Qantas Frequent Flyer: business travellers earn more Aquire points

Business travellers are the clear winners in Qantas' new Aquire rewards program, which will calculate the number of Aquire Points issued to passengers based on their haul of Qantas frequent flyer points.

Qantas Aquire launches today, Monday March 31, and will let Australian businesses earn a new currency called Aquire Points.

These can later be converted into Qantas Points and redeemed in the usual way against free flights, upgrades, products and gift cards.

Qantas will offer both Qantas Points and Aquire Points on eligible domestic and international Qantas flights carrying a QF flight number, which means that Emirates and American Airlines codeshares are also included.

The cheapest economy tickets will see your tally of Aquire Points calculated as 30% of your Qantas Points haul, while business class tickets will average at 45% and all first class fares will rake in 50% of the QFF haul in Aquire Points.

Given that Aquire Points will convert to Qantas Points in a straight 1:1 ratio, this means that Aquire-registered business travellers will in effect gain an extra 30-50% of Qantas Points per flight.

Those percentages will remain the same when the controversial new Qantas Frequent Flyer earnings rates takes effect from July 1.

However, this will mean a smaller serve of Aquire Points for travellers on discounted economy tickets because their total Qantas Points earning will be reduced under the new system.

By comparison, most business travellers favour the higher-priced flexible tickets available for economy, premium economy and business class, for which the new Qantas Frequent Flyer schemes assigns a higher number of Qantas Points.

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