qantas overseas travel requirements

Here's where Qantas and Jetstar are flying to as international travel in Australia opens up

There will be more flights departing Australia from next month, as Qantas and Jetstar bring forward the restart date for some international routes.

Qantas chief executive Alan Joyce today announced the national airline was ramping up its return to the skies.

At this stage, the majority of the international flights are departing from Sydney.

But Melbourne could be close behind, following last night's announcement that Victoria will scrap COVID quarantine for international arrivals .

Here's what you need to know about the changes.

Who can fly Qantas and Jetstar?

International passengers will only be allowed to fly with Qantas and Jetstar if they are fully vaccinated with an approved vaccine (Pfizer, AstraZeneca, Moderna or Johnson & Johnson).

This requirement doesn't apply to children aged under 12, or those with an exemption.

Travellers will also need to have returned a negative COVID test within the last 72 hours before they get on the plane.

Qantas says passengers should check the government requirements for their destination.

Each country has its own rules for incoming travellers based on their citizenship or visa, vaccination status, where they have travelled from and, in some cases, where they have visited in the past few weeks or months.

Fiji requires travellers to stay in their accommodation for 48 hours and return a negative COVID test before venturing out.

What other airlines are flying out of Australia?

According to Sydney Airport, airlines that had completely stopped scheduled services that will be back by January include:

• American Airlines
• Cebu Pacific
• Fiji Airways
• Hawaiian Airlines
• Thai Airways

Other airlines, including Cathay Pacific and Singapore Airlines, which ran at a reduced capacity during the border closure, will also be ramping up services.

What international flights are Qantas and Jetstart running from Sydney?

• Los Angeles, United States from November 1
• London, UK from November 1
• Singapore from November 23
• Delhi, India (via Darwin) from December 6 (subject to discussion with Indian authorities)
• Nadi, Fiji from December 7
• Vancouver, Canada from December 18
• Tokyo, Japan from December 19
• Honolulu, United States from December 20
• Johannesburg, South Africa from January 5
• Phuket, Thailand (with Jetstar) from January 12
• Bangkok, Thailand from January 14

What international flights are there from Melbourne?

• Singapore from November 22
• London from November 6

What international flights are there from Darwin?

• Delhi, India (flight originates in Sydney) from December 6 (subject to discussion with Indian authorities)
• Singapore (with Jetstar) from December 16, 2021

What about Virgin Australia?

Virgin Australia has announced it will resume flights to Nadi, Fiji from Christmas.

Flights from Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane will resume on December 16, 17 and 18 respectively.

The airline is scheduled to resume flights to Bali and New Zealand in 2022.

Unlike Qantas and Jetstar, Virgin Australia has not made it mandatory for international travellers to be fully vaccinated.

However the COVID vaccine is mandatory for all staff.

Can I travel to Bali?

There are currently no direct flights between Australia and Bali.

The Indonesian holiday island reopened to foreign tourists on October 14, but no international flights landed at its airport on reopening day.

Bali is accepting fully vaccinated tourists from 19 eligible countries including China, India and France, but not Australia.

International arrivals are required to quarantine in their accommodation for five days at their own expense.

In a statement, Qantas said discussions were underway with the Indonesian government about welcoming fully vaccinated Australians with reduced or no quarantine.

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Qantas announces vaccine requirements for international travel

Qantas announced (20-Oct-2021) vaccination requirements for international travellers, effective 01-Nov-2021. Travellers planning to travel to or from Australia on a Qantas aircraft must be fully vaccinated with a government approved or recognised vaccine, with the exception of:

• Children under 12 years of age;
• Customers with a valid exemption;
• Customers holding a ticket sold by Qantas on a codeshare flight operated by another airline, unless vaccination is a requirement of the operating airline or destination.

These requirements will be reviewed by 01-Feb-2022. [ more - original PR ]

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All Categories ​>​ ​Qantas Travel Money Card ​ > ​ ​Using overseas ​>​ Is there anything I need to do before I go overseas?

Once you have successfully applied for Qantas Travel Money and loaded your card with funds, you should also

1. Download and log in to the Qantas Money mobile app to ensure you have access while you’re overseas.

If you plan on using Bank Transfer or BPAY® to load your card whilst overseas (either via qantastravelmoney.com or your internet or telephone banking) check if you have SMS security set up for payments to third parties.

If so, make sure you have international roaming on your phone so you can receive the SMS security codes whilst travelling. Otherwise you will not be able to authorise the Bank Transfer or BPAY® payment.

Alternatively you may wish to disable SMS security or setup Qantas Travel Money as a preferred biller. Speak to your bank or financial institution for further information.

