Latest news

Qatar Airways Passenger Almost Gets $28 million Refund

An Australian Frequent Flyer forum moderator got the shock of her life recently when she discovered that her available credit card balance was suddenly over $28 million. The reason? She’d just received a refund for a Qatar Airways flight! JessicaTam had booked return Qatar Airways Business class flights from Jakarta to London. But like most flights … Continued

3 Jul 2020 Qatar Airways

Qantas Brings Back the Booze on Domestic Flights

Qantas has reinstated meals and drinks, including alcoholic beverages, on some domestic flights. The airline is also progressively rolling out in-flight wifi again, although in-flight entertainment remains switched off. For the past three months, catering on Qantas flights has been severely reduced due to cost cutting COVID-19 health measures designed to minimise contact between passengers … Continued

2 Jul 2020 Qantas

Virgin Australia Happy Hour Sales are Back

After a hiatus of several months, Virgin Australia Happy Hour sales are back with Economy fares from $69 and Business class tickets starting from just $250 one-way! In normal times, Virgin Australia would offer a selection of Happy Hour sale fares from 4pm until 11pm each Thursday afternoon. But these were quietly withdrawn earlier this … Continued

2 Jul 2020 Virgin Australia

Hard Sell: Velocity Still Encouraging Members to Earn Points

Even though Virgin Australia has been in voluntary administration for the past two months, and Velocity Frequent Flyer redemptions remain severely limited, Velocity has been really pushing its members to continue earning points lately. Velocity Frequent Flyer has been ramping up the marketing emails in recent weeks, with offers such as bonus points at the … Continued

2 Jul 2020 Virgin Australia

Queensland Border to Reopen on 10 July, But Not to Victorians

Queensland will proceed with its plan to reopen the state’s border on 10 July to travellers from all Australian states and territories except Victoria. It comes as the Victorian government announces lockdowns of 10 Melbourne postcodes for four weeks, starting from tonight, following a localised COVID-19 outbreak. In addition, Queensland will not allow even its … Continued

1 Jul 2020 Coronavirus and Travel

Qantas Reopening Domestic Lounges from 1 July 2020

After being closed for more than three months due to COVID-19 restrictions (and a lack of passengers), Qantas will begin to reopen its Qantas Club and domestic Business class lounges from tomorrow. But the experience will be a little different, with social distancing and other health measures in place. Qantas will initially reopen 11 of its … Continued

30 Jun 2020 Qantas

Qantas Says Final Goodbye to Boeing 747 after 49 Years

Update: It appears that VH-OEJ, the last Qantas 747, is now scheduled to leave Australia on 22 July. Before this, Qantas will operate 3 domestic joy flights – one each from Sydney, Brisbane and Canberra. Tickets are expected to sell out quickly. The decision to put on the 3 joy flights was made at the last … Continued

29 Jun 2020 Qantas

Podcast #39: Noise Cancelling Headphones & US Credit Cards

On long-haul flights, sometimes silence is bliss. That’s why so many frequent flyers use noise-cancelling headphones to drown out the noise of aircraft engines and fellow passengers. Noise-cancelling headphones may seem like magic, but there’s some very sophisticated science that goes into providing the perfect listening experience. Many years ago Hossein Seif Zadeh, who has a … Continued

27 Jun 2020 AFF on Air Podcast

How Noise Cancelling Headphones Work – AIR039

  For frequent flyers, noise-cancelling headphones are the ultimate travelling companion. But have you ever wondered how they actually work to cancel out noise? In this episode, aerospace engineer Hossein Seif Zadeh (a.k.a. hossein_au on the Australian Frequent Flyer forum) explains how noise-cancelling headphone technology works and the difference between a $100 and a $600 pair … Continued

27 Jun 2020 AFF on Air (blubrry)

Bain Capital to Buy Virgin Australia

The search for a new owner of Virgin Australia is finally over with Bain Capital, a U.S. private investment firm based in Boston, announced as the successful bidder. The other bidder in the running, Cyrus Capital Partners, reportedly withdrew this morning after submitting its final offer last Monday. Virgin’s administrators have now entered into a … Continued

26 Jun 2020 Virgin Australia

COVID-19 is Accelerating the Transition to a Cashless Society

Many frequent flyers prefer to use credit cards for every possible transaction in order to earn points. But there are still around half a million Australians that don’t have a debit or credit card, preferring to pay for everything with cash. Slowly but surely, this number has been decreasing. Over the past decade, cash transactions … Continued

26 Jun 2020 Travel Money

Qantas to Axe 6,000 Jobs, Raise $1.9b Equity

Qantas Airways Limited entered a trading halt on the ASX this morning as CEO Alan Joyce announced a three-year COVID-19 recovery plan that’s harsh but necessary. The cost-cutting and job losses are far greater than those announced in the last major shake-up back in February 2014, when 5,000 jobs were cut. Today, Qantas announced 6,000 permanent … Continued

25 Jun 2020 Qantas