I booked a Qantas flight today. I always pay for carbon offsetting when I book flights – not a perfect solution but better than just sticking your head in the (rapidly warming) sand like an ostrich.
And that’s why I noticed that Qantas had made a change which I hadn’t been aware of.
Previously, if you paid to offset your emissions from a flight booking, Qantas matched that contribution. But no more. As the booking screen proclaimed:
As of 1 July 2024, Qantas has ceased matching passenger contributions to the Fly Carbon Neutral program,.
Qantas used to be proud of doubling that contribution. “Qantas matches dollar-for-dollar every contribution a customer makes to offset their emissions on a passenger flight, effectively doubling the size of the program,” its guide to the scheme used to read. But that sentence has been quietly removed.
Pedant note #1: Qantas didn’t ever match if you paid in points, only in cash.
Pedant note #2: Qantas has always said that passenger contributions would not be used as part of its own business carbon offset strategy, and that’s still the case. It is also still offering its Green Tier as part of Qantas Frequent Flyer. (After I originally published this, Qantas got in touch to note that it is actually reallocating the funds it spent on matching into its main offset program. That means it isn’t spending less, but it does want all that to count politically.)
Still, at a time when the airline’s reputation has taken a battering after massive ACCC fines for selling tickets for already-cancelled flights and a backtrack over excessive executive payments, it’s a little surprising to see it seem to reduce its overall contribution to making aviation a little less damaging.
Is it worth paying for your carbon offsets with Qantas Points?
I get asked this a lot. The short answer: No, paying for carbon offsets with Qantas Points is not a particularly good value use of your points.
Let’s use the flight I booked as an example. I could choose between paying $3.12 or spending 332 Qantas Points for my offset.
That means that each Qantas Point is effectively valued at 0.94 cents – that is, lower than 1 cent.
That’s well below my personal target of 2 cents per point (or, more simply, $20 for every 1,000 points).
It is better than spending your points on a coffee machine or a hair dryer, which generally works out at around 0.5 cents per point. But it’s still not great.
Conversely, if you pay in cash, you earn 10 Qantas Points for each dollar spent. In this example, that would be worth 30 Qantas Points. Not going to get me a flight on its own, but every little helps.
For more Qantas insights, check out how the launch of Qantas Group Boarding went and whether Qantas really invented the term ‘codeshare’,
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