Jim Wilson asks Steve Hui on 2GB

The balance of Australian’s frequent flyer points have been growing by the day since COVID closed the borders. So what is the best way to use them now that we can travel again?

Jim Wilson on 2GB (873 AM) asks Steve Hui that question…

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[Jim] With flight prices so high, right now, the thought of flying in luxury is a distant dream. Right now, business class tickets are as high as $16,000 for international flights. So are we with great interest in the Australian today, the low cost carriers selling premium options for as low as $599. Airlines like Air Asia X, Scoot, and even Jetstar are offering business class seats for under a grand, so opposed to shop around and do your research.

But what if you want to use a blue chip carrier like Qantas or Emirates or Virgin, given many of us haven't been traveling since Covid frequent fly points have been growing by the day. So what's the best way to. Well with flight prices on these large scale airlines, absolutely through the roof. I thought I'd touch base with Australia's very own points whisperer now.

His name's Steve Hui, and in 2012, Steve founded the website. iFLYflat.com.au. It's your one stop shop to learning how to accrue frequent fly points. And use them [00:01:00] to your advantage. Now Steve is Australia's number one authority on everything frequent flyer points wise. So if you've got that dream holiday at the back of your mind, but we're hoping to use your points to get there, well make sure you'll listen to this chat.

Steve Hui joins me now. Live on the line today. Steve. Hey today, how are you? I'm good, thank you. So, I'm sure plenty of people listening right now have a stack of points in their wallet, but no place to go. So what's the best way to get bang for your buck when it comes to points? The best way is to book, say, Qantas points, this thing called classic flight redemptions.

[Steve] That means she can basically fly business class to anywhere in the world for under 300,000 points, return the person anywhere in the world. Okay, so, so when you, So do you reckon those sort of classic seats of the way to go, or is it, should they, you know, use the points to get an upgrade or spend them on shopping?

What's the best? Oh yeah, for sure. The classic seats, because once you nab these classic seats, they are a confirmed business class seat means that which is way better than the upgrade because right now the seats are so full. If you don't nav a business class seat now, then you're just playing the lottery with an upgrade and chances are you lose.

[Jim] Okay. What about the points plus pay system? Is that a good. No, I don't like that. Because what happens is they charge you like nearly a million points do do something. So points plus pays basically when they convert your points into money and your money into the sky high price ticket. So the classic reward is a fixed price system where wherever, even before the pandemic, it's the same number of points.

[Steve] Now as before that, that's a good value way. Points plus pay is in my. Bad value. Okay. Other than brand loyalty, is there much of a difference between the frequent flyer programs of our major air? Yeah, so every single airline charges a different number of points that fly somewhere, and I guess that's not really widely known.

So for example, like, you know how I talk about 300,000 points, actually, [00:03:00] 318,000 points is how much Qantas charges for a return business class. Flight to London, fly and say Emirates, But you can actually fly for 261,000 points on Singapore business class. So every single airline charges slightly different points, so you can't really shop around because you have to have the points in the first place before you can fly.

Okay, So the bottom line here is the classic flight rewards of the way to go. If you wanna, you know, wanna use your points of the travel, look at doing so in 2023, but you've got a book now. Is that. Yeah, that's right. You can book up 12 months in advance. That's the B of the point system. Like our team's been booking flights like for July and August now.

So book up, book weight in advance. And the magic of our points is you can actually cancel your seat. So if things don't turn out and you've gotta see booked, you can cancel 'em. You get your points back, which is the better frequent flyer program out of our at Corners Virgin. Uh, it's really hard to tell.

Like Qantas has a big international network, Virgin has, heaps of international partners. Ultimately, I say the best frequent [00:04:00] fly program is the one that has seats on the days you wanna fly. Well, that's been the frustrating thing, I reckon in the past for people, is that they wanna go and use their frequent fly points, but the seats have been scares.

But there's obviously more award seats now being made available. Is that correct? Yeah. Yes. More, more so like I think last week, Qantas. It's for 50% more seat. So it, so finding points, these are fishing every single day. It changes. So you gotta be searching every day and, and, and you gotta move fast. As soon as you find something that looks good, you gotta nab them.

[Jim] Okay, and so you have a family meeting. How about if I wanna use my points, for example, the BP service station, you can pay by your Qantas sort of frequent flyer points? What, what's your advice as far as people who wanna, especially with petrol going up, what's your advice on that front?

[Steve] Yeah, so that converts one point into half a cent. So where you can get one point equals about 3 cent, like six times more value if you save your points to fly business class. So in my. Flying business class is way more exciting if you can, if you've got enough points. [00:05:00] Uh, but obviously if you know petrol prices high, getting savings that way is not bad too.

[Jim] Okay. What's the best way to accrue points? Is it, is it flying or is it going to, for example, you know, using a rewards sort of program as a supermarket or, or a service station. Yeah, for. Getting, spending money on credit cards is the fastest and easiest way to earn points. Cause you're spending that money anyway.

[Steve] So you're basically spending your money buying item X and you're getting points on top. And that's the fastest way. Like actually it's quite sort of old age to think about earning points through flying. You still can, but that's a very tiny um, You can earn these days, uh, and getting bonus points from all these different marketing offers.

Know, sometimes you can get points from, say, Coles and Flybuys that convert into velocity or, uh, Woolworths points will convert into Qantas. Uh, there's actually a mean in one ways to earn points, um, doing everyday stuff. Well, just, just as, as far as everyday stuff you mentioned. I mean, a credit card's your best bet to get [00:06:00] points.

Yep. That's the fastest and way to earn points on a consistent basis. Cause every day you gotta spend money. You're gonna spend money buying coffee, paying rent, all sorts of stuff. Okay, so tell me something, Do, do points expire? Is there like a, how, how long can you, can you keep your points for? Is there, is there a timeframe?

Uh, Yeah, that they don't what they do expire, for example, but you can do something that keeps them extended perpetually. So for example, Qantas points, Qantas has an 18 month expiry, and Virgin has 24 months. But as long as you have one point that goes in or out of your accounts, then the whole balance gets expanded for another 18 months for 24.

So you can actually keep your. Perpetual. Mm. How about these, these business class air fees, like for around about 600 bucks international?

[Jim] I mean, where, what destinations are we talking here, Steve?

[Steve] Probably Asia, I would say. Mm. Or, or multiple stops. Obviously everything comes with a price. So if you're looking for a one stop to Europe, then the top tier ones, you have a much better enjoyment, uh, for these other ones.

Like they, they're good, but you gotta compare like not. Business class is not business class. You have to sort of compare, Maybe they sell themselves as business class, It's actually like premium economy. Mm-hmm. Well, so when I saw that and read that this morning in the Australian with Rob onside their aviation rod, and when I saw business class air fees for 600 bucks, my uh, it certainly grabbed my attention.

But as you say, you've just gotta shop around and make sure you, you look at what the product's being offered by various. Yeah, well you can actually, five business costs for 600 bucks if you've got free and fly points. Cause that's how much some of the taxes are. Mm. Good on you Steve. Thanks for your time this afternoon.

[Jim] Awesome. Thank you. That's Steve Hui. And check out the website. He knows he's stuff Steve. www.iflyflat.com.au

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