Amex Membership Rewards Adds Qantas — Book Short-Haul Flights for 8,000 Miles One-Way

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INSIDER SECRET: Qantas is part of the oneworld alliance, so you can use Qantas miles to book award flights with Cathay Pacific, British Airways, American Airlines and others.

Today, Amex Membership Rewards quietly added Qantas as their 22nd transfer partner. It’s never bad news when a program adds a transfer partner and there are a few sweet spots with Qantas that can be worth booking.

Let’s take a look at a few of them.

Amex Membership Rewards Points Now Transfer to Qantas

Amex Membership Rewards points transfer to Qantas at a 1:1 ratio in 500-point increments. Qantas operates a distance-based award chart so the price fluctuates with the distance of the trip.

This award chart covers flights with Qantas and these partners:

• Airnorth
• Air Vanuatu
• American Airlines
• Fiji Airways
• Emirates
• Jetstar
• QantasLink

And this award chart applies to these partner airlines:

• Aer Lingus (only through June 30, 2019)
• Air Niugini
• Alaska Airlines
• British Airways
• Cathay Pacific Airways
• China Eastern
• Dragonair
• El Al
• Finnair
• Iberia
• Japan Airlines
• Jet Airways
• LAN
• Malaysia Airlines
• Qatar Airways
• Royal Jordanian
• S7 Airlines
• SriLankan Airlines
• TAM

There is also a separate chart for Jetstar awards (Qantas’ low-cost airline) when the trip is only on Jetstar planes. To figure out the price of your trip, you can easily calculate the distance using the Great Circle Mapper. If you want more Qantas miles, you can also transfer points to Qantas from Citi ThankYou, Capital One and Marriott.

Qantas miles can be a solid choice for booking short-haul American Airlines flights. You’ll only pay 8,000 miles for one-way flights of 600 miles or less. This can be great for short flights to the Caribbean or Mexico as these are often in different zones with other programs and can cost more. But keep in mind that you can book domestic one-way flights under 650 miles for only 7,500 British Airways Avios points.

You can also use Qantas miles to book flights to Fiji from Los Angeles on Fiji Airways for 35,000 miles one-way in economy or 72,000 miles one-way in business class. Or if you wanted to fly on Qantas first class, Qantas miles are a good option because they make award seats available for booking 353 days in advance, so you can book your flight before Qantas’ partners have a shot at the seats.

Be aware that Qantas only allows you to book award flights for family members, although family members include cousins, in-laws, aunts, uncles, nephews and nieces.