How I Booked To Fly Sydney To Noumea Business Return With Qantas (Non-Stop) For Only $899* Instead Of $1,877
My partner and I recently decided to get out of Sydney for a week and to escape overseas for some sunshine and relaxation. We didn’t want to travel too far so we decided on Noumea, a coastal city full of beautiful beaches that neither of us have been to but wanted to explore.
I thought this was an excellent opportunity to put Pointrs to the test to find the cheapest way to fly there and to see how much we could save.
I logged into my Pointrs account, and using the filters, I was presented with the following 3 options to fly to Noumea:
We were looking to fly business class and although I was tempted to use my Qantas Frequent Flyer Qantas Points, I soon discovered that this was not the right option, as the cost using Qantas Points was 83,000 points return per person, compared to the lowest cost of 30,000 points return per person, quite a difference.
So I decided to investigate Pointr #14609, which is “Fly Sydney to Noumea Business Return with Qantas (non-stop) for only $899”.
Step 1 of the instructions told me that I needed to buy Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan miles at their lowest price and use these miles to book my flights. I could see from the flights that 30,000 Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan miles were needed for return flights per person, a total of 60,000 miles for my partner and me.
Step 3 of the instructions told me to “wait until a special 60% bonus miles promotion for buying miles is on”.
I clicked on Earn Points/Miles and immediately discovered that there was a promotion ending on 15 Aug 2024 to buy Alaska Airline Mileage Plan miles and earn up to 60% bonus miles. Jackpot!
Step 5 told me to refer to Pointr #1009 for instructions on how to buy miles. So I clicked on the link to Pointr #1009.
I then followed the simple instructions to buy the 60,000 miles I needed at 60% bonus.
Since miles can only be purchased in multiples of 1000 I needed to buy 38,000 miles, resulting in 60,800 miles after the 60% bonus. The cost for 60,800 miles was USD 1,045, equivalent to AUD 1,656. So although the Pointr mentioned a cost of $899 per person, the miles cost only $828 per person, with $899 being $828 rounded up to the nearest $99.
I now had the 60,000 Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan miles needed to book the 2 of us to fly Sydney to Noumea business return with Qantas (non-stop). For the exact same flights I would have needed 166,000 Qantas Points.
But could I find seats using those miles? As it turns out, yes, without much effort at all. I found perfect flights in just a few weeks’ time, which will give us the one week of rest and recreation we desperately need.
After adding taxes, fees and surcharges of USD 351.20, the total cost was only $2,180, which is $1,090 per person. So, how does that compare to the regular cash fare? Immediately after booking the flight I checked the Qantas website and was very pleased to find that I had saved $1,594. Instead of paying $3,774 I only paid $2,180, a saving of 42%!
So now we’re off to Noumea and at a bargain price! And all done in less than an hour.
Pointr #14609 is only one of nearly 2,500 Pointrs that show you how to use cash via loyalty points and miles to save up to 75% on your flights.
Sign up to our newsletter and, if a subscriber, check your dashboard regularly so that you never miss out on a promotion. Soon you’ll be able to save big just like me!
*Plus any taxes, fees & surcharges
