Using Qantas Points to book SriLankan Airlines flights

With direct flights from Melbourne to Colombo, onward connections to London and a broad network of 30 destinations across Asia and the Middle East, Oneworld alliance member SriLankan Airlines offers yet another avenue for you to redeem those hard-earned Qantas Points.

From Melbourne, you’ll be whisked away to the island country in style on the airline’s latest business class, with fully-flat beds in a 1-2-1 arrangement for greater privacy.

SriLankan Airlines is also one of few that don’t levy any additional fuel or carrier surcharges to reward bookings, so you can expect the co-payments to be considerably smaller compared to similar bookings on Emirates or Qantas itself, for example.

Here’s what you need to know about booking SriLankan flights through the Qantas website.

Booking SriLankan Airlines flights with Qantas Points: key routes

SriLankan Airlines is the only carrier to offer a direct flight from Australia to Colombo – a city which is both a handy gateway to India and a beautiful, culturally-rich destination in its own right.

Colombo is also located near the mid-point between Melbourne and London, making it a possible alternative to the traditional Kangaroo Route if the timings match up.

Other key destinations for Aussies will be cities throughout India and the Middle East, as well as popular resort island locations in the Indian Ocean.

SriLankan Airlines also flies to Southeast Asia, China and Japan, which is useful if you're visiting multiple cities on the continent, but otherwise, there are more direct ways to travel to those places from Australia.

Booking SriLankan Airlines flights with Qantas Points: how many points you'll need

SriLankan Airlines keeps it simple with business class and economy offered on flights, both of which can be booked with Qantas Points.

Here’s a snapshot of how many points you’ll need to travel one-way on select routes, including from Australia and if travelling onward from Colombo as a separate journey. Simply double the figures for a return journey, per person.

Here are some figures for flights from Melbourne to other destinations going via Colombo, assuming you are transiting for less than 24 hours. There’s a small ‘sweet spot’ with Malé (Maldives), Bangalore, Kochi, Chennai requiring no additional points to travel onwards from Melbourne when transiting via Colombo.

The number of points required is based on Qantas’ partner reward table, which is slightly higher than the points needed for Qantas’ own flights and those of selected partners such as American Airlines.

As always, taxes and fees are charged on top of the points required and will be presented after you confirm your flights. As of February 2020, the co-payment is A$106 per person for most one-way bookings out of Melbourne including transits to other destinations via Colombo.

Booking SriLankan Airlines flights with Qantas Points: making that booking

Like most other Oneworld partners, SriLankan Airlines flights can be booked through the Qantas website. Simply log in to your account and enter your flight details, ensuring ‘Use points - Classic Flight Rewards only’ is selected. If you are flexible with dates, also tick that box.

If you were flexible with dates, a calendar will pop up with the availability of reward flights.

Finally, choose which class you’d like to fly and fill in all the details to make the reservation. Taxes and fees are displayed once you’ve locked in your flight, but before you enter passenger details.

If you’d like to book something a little more complex, such as Melbourne-Colombo-London, then that is best done with the multi-city tool. That’s because if you do a standard Melbourne-London search, you won’t see any options on SriLankan Airlines even though there’s availability.

You'll only see options for airlines such as Qantas, Cathay Pacific, Qatar Airways and Emirates when searching Melbourne-London

Head to the multi-city booking page and enter the separate segments - Melbourne to Colombo on one day and Colombo to London the next day (because you land late in Colombo, most flight connections will be on the next calendar day). Be sure to ‘Use points - Classic Flight Rewards only’.

On each page, select your desired flights and travel class.

As long as your stops between flights are less than 24 hours, then it will price both flights together as one – in this case, 159,000 Qantas Points and $106 one-way from Melbourne all the way to London.

If you’d rather take a break for a few days in Sri Lanka – and who could blame you for that! – then you can still use the multi-city tool for booking different flights on one ticket, but your flight segments will be priced individually (in the above example, 90,000 + 90,000 points = 180,000 points).

Brandon Loo

Based in Perth, Brandon enjoys tucking into local delicacies, discovering new cocktails, and making aeroplane food look good on camera.