Tutorial – Use AAdvantage Miles For Cheaper Qantas Redemptions

by Zac George
a woman in a snowy landscape

Without a doubt, my favourite frequent flyer program would still have to be American Airlines AAdvantage. The program offers some fantastic value, always has miles on sale and has some brilliant redemption partners.

I’ve talked about the program a little bit for Etihad first class redemptions, but today I am going to talk about redeeming these miles for Qantas redemptions.

First of all here are the award charts from the Pacific for Oneworld and partner airlines:

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How to find availability

To find Qantas availability you have a few options:

AAdvantage

AAdvanatge has an award calendar that is simple and easy to use. However, the calendar often shows “Phantom Space” which means that it will show seats available, but they aren’t actually there, to confirm double or triple check on British Airways, Qantas, and Expertflyer. You’ll want to select the blue tabs which are saver awards.

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British Airways

British Airways is what I normally use to confirm that the seat are actually there, In this case, they are there.

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What Qantas flights can I redeem for?

The big difference between using Alaska miles and AAdvantage miles is that with AAdvantage you can redeem points for any Qantas flight, unlike Alaskan where you can only redeem for Qantas flights domestically and USA flights.

How do I get AA miles?

There are two main ways to get AA points in Australia.

  • Crediting QF flights to AA

Crediting QF flights to AA used to be quite valuable, but with changes this year, you won’t get that many points which is disappointing.

  • Buying miles

This is how I afford most of my long-haul travel. American constantly offer very large bonuses when buying miles. You can buy 150,000 miles a year but look when the sales are on, and you could get much more for the same price.

American are currently offering a large bonus of 100,000 miles which alone is enough for Qantas first class to Dubai.

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Bottom Line

If you are planning travel soon and want to travel in business or first with Qantas or any other AAdvanatge partner, I would definitely recommend purchasing miles. The offer ends November 28, and you must have an account older than 30 days.

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2 comments

DS WP May 9, 2017 - 9:17 pm

Very informative. Thank you zac but is this still the best way to go since the devaluation in the aa program. Apologies if that question sounds silly. You are dealing with a newbie.

Nick Baker October 19, 2017 - 1:08 am

Hey Zak,
Regarding using AA miles to fly Qantas from DFW to SYD 1st class….how exactly do
you do that. I went on the AA site and the tickets were 375K per seat. I have read that this can
be done for 60-70K AA miles and 100.00 or so in taxes but I can’t figure out how to do it. I already
have the miles. Any help would be appreciated.
Regards,
Nick Baker

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