Cheap Qantas Business Class Deal- Save upto 90% off Qantas Business Class, 83% off Flex Economy

Update: 23rd August 2017 – it’s now been confirmed by customer service that if based outside the EU i.e. Australia you can ask customer service to refund the VAT amount by replying to your payment receipt email and asking for it to be refunded as you live outside the EU.

This brings the cost of the points down even further than the table in this article to 1.0717 cents per avios. I’ll update the VAT section below to account for this new update.

OK, Here’s a deal that gives you incredibly cheap Qantas Business Class flights with upto 90% off the cost of Qantas Business Class Flights in Australia. It also can give savings of upto 83% on Qantas Economy Flex Fares and upto 66% off Qantas Saver Class fares on certain routes compared to paying the cash fare.

It also gives savings of intra Asia flights and some other short haul flights on Cathay Pacific.

As with buying any point currency, the tradeoff is you won’t earn status credits or miles when flying, but you will earn miles or frequent flyer points when buying the deal with a Rewards Credit Card that earns frequent flyer points.

It works again by acquiring avios (British Airway’ points currency) as we covered in our previous article on Buying BA Avios to Save 85% off Qantas Business Class. But this deal is EASIER and the price of the points is even SWEETER!

We’re not buying miles directly in this case, we’re taking advantage of an arbitrage opportunity where the miles or points earned for buying a product or service are worth (to us) more than the cost of the product or service purchased.

We sometimes see this with certain deals, and you can earn points on many goods and services these days on anything from signing up to dating sites such as eharmony through British Airway’s eStore Shopping Portal to buying a fridge at David Jones or shopping at TheIconic through Qantas’ Online Mall Shopping Portal or Virgin Australia’s eStore Shopping Portal.

In this case it’s a digital newspaper deal that awards us Avios on the purchase. As we saw in the article on Buying BA Avios to Save 85% off Qantas Business Class,we can use British Airways Avios for flying on Qantas, Cathay Pacific and other OneWorld airlines.

That was a pretty complex deal involving several steps. Sometimes with travel hacking, it’s complex and sometimes it’s a bit easier.

 

This time we have a quick and easy points deal.

It involves subscribing to a digital newspaper in Ireland and in return you get 18,000 avios for the cost of EUR 160 which is $237.27 using a forex free card such as Bankwest World or Coles Rewards Mastercard. American Express is not accepted so  you can’t pay with the forex free Commbank Diamond American Express on this occasion which would’ve earned more points than the other two.

This gives us a cost of approx.  1.32 cents per Avios point.

The newspapers available are The Irish Independent and Sunday Independent Digital Editions. ( there are paper versions but obviously you need an address in Ireland for that). If you’re from Ireland and will get use out of the newspaper subscriptions that’s fine, but just view it as a bonus, because we don’t really care about anything other than the Avios in this case.

If you want to get right into it, the link to buy the digital delivery is here, or keep reading for the full steps further in this article on how the deal works (but it is pretty straightforward).

Why is this Avios Deal So great for Australian Travel Hackers?

18,000 avios just happens to be precisely the amount of points required to redeem for a return short haul business class ticket for upto 650 miles (1046 km) or less booked on ba.com using avios to fly on Qantas or any other OneWorld airline using avios. The taxes will differ depending on the destination.

For example Sydney to Melbourne costs GBP 10.50 ($17.06). This means that you can fly Sydney to Melbourne in Business Class for $135.70 one way using avios bought via this deal.

We can also combine this with family pooling household accounts on Ba.com to allow several family members to avail themselves of this deal to stack in multiples of 18,000 points. Household Accounts allow up to seven individuals who live at the same address to ‘pool’ their Avios together into one cumulative Household Account Avios balance which can then be redeemed by all Household Account members. So this means via this deal you can ‘purchase’ and combine upto 126,000 Avios viaa signing up for seven digital subscriptions. Enough for seven return short haul business class flights or 18 short haul economy flights.

