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

June 3, 2019 By Jason Stauffer

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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.

Qantas is the newest Amex Membership Rewards transfer partner. (Photo by Edu Perez/Shutterstock)

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.

You can stock up on Amex points with these cards:

Card	Welcome bonus & minimum spending requirements
The Business Platinum Card® from American Express	Earn 75,000 Membership Rewards® points after you spend $15,000 on qualifying purchases within your first 3 months of Card Membership. Terms Apply.
American Express®️ Green Card	Earn 30,000 Amex Membership Rewards® Points after you spend $2,000 on purchases in your first three months of account opening. Terms Apply.
The Blue Business® Plus Credit Card from American Express	Earn up to $300 when you make eligible purchases with Dell Technologies, DocuSign and FedEx within the first three months of Card Membership (up to $100 per merchant, in the form of statement credits). This offer will run through November 4, 2020
The Platinum Card® from American Express	60,000 Amex Membership Rewards® points after spending $5,000 on purchases within the first three months of opening your account. Terms Apply.
American Express® Gold Card	35,000 Amex Membership Rewards® points after spending $4,000 in purchases in the first three months of account opening. Terms Apply.
American Express® Business Gold Card	Earn 35,000 Membership Rewards® points after you spend $5,000 on eligible purchases with the Business Gold Card within the first three months of Card Membership. Terms Apply.
Amex EveryDay® Preferred Credit Card from American Express	15,000 Amex Membership Rewards® points after spending $1,000 on purchases within the first three months of opening your account. Terms Apply.
Amex EveryDay® Credit Card from American Express	10,000 Amex Membership Rewards® points after spending $1,000 on purchases within the first three months of opening your account. Terms Apply.

The information for the Amex EveryDay Preferred Credit Card and Amex EveryDay Credit Card has been collected independently by Million Mile Secrets. The card details on this page have not been reviewed or provided by the card issuer.

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