Qantas Economy Plus: How much and who gets free access?

Economy Plus is what Qantas calls the seats that offer its Economy Class passengers considerably more legroom than the its regular Economy Class seats, and with the airline now rolling out this concept on select long-haul routes (they’re also coming to its ultra long-haul Project Sunrise routes), a look at what these seats offer, how much they cost, and who can book them for free seems appropriate.

Qantas Economy Plus

Qantas Economy Plus is, essentially, a regular Qantas Economy Class seat that offers flyers more legroom than the rest of the seats in the Economy Class cabin. The seats are no wider than the regular Economy Class seats, but passengers booked into Economy Plus also get priority boarding (Group 2) and priority access to the overhead bins above their seats.

At the time of writing, Qantas offers Economy Plus seating on select aircraft across its 737, A220 and A321XLR fleets and it will be introducing the product on select wide-body A330 aircraft later this year.

Typically, on the narrow-body aircraft, the regular Economy Class seats offer flyers just 30″ of pitch (legroom), and that’s tight. For some, sitting in one of these seats will make the longer flights that these aircraft operate very uncomfortable.

The Economy Plus seats (usually found towards the front of the Economy Class cabin) offer at least 34″ of pitch* and that extra 4″ of space can feel huge.

The Economy Plus seats on the Qantas wide-body aircraft will also offer 34″ of pitch/legroom and that compares to 31″ in the regular Economy Class seats on the Qantas A330-300s and 32″ in the regular Economy Class seats on the Qantas A330-200s.

That’s not as big a difference as on the narrow-body aircraft, but it will still be noticeable.

Economy Plus will also be coming to the Qantas A350-1000ULH aircraft that is expected to begin operating the world’s longest flight, between Sydney and London, from October 2027, and again, the seats will offer 34″ of pitch/legroom (vs 32″ and 33″ elsewhere in the Economy Class cabin).

*Exit row seats are sometimes designated as Economy Plus seats and they offer even more legroom.

Economy Plus cost

For most people, the price of booking a Qantas Economy Plus seat varies according to the distance being flown.

For a flight between Sydney and Melbourne, for example, it looks like to cost of selecting an Economy Plus seat starts from AU$35/US$25 when you book the cheapest fare.

For a longer flight like Sydney – Perth, the cost of selecting an Economy Plus seat starts from AU$75/US$52.

And if you’re flying between Sydney and Bali, for example, the cost starts from AU$85/US$59.

These costs are for one-way travel, so they can quickly add up.

Fortunately for some, Qantas offers complimentary Economy Plus seating as a benefit to select elite flyers.

Complimentary Qantas Economy Plus

The Qantas Economy Plus page tells us that the following elite status levels get complimentary access to Qantas Economy Plus:

• Qantas Platinum One elites – can select Economy Plus seats for free at the time of booking.
• Qantas Platinum elites – can select Economy Plus seats for free at the time of booking.
• Qantas Gold elites – can select Economy Plus seats for free at check-in from 24 hours prior to flight departure.

A little unhelpfully, nowhere does Qantas mention what access, if any, elite flyers from the other Oneworld frequent flyer programs get, and as the Oneworld elite benefits page says that Oneworld elites get “[a]ccess to preferred or pre-reserved seating” but only “[i]n accordance with the individual policy of the oneworld airline operating the flight“, Qantas can choose to implement whatever rules it feels like implementing.

Nothing compels Qantas to give elites from the other Oneworld airlines complimentary access to its Economy Plus seats.

In the absence of any written guidelines (that I could find), the only way to check what the Qantas Economy Plus seating policy is when it comes to other Oneworld elites it to test it out. So that’s what I did.

I searched for a fare between Sydney and Bali for December (note that this is a route on which Qantas will start to offer Economy Plus seating later in the year) and selected the cheapest fare on the random date I had chosen.

Ahead of seat selection, I entered my Finnair Platinum elite status details (Oneworld Emerald – the same as Qantas Platinum/Platinum One) and when it came to choosing a seat, I was quoted AU$85/US$59 for an exit row seat.

But as soon as I made it to the payment page, there was no sign of the fare having increased by AU$85 …

… and a little further down the page I could see confirmation of my Oneworld Emerald status being recognised and my seat selection fee reduced to AU$0.

Unfortunately, I don’t have any Oneworld Emerald status with any other airline (BA saw to that), so I can’t say definitely that this is what every other Oneworld Emerald status holder will see when they attempt to reserve a Qantas Economy Plus seat at the time of booking, but as I can’t think of any reason why Qantas would make an exception for Finnair status holders, I feel reasonably safe in saying that it looks like Qantas offers complimentary Economy Plus seating (at the time of booking) to all Oneworld Emerald status holders.

That includes, amongst others, American Airlines Executive Platinum and Platinum Pro elites, British Airways Gold Elites, Alaska Airlines Titanium and Platinum Elites and, of course, Finnair Lumo and Platinum elites.

That is very good news given that Qantas Economy Plus seating is being rolled out on select long haul routes and that it’s coming to the longest route of them all – Sydney to London (there don’t appear to be any plans to add these seats to the airline’s A380s or its Dreamliners).

Of course, there’s a risk that Qantas decides to be miserly and chooses to carve out the Project Sunrise routes as an exception and only offer complimentary Economy Plus to its own top-level elites on those flights, but we are led to believe that this is not something that’s currently in the works.

How about Oneworld Sapphire elites?

Well, Qantas offers complimentary Economy Plus seating to its own Oneworld Sapphire elites (Qantas Gold elites) at check-in from 24 hours prior to flight departure, so as Qantas appears to treat all Oneworld Emeralds similarly, logic would suggest that the same will be true for Oneworld Sapphire elites.

We would expect American Airlines Platinum elites, British Airways Silver elites, Alaska Airlines Gold elites, Finnair Gold elites, etc, to also get access to complimentary Economy Plus seating at check-in (starting from 24 hours prior to flight departure), but I can’t be sure.

I did my best to check (using my Lifetime American Airlines Platinum elite status), but on all of the searches I performed where Economy Plus seats were available to be selected, I kept getting an error message when I tried to get to the payment page.

For some reason, Qantas did not like me trying to book a flight online within 24 hours of departure.

Bottom line

On most equipped aircraft, Qantas Economy Plus seating offers considerably more legroom than the regular Qantas Economy seats and these seats now being offered on select wide-body routes as well as on a broad selection of narrow-body routes that Qantas operates.

Pricing varies according to the distance of the flight in question (prices appear to start from AU$35/US$25 one-way) and it looks like all Oneworld Emerald elites get complimentary access to these seats at the time of booking.

It’s also likely that Oneworld Sapphire elites are being given complimentary Economy Plus seating at check-in (from 24 hours prior to flight departure), but I haven’t been able to confirm this for myself.