No one has been confident booking a flight within the past two years. Even the most optimistic bloke would have had second thoughts about locking in a domestic or international flight in the past few months, despite international air travel beginning to crawl back to some sense of pre-pandemic normalcy. Carriers around the world are aware of this and have been doing their damn hardest to try and make it a bit less risky for people to fork out for a flight. Qantas is the latest airline to get involved, going so far as to roll out some new benefits for anyone who books directly with the airline; the most enticing of which is that you can now get a full refund on your booking if the flight in question needs to be cancelled “for any reason.”
As long as you let Qantas know within 24 hours of making the booking that you’re no longer able to take up that seat, you’ll get your money back, refunded to the original form of payment. What’s more is that no cancellation fee will be charged, skewing the norm and taking the risk entirely out of the equation. This is also in lieu of the typical travel credit that passengers have been given in the past to use against future bookings.
The full refund is inclusive of any of the prepaid add-ons you’d typically get from Qantas, like additional baggage allowance, special seat requests, and even offset carbon emissions. This applies to any booking made through the Qantas app or by phone, using any payment method, whether that’s money or Qantas Frequent Flyer points, or a combination of both.
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Qantas notes that even though this wildly generous full refund offer appears straightforward, there are a few caveats. Primarily, bookings will need to be made directly with Qantas, the flight must be departing from Australia, and it must be more than 30 days away. That last one is important to remember, so you theoretically aren’t able to book a last-minute flight and then cancel because you’ve simply changed your mind.
The other big benefit to booking directly with Qantas now is free seat selection on all international flights, across all fare classes. This is regardless of a passengers Qantas Frequent Flyer membership tier, so even Bronze Frequent Flyers can take advantage of this offer without having to book Economy Saver or Flex fares.
Another point to keep in mind is that this applies to standard seats only, so not ones in extra legroom rows. Still, this represents a decent chunk of savings for anyone hopping on a Qantas international service soon. You’d usually be looking at $45 if you wanted seat selection on a Qantas flight to London, for example.
Qantas has also slashed the nominal $99 joining fee that you’d usually have to pay if you wanted to become a Qantas Frequent Flyer member. Of course, there were always ways around this fee, but now more passengers will be given the chance to sign up for no extra cost. Assuming you aren’t a member yet, all you’d need to do is join the QFF rewards program when prompted while making a booking online, which will immediately set you up with Bronze Frequent Flyer status. The move will clearly go far in boosting numbers.
