"How much are my points worth?" and "Which program should I transfer my credit card points into?" are common questions for the millions of Australians who collect loyalty points.
To help answer these questions, the loyalty program experts at Australian Frequent Flyer (AFF) have developed a sophisticated model that calculates the average value of a point in the frequent flyer programs Australians use the most.
The chart below shows the average value of a frequent flyer point with each of the 12 programs we compared:
The blue bars above show the full range of possible values that you could get for your points when redeeming for all the different types of rewards we considered as part of our analysis. (Please see the attached image/PDF or https://www.australianfrequentflyer.com.au/aff-point-valuations/ for a higher-resolution version of this chart.)
The most valuable airline points for Australians
Our model shows that Virgin Atlantic Flying Club, Qatar Airways Privilege Club and Cathay offer Australians the highest average value for their points.
- Virgin Atlantic Flying Club charges relatively low amounts of points for reward flights, and offers lots of reward flight availability to/from Australia on its partner airlines including Garuda Indonesia, Vietnam Airlines and Air New Zealand
- Qatar Airways Privilege Club Avios can be used to fly on both Virgin Australia and Qantas, and you can get great value by redeeming Avios for Qatar Airways' famous Qsuite Business Class from Australia to Europe
- Cathay offers good value on Oneworld redemptions and excellent reward seat availability on Cathay Pacific flights to/from Australia, including in Premium Economy and Business Class.
Of course, if you live in Australia, there are lots more ways to earn Qantas Points and Virgin Australia Velocity Points than there are with these overseas programs. This is something Aussies should also consider when deciding which airlines to collect points with.
But our analysis also demonstrates why earning flexible credit card reward points, which you can transfer to multiple different airline programs as needed, is a great points-earning strategy.
In Australia, Amex Membership Rewards points can be transferred at a 2:1 conversion rate to all three of the programs that scored the highest Point Valuations. So, flexible credit card reward points go a lot further than points stuck in a single airline program.
Australian Frequent Flyer Editor Matt Graham advises that when it comes to collecting points, you shouldn't put all your eggs in one basket.
"Collecting points with multiple airline programs – or better, flexible credit card reward programs that let you transfer your points out as needed – ensures you can get the best value for your points every time you want to redeem them. It also helps spread the risk, in case a particular airline devalues its frequent flyer program at short notice," Graham said.
The least valuable airline points for Australians
Air New Zealand Airpoints, Etihad Guest and Emirates Skywards offer the least valuable points of the programs that AFF analysed.
Air New Zealand offers particularly poor value because its Airpoints Dollars are essentially just worth $1 each. There are few opportunities to score outsized value with Airpoints. Plus, with some trans-Tasman flights with Air New Zealand earning as little as 1 Airpoints Dollar, it's hard to see why Aussies should bother collecting them.
Points with Air New Zealand and Emirates also expire after a fixed time period, which makes them less useful for less frequent flyers. Etihad has an even worse expiration policy, as you literally have to take a flight with Etihad at least every 18 months to avoid losing all your miles.
How Qantas and Virgin stack up
Qantas Frequent Flyer and Virgin Australia Velocity ended up in the middle of the pack. Both programs offer solid value to Australians – just not quite as much as our top scorers.
Our model calculated the average value of one Qantas Point to be around 1.8 cents. The average value of a Velocity Point is around 1.7 cents.
While this means Qantas has scored higher than Virgin, there are two important caveats:
- Qantas is about to increase the cost of Classic Flight Rewards and upgrades by 10-20% on 5 August 2025. Our figures are based on Qantas reward pricing before the upcoming devaluation.
- On the routes we checked, Virgin Australia offers lower airfares than Qantas. This meant that Velocity Points appear to be worth less on some routes, even though Velocity is actually charging fewer points than Qantas for an equivalent reward flight.
The best and worst ways to use your frequent flyer points
Of course, the value consumers get from their frequent flyer points really depends on how they are spent!
AFF's analysis found that, regardless of which frequent flyer program you're using, spending points for non-flight rewards like gift cards provides the worst overall value. Surprisingly, Economy Class flights between London and New York are also quite a poor use of points.
When redeeming Qantas Points or Velocity Points for a gift card, for example, you'd be getting an average value of just 0.46 cents per point.
At the same time, we found that Business Class reward flights between Australia and Asia offered the best value in the majority of the programs we looked at. Using points for upgrades and domestic flights also yields good value.
For example, a Business Class redemption from Sydney to Tokyo through Qantas Frequent Flyer would net you around 3.4 cents per point of value – more than 7x the value you'd get from a gift card! The same Sydney-Tokyo Business Class redemption through Velocity Frequent Flyer is worth around 2.7 cents per point.
How the AFF Points Valuation model works
Our article on the Australian Frequent Flyer website explains in detail how our model works and what went into the AFF Point Valuations.
This article is available at https://www.australianfrequentflyer.com.au/aff-point-valuations/
To summarise:
- Similar to the way economists calculate the inflation rate, we created a "basket" of 16 different things Australians are likely to spend their frequent flyer points on
- We then calculated the value of each redemption in the basket, on a "cents per point" basis. For example, if it would cost you 10,000 points + $50 in taxes & charges to book a reward seat on a flight that normally sells for $250, we would say that the redemption is worth $200 and therefore value the points at 2 cents each.
- We removed the highest and lowest redemption values for each program, to remove any random outliers that might skew the result, then took the average of the remaining values (i.e. a "trimmed mean")
- Finally, we applied a weighting of up to 20% (either up or down) based on five qualitative criteria which impact how likely it is that someone will actually be able to redeem their points for valuable rewards.
These are the 16 redemptions in the "basket" that we used in our analysis:
- Gift card
- Hotel booking
- Points+Pay booking (i.e. using points as cash to offset the cost of a commercial airfare)
- Economy reward flight from Brisbane (BNE) to Mackay (MKY)
- Business reward flight from Brisbane (BNE) to Sydney (SYD)
- Economy reward flight from Perth (PER) to Melbourne (MEL)
- Economy reward flight from Sydney (SYD) to Queenstown (ZQN)
- Business reward flight from Sydney (SYD) to Queenstown (ZQN)
- Economy reward flight from Melbourne (MEL) to Bali (DPS)
- Economy reward flight from New York (JFK) to London (LHR)
- Business reward flight from Sydney (SYD) to Singapore (SIN)
- Business reward flight from Sydney (SYD) to Tokyo (HND)
- Economy reward flight from Sydney (SYD) to Los Angeles (LAX)
- Economy reward flight from Perth (PER) to London (LHR)
- Business reward flight from Sydney (SYD) to Frankfurt (FRA)
- A long-haul upgrade on a popular long-haul route flown by that airline from flexible Economy or (if available) Premium Economy to Business Class
And these are the five criteria used in our weightings:
- Network and reward flight availability (35%)
- Redemption experience (20%)
- Consistent redemption pricing (15%)
- Points expiration policy (15%)
- Ease of earning points in Australia (15%)
