Planning European trip with Qantas points, where are the Emirates business or first award seats?

Dear all,

This is the first time I am seriously looking into redeeming Qantas points for a couple of Emirates award seats to Europe. I am looking 11 months in advance and despite being Platinum there is hardly any business or first class availability. What's going on? I thought at one stage there was reasonable stock with Emirates or perhaps I am mistaken? I am just searching on the Qantas website, should I be doing something else? Many thanks.

I have also noticed - can't get anything from Aust to Dubai which is the problem. Plenty from Bali, Singapore, Hong Kong - can grab a cheap economy fare to those locations and do rest of your trip with points onwards from there.

You'll most likely have to get a little more creative to get business to Europe with points. My wife and I are off soon to Europe and it took us months to find a reward seat in business all the way through.

Dealt with this earlier this year. For reference,we did it 7 months out.

Do you have any specific destination in Europe in mind? We may be able to offer alternative routing advice if you can share more details.

Also when searching try breaking the trip up...so search to Duabi first and then the second flight. Don’t just search Australia to Europe in one hit, this can also open up more options.

I am fairly new (last five years ) to points . I have never been able to find a flight that suits me and end up buying Biz class everywhere anyway ,hence why I have so many points I suppose. I am platinum in virgin and qantas. BUT my main gripe is that the lounges are so full now that it is more stressful in the lounge and much quieter on the concourse. So I have started abandoning the lounge and the marginal free snacks and going and sitting in the quiet part of airports. The loyalty programs look like a potentially failing concept. It is a victim of its own success . The airlines make a fortune out of people's points addictions and then strangle the services that are provided. Qantas had to build more lounges for biz and platinum but they are also now full with the large number of fifo flyers earning massive points (good luck to them) I couldn't even get a seat in Perth Biz lounge the other day

In the last 12 months we have twice been able to secure business class points flights to Europe out of Hong Kong. You can either grab cheap flights to Hong Kong or else points flights to HK. However as another member has said, you can play around and look at other Asian ports such as Tokyo, Shanghai, Manila, Singapore and KL. We booked one flight about 5 months out and the other about 1 month out so couldn’t get points to HK.

Thank you very much for your suggestions. I was wanting to do Sydney-London, make my own way to Venice and then Venice-Sydney, but it seems like the leg between Sydney - Dubai is the problematic leg. I will look into routing via Asia and see how I go. Thank you!

Getting J award seats out of Australia to Europe has become much harder the last couple of years. In the past getting Cathay or Emirates seats was not hard at all. I managed to get 2 J seats SYD - DXB on Emirates and back for July but just happened to be looking at the right minute.

Had a look today at London flights with my brave qff Bronze shield. Booking 8-9 months out I could find some options. Would be flying into Gatwick or Stanton on some options. Was easiest to find Emirates flights on my search in J.

The rewards flights are there but it takes a lot of research and creativity to find them. Make sure you have logged into your QFF account as a Platinum member will return different results than a Bronze. Also plan early, as close to the 353 day rule as you can and be prepared adjust your timing and destinations (within your tolerance) to extract the value from your points haul. I've had reasonable success in the past, but you need to keep an open mind to it as well; including a 36hr layover in Shanghai which we took as an opportunity rather than a hinderance. Our last booking for next year is EK F all the way SYD- FCO, retuning CX J MAD-SYD.

I had no problem finding 3 EK F tickets in the last 6 months on exactly the date and route I wanted. EK is one of the more generous airline in releasing seats which makes QFF a very useful FFP!

I booked 2x first class from Sydney to London Gatwick no issues last year for flights this May.