Qantas, Jetstar extend deadline for COVID flight credits for another 12 months

Qantas and Jetstar customers have been given another 12 months to use up their COVID credits, Qantas announced on March 16, 2023.

The travel credits have been extended three times now since 2020 and according to Qantas, this will be the final extension. Under this final extension, customers will have to book by December 31, 2023 but have until December 2024 to complete their travel.

In December 2022, the airline urged its customers to use any COVID travel credits left over, even offering double Qantas points on flights booked before February 2023.

Over the past year, Qantas has introduced plenty of schemes to make using COVID credits easier. These include a dedicated Qantas help line with specially trained staff, monthly reminder emails on credit balances and prompts to use flight credits in the online booking engine.

“Our main goal is for everyone who has a COVID credit to be able to put it to good use, which is why we’re doing one final extension of the travel expiry date by 12 months. This is on top of all the system changes we’re making, so people can be reunited with credits they might have forgotten they even have,” Markus Svensson, Qantas Group chief customer officer said in a statement dated March 16, 2023.

Qantas and Jestar provided its customers with flexibility for flight changes and credit redemptions during the pandemic.

Qantas said that a total of AU$ 2 billion ($ 1.33 million) were made over the past two years.

Currently, there are AU$800 million ( $531 million) worth of credits left.