2. Make sure you know your card PIN

Some countries may not accept a signature as verification when making a purchase, plus, you’ll need your PIN for ATM withdrawals - so make sure you memorise your PIN before you leave home.

You can retrieve your PIN online via qantastravelmoney.com by logging in to the mobile app or website, selecting Settings > Card Settings > Reveal your PIN, or by calling Mastercard Qantas Travel Money Global Support on 1300 825 302 (from within Australia) or +61 1300 825 302 (if overseas), and following the prompts.

3. Check your Qantas Travel Money contact details are valid for your trip

If you plan to use a different mobile phone or email address while you’re overseas, update your contact details before you leave home so we can reach you if needed (for example, if we notice any unusual activity on your card).

Just remember to update again with your regular contact details when you return home.

4. Arrange back up payment sources

No matter how you choose to make payments whilst overseas, you should always have a backup. You may choose to take a backup credit card, debit card or a small amount of foreign cash.

If your Qantas Travel Money Card is lost or stolen whilst you are overseas, you’ll have access to 24/7 Global Emergency Assistance for help with emergency cash. Contact Mastercard Qantas Travel Money Global Support on 1300 825 302 (from within Australia) or +61 1300 825 302 (if overseas), for assistance if needed.

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Qantas to pay $120m for allegedly selling tickets to flights that had already been cancelled

The airline agrees to a $100m fine and to repay $20m to customers in settlement with the ACCC

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Qantas will fork out $100m as a civil penalty and pay $20m to customers in compensation, after striking a deal with the consumer watchdog over landmark legal action for allegedly selling tens of thousands of tickets to flights that had already been cancelled in its system.

On Monday, Qantas announced it had come to an agreement with the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) to resolve the court proceedings lodged in August last year, alleging it had advertised and sold tickets for more than 8,000 flights that it had already cancelled in its internal system, revelations which precipitated the early retirement of the former CEO Alan Joyce.

In a statement, Qantas said it would “commence a projected $20 million remediation program for impacted passengers, with payments to customers ranging from $225 to $450, and subject to the approval of the Federal Court of Australia, will pay a $100 million civil penalty”.

It is the largest settlement for a corporate penalty the ACCC has ever agreed to. However, the record penalty for a breach of Australia’s consumer law was $125m – issued to Volkswagen in 2019 for deceiving customers over diesel emissions.

The proposed penalty will need to be approved by the federal court, though Qantas will start the “remediation program in advance of the Court approval process”.

The chair of the ACCC, Gina Cass-Gottlieb, said as part of the settlement Qantas had admitted that it misled consumers. “Qantas’s conduct was egregious and unacceptable. Many consumers will have made holiday, business and travel plans after booking on a phantom flight that had been cancelled,” Cass-Gottlieb said.

She said Qantas had also undertaken to “not engage in this type of conduct in the future”.

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The Qantas CEO, Vanessa Hudson, said “today represents another important step forward as we work towards restoring confidence in the national carrier … we have since updated our processes and are investing in new technology across the Qantas Group to ensure this doesn’t happen again”.

While the flight data during a May-July 2022 monitoring period formed the basis of the initial legal allegations – a window when 15,000 out of 66,000 Qantas services were cancelled – the airline said that through working with the ACCC on a settlement, it had unearthed thousands more instances of customers who were sold tickets to flights that had already been cancelled.

As such, Qantas has agreed to make compensation payments to 86,597 consumers who, between 21 May 2021 and 26 August 2023, booked or were re‑accommodated on a domestic or international flight scheduled to depart between 1 May 2022 until 10 May 2024 after Qantas had already decided to cancel it.

Only those who booked on a flight two or more days after the cancellation decision had been made will be compensated, with Qantas to contact eligible customers next month.

The 26 August 2023 cut off is the date by which Qantas is confident internal issues were rectified so that its system would no longer sell tickets to flights that had already been cancelled.

As part of the deal, Qantas has also agreed to notify customers of cancelled flights as soon as practicable, stipulated as no more than 48 hours from deciding to cancel the flight. It has also undertaken to stop selling cancelled flights as soon as practicable, and in any event within 24 hours of its decision to cancel. The undertaking also applies to its low-cost subsidiary, Jetstar.

Of customers affected, 94% were flying on domestic or trans-Tasman routes, with the remainder flying on the international network. The financial hit of the penalty and remediation program would be recognised as an expense in the group’s statutory income statement for the current financial year.

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In August, the ACCC lodged proceedings in the federal court alleging Qantas was continuing to advertise and sell tickets for more than 8,000 flights on its website for an average of two weeks, and in some cases up to 47 days, after cancelling the flights.

