If you’ve been saving up your frequent flyer points, I have some bad news

If you’ve been saving up your points for years, hoping to cash them in for a luxurious bucket-list trip, I have some unfortunate news. The points earned at the beginning of your quest are now less valuable than they were initially. That’s because the flight you’ve been eyeing off almost certainly costs more points to book now than it did in the past … and that’s if you can even find a reward seat to suit.

Don’t get me wrong, there’s some terrific value to be had by earning and smartly spending frequent flyer points. But that’s the point of the entire exercise: redeeming them, not hoarding them for a rainy day. If you have enough points to book a flight now, and you’re already planning a holiday, why not put them to good use? That’s the smartest play, and that’s my approach when it comes to points.

A point used is always better than a point that gathers dust – or worse, one that expires.

Airlines consistently hike the number of points needed to sit in the same seat. So, the longer you’re holding on to a treasure trove of points, the less luxuriously you’ll be able to travel. Points-based bookings are generally very flexible too. If you decide not to travel for any reason, you can usually cancel for a nominal fee and get all of your points back – worth keeping in mind given the current uncertainty in the Middle East.

Let’s say you’ve been sitting on a stash of 75,000 Qantas points. Until August 2025, this was enough to secure a one-way business class ticket to South-East Asia – say, British Airways to Singapore or Cathay Pacific to Hong Kong. But now, with that same tally of points in your account, you’d get premium economy at best.

It’s not only Qantas doing this: it’s every frequent flyer program. Virgin Australia’s Velocity scheme previously whisked travellers from Australia’s east coast to Europe for 139,000 points in business class on its partner airlines. But today, with the same balance of points, you’d be shafted back to economy. OK, you’re very close to scraping into Singapore Airlines premium economy (142,000 points), but it’s still a far cry from the business class seat you could have taken before (now 158,500 points).

Even so, we’re quite spoiled in Australia. Our home-grown frequent flyer points don’t expire unless the account sits dormant for 18–24 months. Meanwhile, some overseas-based programs like Singapore Airlines KrisFlyer have far stricter expiry rules. With these airlines, it’s use it or lose it. Even if the member continues earning and spending points, the system tracks the specific age of each individual point. Any point that remains unspent after three years simply disappears into the ether.

Some carriers have even shifted to dynamic pricing. Common in North America, it means flights no longer have a set points price. Instead, the rate changes every day … even every hour, year-round. The same is true of Qantas’ newer Classic Plus points bookings. The price in points flexes up and down as airfare prices shift, but rarely do these tickets cost fewer points than traditional Classic Reward flights.

A point used is always better than a point that gathers dust – or worse, one that expires. Even though the airlines keep moving the goal posts, it’s on us, the travellers, to keep kicking goals. Spending points is how we win.