UPDATE: Now that the new Alaska award chart has been rolled out, the restrictions here aren’t applicable and you can book pretty much any Qantas flight offered as long as there is availability.
I recently was exploring booking some Qantas flights with my Alaska miles and came across some strange restrictions that I didn’t see officially documented anywhere by Alaska Airlines. Here are some of my observations.
You Can’t Book Direct Non US International Qantas Flights
For background, what I was trying to do was book a New Zealand to Sydney to Melbourne itinerary with a stopover in Sydney. I was really surprised when I saw zero availability for the CHC-SYD leg.
I thought this was just an Alaska Airlines bug so I went over to American Airlines’ website to verify. I was surprisingly able to find this exact leg available. This was strange since both Alaska and American should have access to the same Qantas award space.
I figured that this was just a one-off for New Zealand flights but it turns out that you can’t book ANY international Qantas flight if it doesn’t include departing from or arriving in the US. I searched for flights from Sydney to Jakarta and couldn’t find any Qantas availability on Alaska’s website.
But I was still able to find Qantas availability for that route on American’s website..
I also couldn’t find any Qantas availability for flights from Sydney to Johannesburg on Alaska’s website.
But once again could find that availability on American’s website..
Super weird stuff. However, there is one caveat to this rule…
International Qantas Itineraries Need A Long Haul US Segment
The workaround to the previous problem is that you can book a non US international Qantas flight if you tack it on to a long-haul segment that involves the US. For example, if I was interested in flying from Sydney to Auckland, I could only book this leg with Alaska miles if I included that segment as part of a larger itinerary like Los Angeles – Sydney – Auckland.
This is a really weird restriction to have. I don’t know why Alaska can’t be like American and just allow these non US segments to be booked straight up. You can even do the above itinerary with a 5 day stopover in Sydney before continuing on to Auckland…
So clearly Alaska’s system can handle these non US routes flown by Qantas. I’m not sure why they don’t allow them to be booked by themselves.
From what I’ve seen, none of Alaska’s other partners have this kind of restriction which makes it even more perplexing why Qantas flights are subject to this.
You Can Book Domestic Australia Flights
The interesting thing is that there are no issues with booking domestic Australia Qantas flights. I can easily find availability for flights between Sydney and Melbourne on Alaska’s website.
However, even though you can book these intra-Australia flights, you still can’t add a stopover. The website will just show that no flights are available.
Conclusion
This is definitely an odd set of rules set in place by either Alaska or Qantas. It’s not the end of the world since you can always book these international Qantas flights with another partner like American Airlines. However, the downside is that you won’t be able to get the free stopover that Alaska Airlines allows on one-way tickets.
What do you think of these strange restrictions on Qantas flights booked with Alaska miles?
