Qantas Frequent Flyers can now request a cabin upgrade on flights operated by American Airlines. This is the first of the Partner Airline Upgrades announced by Qantas, with Qantas saying the ability will be rolled out to other oneworld airlines later.
For its part, American Airlines introduced the ability to do this the other way around over 12 months ago. That is, you could use your AAdvantage points to upgrade a Qantas flight.
As with those upgrades, the upgrade process is being facilitated by Plusgrade. This is a company that provides a range of these types of services to airlines. For example, Qantas use Plusgrade to provide its Bid Now upgrade system
How do Partner Airline Upgrades work?
There are basically three steps to the process – check eligibilty, request upgrade and get upgraded
- Check Eligibility – Once you have booked your American Airlines ticket, you can check if it is eligible to upgrade. There are basically two requirements:
- it is an American Airlines flight, and
- you are on a fare eligible to upgrade.
- Request Upgrade – If you are eligible, then you can request an upgrade. To do this, you can head over to a dedicated page on the Plusgrade website.
- Upgrade confirmed – If your upgrade is confirmed, you’ll receive a confirmation email from American Airlines. This email will likely arrive within 12 hours of your flight.
How many Qantas Points do you need?
This answer is that this is a bit of a mystery. The system looks to sit outside the Classic Upgrade Rewards system, and as such there is no published table. Basically, you will find out when you go to the Plusgrade website to see what may be available for your flight. That will detail the upgrades that may be available, together with the number of points required.
While we don’t know how this works behind the scenes. If they are not using upgrade charts, it is possible the American sells the upgrade to Qantas on a cash basis. This is then simply converted to a points amount, and this is what gets presented as the number of points required.
It is worth noting that at the moment, you can only upgrade with points. Qantas expects to add the ability to accept cash upgrades in the future, but this is not yet available.
Final Words
It has been a while in the making, but it is finally here – the ability to use Qantas Points to upgrade American Airlines flights. In time, this should spread to other oneworld partner airlines.
