Qantas has quiety introduced Classic Hotel Rewards as a new way of using your Qantas Frequent Flyer points. The Rewards, offered through TFE Hotels, are currently available at 55 hotels across Australia.
Classic Hotel Rewards
The ability to pay for a room with points has been available for some time. This Qantas Hotels site provides the option of having the hotel prices displayed in points rather than as a dollar amount.
Basically, Qantas assigns a value to the points and then displays the number of points required to purchase the room night. As a result, as the room rates increase, so does the number of points.
The Classic Hotel Rewards offer, to some extent, disconnects the number of points required from the cash price. However, there does appear to be some relationship to the cash price. Checking over various days does show the classic hotel reward points moving around in tandem with the cash price. It seems that each points level represents a range of prices. So the number of points displayed will reflect the price band of a room for the day you are looking at.
As hotel prices can vary quite widely based on demand, the number of points required for a Classic Hotel Rewards will also vary. The points required, do however, seem to be less than can be acjieved through the more traditional Points + Pay mechanism.
As these room nights are basically discounted rates, the bookings do come with a few restrictions.
Firstly, the rooms can only be paid for in points. There is no ability to offer a combination of points and cash. As there is no cash amount being paid, you will not be able to earn points on the bookings either.
Secondly, they are offered on a non-refundable basis. This condition is similar to what you may get with an Advance Purchase discounted room, so it is best to treat these bookings in the same way.
Hotels of Offer
As mentioned, the hotels offered are thoses availabe through the TFE Hotels Group. TFE brands include Adina, Medina, Rendezvous, Vibe and Travelodge.
You can view the hotels on offer in the various states through the following links:
Is it good value?
Now we get to the crux of the matter. Do Classic Hotel Rewards offer good value? For this, we can consider the value that we get from each point that is put toward booking a room.
Examples of a few Classic Hotels Rewards is shown below:
Checking prices for April 2, 2017, the Travelodge Hotel Manly Warringah Sydney is available for $103, Travelodge Hotel Sydney is $136 and the Vibe for $159. We can compare the Points + Pay rate with the Classic Hotel Rewards points to get a comparison..
| Hotel | Cash Price | Classic Rewards Points | Points Value (cents) |
Points and Pay points | Points Value (cents) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Travelodge Hotel Manly Warringah Sydney | $111 | 15,000 | 0.74 | 16.553 | 0.67 |
| Travelodge Hotel Sydney | $136 | 18,000 | 0.76 | 21,830 | 0.63 |
| Vibe Hotel Sydney | $159 | 18.000 | 0.88 | 25,506 | 0.62 |
From the chart above, it shows that, for this sample, you do receive a better rate for your points through the Classic Hotel Rewards, Having said that, the value is still not as good as can be achieved through flight redemprions.
Overall it does give some further options for using your points.