The watchdog also alleged that for more than 10,000 flights scheduled over the same period in 2022, Qantas did not notify existing ticketholders that their flights had been cancelled for an average of about 18 days, and in some cases for up to 48 days.

Qantas, in its defence to the legal action, claimed it doesn’t sell customers tickets to any particular flight , but rather a “bundle of rights” that includes alternative options in the event of cancellations, as it responded to allegations it sold tickets to thousands of already cancelled flights.

The airline also claimed the sales occurred due to its online booking system, and that informing customers that it had already cancelled flights they were booked on would have created “uncertainty and frustration” and overwhelmed its phone lines when they were all automatically notified of the cancellation without being allocated a replacement flight.

Prior to the settlement, Cass-Gottlieb had said she wanted to see Qantas hit with penalties of at least $250m, twice the current record penalty.

However, on Monday she said she was satisfied with the lesser penalty because it secured an early settlement, admissions of the misconduct by Qantas, and a commitment to improve in the future, including in its budget carrier Jetstar’s operations.

“If we had gone through and Qantas had continued to contest and defend, in that case we would have sought multiple of hundreds of millions of dollars,” she said.

In what was a compromise deal, the ACCC agreed to drop its allegation that Qantas had charged fees for no service, while the airline dropped its defence that it only sells a bundle of rights rather than a ticket to a specific flight.

Hudson said this concession would not have implications for how it sells flights going forward, where sales terms and conditions stipulate that date and time of departure do not form part of a customers contract with the airline.

“Even on the ACCC’s website, it notes that airlines cannot guarantee specific flight times on specific dates…There are always going to be instances where changes to flight times or cancellations need to occur,” Hudson said.

In February, Hudson handed down a $1.25bn half-year pre-tax profit in her first financial results leading the airline, and rewarded shareholders with a $400m buyback after a tumultuous period that unseated her predecessor. The profit result was tracking 13% down from the record $2.47bn full-year profit posted in 2022-23 .

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Airline Agrees to Pay $79 Million After Selling Tickets for Canceled Flights

Qantas, Australia’s national carrier, apologized and said it would pay a fine and compensation to settle a suit brought by a consumer watchdog.

By Jin Yu Young

Qantas, Australia’s national airline, said on Monday that it had reached a deal with the country’s consumer watchdog to pay the equivalent of $79 million for selling thousands of tickets to flights that it had already canceled.

The airline said in a statement that the payments, totaling 120 million Australian dollars, would resolve a lawsuit that the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission filed against Qantas over the issue last year. The commission accused the airline of advertising and selling tickets for more than 8,000 canceled flights from May 2021 through July 2022.

The commission said Qantas had known that the flights would never take off, and that tickets remained available for an average of over two weeks after the flights were canceled — in some cases, for as long as 47 days.

Qantas said it expected to pay 20 million Australian dollars in compensation to more than 86,000 of its customers, as well as a fine of 100 million dollars, subject to court approval.

“We know many of our customers were affected by our failure to provide cancellation notifications in a timely manner, and we are sincerely sorry,” said the carrier’s chief executive, Vanessa Hudson.

“We have since updated our processes and are investing in new technology across the Qantas Group to ensure this doesn’t happen again,” she said.

Gina Cass-Gottlieb, the consumer watchdog’s chairwoman, said the agency was “pleased to have secured these admissions by Qantas that it misled its customers, and its agreement that a very significant penalty is required as a result of this conduct.”

The airline has had a rocky few years. While it bills itself as “the spirit of Australia,” its customers there have complained about unreliable flights and high ticket prices. The airline has also taken flack for giving large paychecks to its board and its previous chief executive, after what a court called its illegal layoffs of 1,700 baggage handlers.

In the airline’s statement Monday, Ms. Hudson said the resolution of the suit over the canceled flights “represents another important step forward as we work towards restoring confidence in the national carrier.”

An earlier version of this article misspelled the name of Qantas’s chief executive. It is Vanessa Hudson, not Husdon.

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Jin Yu Young reports on South Korea, the Asia Pacific region and global breaking news from Seoul. More about Jin Yu Young

Help and Support

Requirements for flying whilst pregnant, 27/06/2023 • knowledge, information.

What are the requirements for flying whilst pregnant?

Flights 4 hours duration or greater You can travel up to the end of the 36th week for single pregnancies and the end of the 32nd week for multiple pregnancies (e.g. twins). Flights less than 4 hours duration You can travel up to the end of the 40th week for single pregnancies and the end of the 36th week for multiple pregnancies. Medical clearance is required if you are having complications with your pregnancy. Read more about  medical requirements for travelling while pregnant on Qantas flights or see the relevant consulate or embassy.

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