Business class flights to Europe are probably not an expense most Aussies are considering at the moment. But for Sydneysider Andrew Stavrou, spending $1,000 on them was a no brainer — even if it meant he ended up with ten pairs of earphones he didn’t need.
Stavrou, who calls himself The Point Exec online, had created a personalised tracker that alerts him in real-time to any deals that come out regarding frequent flyer points. He recently got a notification about a Qantas points deal with Sony earbuds on the airline’s Marketplace and, without hesitation, went on and snapped up a bunch.
“I knew [the ten purchases] would get me about 150,000 Qantas points, which is about a one-way business class ticket to Europe,” he told Yahoo Finance.
“That’s the way I saw it.”
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Stavrou explained that the deal saw each pair of earphones, which sold for $99, bringing in 15,000 Qantas Points – working out to be 0.65 cents per point.
Multiplying that by ten pairs would equal 150,000 Qantas Points (for $990), and a Sydney to Dubai flight with Emirates Business can be purchased with 143,000 points.
If a frequent flyer were to purchase points directly from Qantas (with no promotion running), it would cost $3,999. That works out to be 2.67c per point.
By comparison, the cash fare could be more than $9,000 for the same Sydney-Dubai route, so the $990 earphone-deal demonstrated savings of around $8,000.
“That’s almost unheard of,” Stavrou said.
For most people, if they are earning Qantas points on every 2c, then they are happy to go down that path of spending, rather than the higher cost of purchasing points directly, Stavrou said.
It would mean that spending $200 equals 10,000 in Qantas points, making anything under that 2c mark a “great deal”.
“So when it was 0.65 cents… It was amazing. It was almost too good to be true,” Stavrou said.
Unfortunately for him, it was too good to be true. His purchase was cancelled at the last minute by Qantas, with the airline claiming the deal was an error on their behalf.
Stavrou isn’t sure about the validity of that claim, considering the deal was promoted all weekend until they suddenly pulled the pin, coincidentally after a video he posted about the deal went viral online.
Qantas has been contacted by Yahoo Finance.
‘Insane deals happen all the time’
While the “incredible” deal didn’t come to fruition this time, Stavrou said there are always big wins when it comes to earning frequent flyer points that Aussies should look out for.
He pointed to an early 2025 offer, when Big W had a deal on rubber ducks through the Everyday Rewards program, which can be linked to Qantas Frequent Flyer.
At the time, the $3.50 yellow bath toy would earn customers 1000 bonus Everyday Rewards Points each.
Flight Hacks editor Tom Goward had promoted the deal at the time, sharing on social media how he had snagged “11,300 Qantas Points from $67 worth of bath ducks at Big W!”, thanks to Everyday Extra bonuses added on top.
Goward told News.com.au last year that he “wouldn’t have been surprised if it was actually a mistake”.
After Tom Goward posted about the finding on Facebook, Big W quickly ran out of its rubber duck supply. · Facebook
“When combined with other promotions, my purchase worked out at just 0.59 cents per Qantas Point,” he said — even lower than the “practically unheard of” 0.65 cents per point deal that Stavrou found.
But in Goward’s case, the purchase and the points came through, with Stavrou highlighting how these “insane deals happen all the time”.
“At the time, people were buying hundreds of rubber ducks just to get these points,” Stavrou said.
While the points are all well and good, what does one do with hundreds of bath toys or multiple pairs of the same earphones?
Goward said last year that he was donating his haul to charity, while Stavrou said had he actually received the earphones, he’d probably have gifted them away to friends and family.
“Christmas is around the corner after all!”
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