Here’s a list of a number of destinations we put together including one on Cathay Pacific to illustrate an example of domestic flight possibilities on Qantas and intra Asia pricing opportunities flying from Singapore to Bangkok:

Origin	Destination	Carrier	Fare Class	Avios Required	Tax (GBP)	Cost of Avios	Tax (AUD)	Total Cost	Retail Fare	Saving (%)
Sydney	Melbourne	Qantas	Business	9,000	10.5	118.64	17.06	135.7	1,320	90
Sydney	Melbourne	Qantas	Economy Flex	4,500	10.5	59.32	17.06	76.38	449	83
Sydney	Melbourne	Qantas	Economy non flex	4,500	10.5	59.32	17.06	76.38	222	66
Sydney	Perth	Qantas	Business	37,500	13.8	494.31	22.42	516.73	2,351	78
Sydney	Perth	Qantas	Economy Flex	12,500	13.8	164.77	22.42	187.19	701	73
Sydney	Perth	Qantas	Economy non flex	12,500	13.8	164.77	22.42	187.19	223	16
Sydney	Darwin	Qantas	Business	20,000	19	263.63	30.87	294.5	1,223	76
Sydney	Darwin	Qantas	Economy Flex	10,000	19	131.82	30.87	162.69	622	74
Sydney	Darwin	Qantas	Economy non flex	10,000	19	131.82	30.87	162.69	219	26
Melbourne	Perth	Qantas	Business	20,000	11.8	263.63	19.17	282.81	2,151	87
Melbourne	Perth	Qantas	Economy Flex	10,000	11.8	131.82	19.17	150.99	648	77
Melbourne	Perth	Qantas	Economy non flex	10,000	11.8	131.82	19.17	150.99	225	33
Melbourne	Brisbane	Qantas	Business	15,000	11	197.73	17.87	215.6	1061	80
Melbourne	Brisbane	Qantas	Economy Flex	7,500	11	98.86	17.87	116.73	504	77
Melbourne	Brisbane	Qantas	Economy non flex	7,500	11	98.86	17.87	116.73	212	45
Perth	Sydney	Qantas	Business	37,500	13.8	494.31	22.42	516.73	2,351	78
Perth	Sydney	Qantas	Economy Flex	12,500	13.8	164.77	22.42	187.19	701	73
Perth	Sydney	Qantas	Economy non flex	12,500	13.8	164.77	22.42	187.19	223	16
Cairns	Sydney	Qantas	Business	20,000	16.5	263.63	26.81	290.44	668	57
Cairns	Sydney	Qantas	Economy Flex	10,000	16.5	131.82	26.81	158.63	308	48
Cairns	Sydney	Qantas	Economy non flex	10,000	16.5	131.82	26.81	158.63	273	42
Cairns	Brisbane	Qantas	Business	15,000	16.7	197.73	27.13	224.86	999	77
Cairns	Brisbane	Qantas	Economy Flex	7,500	16.7	98.86	27.13	126	347	64
Cairns	Brisbane	Qantas	Economy non flex	7,500	16.7	98.86	27.13	126	268	53
Gold Coast	Melbourne	Qantas	Business	15,000	10.7	197.73	17.38	215.11	717	70
Gold Coast	Melbourne	Qantas	Economy Flex	7,500	10.7	98.86	17.38	116.25	292	60
Gold Coast	Melbourne	Qantas	Economy non flex	7,500	10.7	98.86	17.38	116.25	171	32
Gold Coast	Sydney	Qantas	Business	9,000	12.7	118.64	20.63	139.27	607	77
Gold Coast	Sydney	Qantas	Economy Flex	9,000	12.7	118.64	20.63	139.27	252	45
Gold Coast	Sydney	Qantas	Economy non flex	9,000	12.7	118.64	20.63	139.27	111	-25
Canberra	Melbourne	Qantas	Business	9,000	19.9	118.64	32.33	150.97	813	81
Canberra	Melbourne	Qantas	Economy Flex	4,500	19.9	59.32	32.33	91.65	392	77
Canberra	Melbourne	Qantas	Economy non flex	4,500	19.9	59.32	32.33	91.65	268	66
Sydney	Auckland	Qantas	Business	20,000	76.2	263.63	123.81	387.44	1,134	66
Sydney	Auckland	Qantas	Economy Flex	10,000	76.2	131.82	123.81	255.62	634	60
Sydney	Auckland	Qantas	Economy non flex	10,000	76.2	131.82	123.81	255.62	279	8
Singapore	Bangkok	Cathay Pacific	Business	15,000	25.5	197.73	41.43	239.16	548	56
Singapore	Bangkok	Cathay Pacific	Premium Economy	11,250	25.5	148.29	41.43	189.73	523	64
Singapore	Bangkok	Cathay Pacific	Economy	7,500	25.5	98.86	41.43	140.29	270	48

