight. For example for the same 120000 points you can do either buy return ticket in business to Singapore (cannot get it for less then about $3500) or you can buy Garmin Edge 1000 Bike Computers that can be get elsewhere for mere $600. Even after subtracting taxes it is no least then 5 times difference! Got the picture?

Reward seats really are distressed inventory. It is common practice to fill seats with points bookings that you wont fill with commercial sales as the yield is generally lower. The flip side is havinga  program that is attractive to the consumer and if it is hard to burn then it can sway the loyalty of an airline.