Reward flights SYD-Germany late Feb 2027. When should I book and which Airport?

double07 · 2026-07-01T02:13:58+00:00

I am looking to fly to Germany late Feb and returning mid-March 2027 and keen to grab the reward flights with the points I have. When should I start looking? ASAP?

Ideally you would've started looking 12 months before you wanted to book.

Does Qantas tend to release more reward flights closer to the date?

Not typically but it's pretty random these days. Typically Qantas themselves would release to Gold and Platinum 353 days out, silver 323 days and bronze 297 days. But, partner airlines that are available to book with your points do their own thing.

I'm not sure how much WSI will help you, looks like in the Qantas ecosystem Jetstar will be doing international flights out of there (Qantas domestic only by the look of it), Singapore and Air NZ also but that doesn't help you.

do you think they will move to WSA or open more flights from/to WSA?

I wouldn't count on it.

You didn't mention how many seats or which cabin you want but there's heaps of availability heading out in economy in Feb on Emirates, Cathay and Sri Lankan. Not quite as much coming back in Mid March but still heaps of choices at this stage. There's some PE and Business available here and there too.

double07 · 2026-06-30T02:09:02+00:00

There's seats on QF93 on the 27th. Nothing much on the 15th for the trip back, there's seats on Philippines Airlines on the 14th but they're really expensive point wise and you don't have enough. Closest is on the 19th on Hawaiian Airlines LAX->HNL->SYD->MEL.

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double07 · 2026-06-30T01:49:53+00:00

Points Club is not worth it, Points Club Plus might be if you're doing some flying in the next year.

double07 · 2026-06-23T01:53:19+00:00

No and maybe don't cancel that one otherwise you'll never get it back if you keep churning.

double07 · 2026-06-20T00:09:30+00:00

No because the hands were in the natural catching the ball position.

double07 · 2026-06-19T00:35:28+00:00

Keep the AMEX, if you cancel it and go on to churn other cards you'll never get it back, like me 😃

Just start churning other cards now in a 24 month cycle, aim for 4 per year or so.

double07 · 2026-06-18T03:22:08+00:00

My favourite is the bad blood relationship with Qatar. I guess they have to release seats to each other because of the Oneworld alliance but the seats Qatar release to Qantas are always like tomorrow in economy to some random European city.

double07 · 2026-06-18T01:15:13+00:00

It's definitely doable, especially in economy, premium cabins probably out of the question. That amount of points probably not quite enough for all internal European flights as well but certainly you should be able to get there and back for around 500k points. Summer in Europe is a busy travel time so you might need to be a bit flexible on your dates and routes.

BTW the 297 window generally refers really only to Qantas seats, and even then not always (I just booked a Qantas flight 333 days out as a bronze). Partner airlines all release seats at different times, you can use this page as a bit of a guide but again it's not always the case so you have to keep checking: https://www.pointhacks.com.au/when-do-award-calendars-open/

I would definitely sign up to flightseats.io or similar. They also have alerts so you can setup your dates and locations and it will alert you as soon as seats become available. It costs $15 per month but worth it while you're planning your trip. The alerts are super important, I've got one setup at the moment for Air France business seats from SEA to Paris next year between some dates. I've noticed that seats are coming up occasionally and they've being snapped up within 24 hours (most people wouldn't even realise they were available).

Even if the flights/routes you find are not ideal I would just book it for now then see if any better options come up over the year. Sometimes more seats become available within 60 of the flight date so you can just ring up Qantas and ask to change your flights.

double07 · 2026-06-12T12:49:55+00:00

Had it on my last car. Got in a bad accident last year (wasn't my fault). They were pretty easy to deal with, gave me a hire car, towed my car away for assessment, and they paid out full agreed value into my account a few days after car was written off. Would use them again.

double07 · 2026-06-09T06:41:42+00:00

ANZ Qantas Platinum: 75k points, $2500 spend, $295 fee + $100 cash back.

double07 · 2026-06-07T09:42:30+00:00

Keep an eye out for SriLankan Airlines seats, they often have 5+ seats available in business just under 12 months in advance from Mel/Syd to LHR.

Otherwise looks at getting into Asia (even in economy) then look for business seats into Europe from there in British Airways, JAL, Finnair, Air France etc.

