Qantas adds millions of loyalty seats to soothe angry flyers

Qantas Airways will make millions more seats available for frequent flyers, but passengers will need to use more loyalty points to secure their tickets, as the airline overhauls a model that had increasingly frustrated customers. The stock jumped. An extra 20m reward seats a year will be available on all Qantas flights in any class, the airline said Monday. They’re available for booking immediately. CEO Vanessa Hudson is attempting to appease passengers who have struggled to swap their points for flights to the destinations they want. The change, which will cost the airline A$120m in investment next financial year, adds to a growing list of initiatives pushed through by the new CEO since she took over from Alan Joyce in September. The points required to book reward seats under the new program, which Qantas calls Classic Plus, will vary like normal airfares. They will be lower during off-peak periods or when booking early, and higher during peak periods. The revamp of the loyalty business underpins its goal to generate between A$800m and A$1b of operating profit a year from the unit by June 2030. The business is on course to deliver earnings of A$500m to A$525m in the 12 months ending June 2024, Qantas said Monday. The airline’s current Classic reward model remains. It typically requires fewer points for a seat but doesn’t offer the same scope of redemption options. Qantas will continue to offer more than 5m seats under this program. <br/>