We see an example of how avios used in this way can help in flight hacking in how we travel hacked a trip from Perth to Bangkok, which uses Avios as part of the hack, or search on the British Airways website for your desired redemption. Often splitting a journey into smaller legs can work out advantageous when redeeming awards using Avios due to their cheaper pricing for shorter hops.

At the prices in this deal, there are other destinations like East Coast to West Coast Sydney to Perth for example that give savings of 16% off economy fares ($187.19 versus $223), 73% off flexible economy fares ($187.19 versus $701), and 83.6% off business class fares ($516.73 versus $2,351) for the flat bed trans-continental experience on Qantas A330 which boasts the Vantage XL seat that allows flat bed from take-off to landing for more sleep on these routes. It also flies on some short haul domestic legs.

 

How to Buy the Avios

You’ll need to signup for a British Airways or avios.com account first at ba.com or avios.com (or certain other IAG partners in the avios scheme as they can be transferred across between airways who operate the avios scheme). The terms and conditions of the offer state “You must be a member of AerClub, Avios Travel Rewards Club or the British Airways Executive Club.” If you credit the avios to ba.com there’s no 90 day wait as there was with the previous Iberia Avios deal.

The link to buy the digital delivery is here

 

Make sure you select the Avios offer.

 

 

 

Claiming Back the VAT

Update: 23rd August 2017 – it’s now been confirmed by customer service that if based outside the EU e.g. Australia, you can ask customer service to refund the VAT amount by replying to your payment receipt email and asking for it to be refunded as you live outside the EU.

I replied to the Customer Service email that sent me the payment receipt stating I was based in Australia and could they refund the VAT amount as I was based outside the EU.

I got a reply from Kate within 12 hours (basically during Irish working hours) saying “Yes I will arrange of Refund for the VAT Price.”

VAT is charged at 23% in Ireland on this transaction so you’ll get EUR 29.92 back on the transaction if you are eligible for a VAT refund.

This brings down the cost of avios to 1.0717 cent per avios so I’ll now need to re-visit the table in this article. As an example, the Perth to Melbourne flight drops to $233.51 including taxes using this deal – a saving of 89% off the Business Class Fare Price!

If you have a business in the EU you may also be able to claim back the EUR 29.92 that’s included in the purchase price. Usually you need to specify a VAT number to do this and I couldn’t find a way to do this. Getting the VAT back (if that is even possible) is beyond the scope of this article.

You may be able to email customer service and let them have your EU VAT number and they should be able to modify the transaction and refund the VAT – you will of course have to then account for this VAT in the normal way for intra-EU purchases.

Thanks to one of our readers Jamie from Melbourne who sent in the information on non EU VAT Refunds!

Getting the Avios

We noticed there’s nowhere in the signup process to put your avios details.

Instead, the process is explained here:

1. Keep a look out for 2 emails. The first will be a confirmation of your purchase, the second will be your unique voucher code.
2. Once you’ve received your unique voucher code, head to www.aviosvouchers.com
3. Avios will be credited to your account within 5 days after completion of voucher.

Update 30th August – My voucher code took 9 days to arrive, well ahead of the time they state in the terms and conditions.

Once redeemed it says you need to just wait a further five days for the avios to be credited to your account.

 

Book your flights on Qantas or other OneWorld airlines using your British Airways Avios by going to ba.com and selecting to book using avios:

Here’s some examples of flights on the Qantas site and similar flights on Ba.com pricing booked using Avios.

 

 

 

 

Tip of the Hat to Rob at Head For Points