Qantas is reaching out to hundreds of thousands of customers with ‘COVID credits’ – travel credits left over from the pandemic – and offering double Frequent Flyer points on eligible flights if they book before February 2023.

Each time borders closed, more travel credits were created as people could not take planned trips, with more than $1.2 billion used by customers over the past two and a half years. During the pandemic, Qantas provided customers more flexibility for flight changes and credit redemptions than ever before.

An analysis of the $600 million in COVID credits still held by Qantas customers shows:

• Almost 900,000 customers still have COVID credits.
• Almost $300 million of COVID credits are made up of bookings worth under $1000.
• Fifty-two per cent of COVID credits are worth between $100 and $499.
• Fifteen per cent of COVID credits are worth between $1000 and $5000.
• One per cent of COVID credits are worth over $5000.

This included establishing a dedicated travel credit helpline resourced with specialist contact centre staff and an updated Travel Credits Hub with advice for customers using their travel credits.

The offer applies to the base rate of points earned and extends to all domestic and international flights with a Qantas flight number booked before February 2023 using a travel credit. Over the coming days, Qantas will send reminders to customers with COVID credits either directly or through their travel agent about how to access the double points offer. The double points offer follows several other initiatives earlier this year to make using travel credits easier for customers.

COVID credits received during the pandemic expire at the end of 2023, with customers needing to book and travel before then. Customers who are not already members will be able to sign up as a Qantas Frequent Flyer for free.

INCREASED DOMESTIC FLYING

In line with its commitment to steadily increase domestic capacity as operational performance normalises, Qantas will increase flying on the east coast and east-west from late March 2023.

Services between Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane will increase by 57 additional return services per week, increasing capacity on the triangle by 11 points to 93 per cent of pre-COVID levels. These and other changes will see total Group domestic capacity increase by 2 points to 104 per cent of pre-COVID levels in the fourth quarter of FY23.

This is in addition to Qantas’s boost to domestic capacity over the summer holidays and several new international routes starting in December, summarised in a recent industry update. Further opportunities to increase capacity are being explored while maintaining operational reliability. Following this change, around 50 per cent of Qantas’ flights to from Melbourne and Sydney to Perth will be operated by widebody aircraft. Qantas is also adding seats on transcontinental services to-and-from Perth using the airline’s Airbus A330 fleet.

Your credit doesn’t need to cover the booking cost to receive double points as long as you use the entire value.

“The data shows most customers have already redeemed their COVID credits, but there’s still a significant number who are yet to put them to use,” Mr Svensson said.

Our systems were never designed to unwind millions of bookings due to a pandemic, and there have been some obvious challenges for customers that we’ve worked hard to fix and for us. Throughout the pandemic, we’ve made using travel credits easier, including extending their expiry, and we’re now encouraging the remaining customers to put their travel credit towards their next holiday.

We’re committed to reminding customers to use their credits over the next year.

With our operational performance now effectively back to pre-pandemic levels, we’re gradually adding more domestic capacity from early next year.

We know that people start planning their next holiday while they are on their current one, which is why we’re launching this offer at the start of the Christmas break. For example, a family of four flying economy return to London could each receive an additional 18,600 bonus points just from putting a single $50 credit towards the booking. We’re the only airline flying widebody aircraft domestically, and we know how much our customers in Business class value having a lie-flat seat on longer flights to and from Perth.

Qantas Group Chief Customer Officer Markus Svensson said the national carrier had seen a strong take-up of travel credit redemptions as more international flights returned in recent months.

Written by: William Trevan

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