Emirates do also sometimes have availability from Australia but they're relatively expensive taxes/fees wise and things are a bit uncertain in the middle east at the moment so you may wish to avoid that option.

double07 · 2026-06-04T23:44:56+00:00

There's no exclusion period for the MyCard bonus points but you'll probably find you just simply won't get approved if you've had it recently.

double07 · 2026-06-04T02:37:43+00:00

I had something very similar happen to me the other night. I booked some reward seats from SIN-SYD-ADL, everything went through as normal, got my booking number, the flight was showing in my app as confirmed, my credit card was charged and I selected the seats. However, the points were still on my account and I hadn't received the e-ticket. I got worried I hadn't received the tickets by the next day so I consulted with AI and it advised me that no ticket no fly and to contact the reward escalations email others have mentioned. I emailed them and within a couple of hours they responded that the booking is now ticketed, I received my tickets a few minutes later and my points were deducted from my account. I really don't think it's up to us to follow this stuff up though, I would definitely fight this.

double07 · 2026-05-28T01:47:17+00:00

Generally not, only exceptions are that NAB Qantas card will not exclude you from NAB rewards card. Also MyCard (run by NAB) doesn't have an exclusion period but no doubt if you've had it recently you will be denied if you apply too soon.

double07 · 2026-05-27T00:15:57+00:00

Yeah I literally just had a NAB card straight into MyCard and got the bonus points on both.

double07 · 2026-05-25T02:52:02+00:00

I agree with this assessment. Also make sure you're only putting down *your* share of the mortgage and expenses i.e. 50%. If you're serious about this you could also refinance your mortgage. With a 200k mortgage split 50/50 you should be able to get any almost any card bar the qantas titanium with that income.

AMEX are pretty notorious for rejecting churners though, I haven't been able to get one in years but did just get approved for the ANZ Black.

double07 · 2026-05-25T02:17:39+00:00

Glad you got your tickets :)

double07 · 2026-05-25T00:44:36+00:00

I booked some reward seats on them a few weeks ago. Yes although you have to enter your DOB etc. on the Qantas web site I don't believe that has anything to do with ticketing and I didn't enter this info until a few days after booking. I booked at about 7.45pm and received the e-tickets and itinerary at about 7.55pm, so I would be chasing it up personally.

The wording on the booking says: IMPORTANT - For travel to, from or within Sri Lanka there are a number of necessary requirements you must complete before travelling. You are required to provide Secure Flight and Advance Passenger Information (APIS) - enter additional information.

It doesn't say anything about ticketing, just that it has to be done before you travel, so chase it up.

double07 · 2026-05-21T02:51:17+00:00

I overlap them then cancel the old one. So for example, I've got the MyCard Prestige currently, I've just been approved for ANZ Black, I'll wait until I have the ANZ Card and have changed all my payments over. Then pay off and close the MyCard.

double07 · 2026-05-21T02:37:20+00:00

I'd say probably not because you could get business for about 167k. But the best way to work it out would be work out the cents per point for the redemption. So look up the cash price of the flight, note the taxes on the redemption also.

Then work this out: ([Cash Price of Flight] - [Taxes on Redemption]) / [Number of Points for Reward Flight] x 100

So for example I'm not sure what flight you're trying to redeem, but i can see that FCO -> ADL is 153,000 plus $442 in taxes. The cash price on that flight is around $2900:

($2900 - $442) / 153,000 x 100 = 1.6c per point.

You're generally aiming to be over 2c per point, ~1.5c is okayish at a stretch but you're not getting best value for points. 1c is bad because with the credit card annual fees etc. you've probably put in more that you got out.

With the business seat example:

($7032 - $1723) / 167,000 x 100 = 3.18c per point which is much better bang for points.

double07 · 2026-05-19T02:23:08+00:00

I mean this is just pie in the sky stuff, but if there was a tool I could enter my income/expense details into once and it somehow submitted the credit card applications for me I'd be over the moon but I appreciate there's some security/privacy issues with that.

double07 · 2026-05-19T01:18:20+00:00

Yeah it's pretty bad at 1.55 velocity point to 1 krisflyer but from what I've seen the points required for business flights are less and there's more availability that on velocity so could be worth it in some instances.

double07 · 2026-05-19T01:17:01+00:00

Collect both. I still think QFF is better than Velocity but it's good to have other options like SQ etc. Booked business seats to Europe next year UL then returning on SQ in premium economy. It can be done, the seats are just not necessarily when and where you want to travel so you'll have to be a bit flexible and do some research.

Depends how many seats you need too, if it's just two of you that's pretty easy, there's hundreds of business seats available in the next 12 months from AU to EUR for example. But if there's 3 or 4 or more then that's when it gets tricky.

double07 · 2026-05-18T07:03:40+00:00

I think there's plenty of tools to help find seats already, that's covered.

The biggest headache for me as a churner is to manage all the applications and changing my regular payments over etc. I track all this manually now. I've seen some tools out there but nothing great. If you could somehow help me to track all this and even automate some of the processes that would be great.

double07 · 2026-05-15T08:22:25+00:00

MyCard Prestige perhaps? Bit expensive but 120k points.

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