T-80: How a Little Known Rule Could Get You Access To The Best Seats on a Qantas Flight

Not everyone’s a Qantas Platinum Frequent Flyer member, and if you’ve ever logged on to choose your seat as a lowly Bronze member, you’ve probably been frustrated to see much of the upfront better seats greyed out.  This is no accident - Qantas reserves the front rows of economy for its VIP top tier frequent flyers - indeed, on an Airbus A330, you’ll see 12 rows greyed out, while on the common Boeing 737 you’ll see at least two rows greyed out - and that includes the much valued Row 4 with extra leg room!

So what’s the Qantas T-80 rule?

There’s no ‘rule’ per se, it’s more of a time, the Frequent Flyer groups online have developed the name ‘T-80 rule’ - and it’s short for Time Minus 80 - named because these seats are greyed out until 80 hours before your flight’s departure time.  At T-80, these seats become available to everyone to choose from!

So How Do I Calculate My Flight’s T-80?

Maths is hard, and working out when you need to check the seats can be tricky!  First step, look up your flight in the Qantas App/website.  Find the departure time.  Let’s say 9am on September 15th.  Go to TimeAndDate.Com and use their calculator - put your date and time in, choose ‘Subtract’ and 80 hours.  Click ‘Calculate New Date’ and your T-80 time will appear in the green box below. Example: [caption id=“attachment_4311” align=“alignnone” width=“1069”] Calculating an example T-80 time[/caption]

Why Would I Use The T-80 Rule?

You don’t have to.  You could just pick your middle seat in row 27 and be happy with it. You’re still flying, a glorious (if sometimes cramped) way to travel!  However, there are benefits of getting better seats up front:

• The further forward, generally, the sooner you get to disembark from the plane. This is a) nice after a long flight and b) useful if you have a connecting flight or an appointment to make
• Often the first row of economy (see 737s!) has a bit of extra leg room!
• You’ll get earlier service in-flight and the chicken/beef option you wanted is less likely to have sold out
• Some seats are just ‘worse’ - the seats next to the toilets, for example, might smell and have queues of people.  You’ll also want to avoid seat 9A on a 737 - no window!
• You also have fewer people passing you on their way to the bathroom - as they tend to be at the rear of the plane.
• The Wi-Fi is faster at the front of the plane (just kidding, I actually tested the Wi-Fi for Qantas and it’s fast throughout!)

Does the T-80 Rule Work With Other Airlines?

Anecdotally, yes.  I’ve seen it appear to happen with Air New Zealand, and it stands to reason that most airlines with frequent flyer programs would have some sort of perks and preferred seat selection for higher status/more valuable customers.  So even if you’re not flying Qantas it’s worth a try.  It’s less likely to happen on a low cost carrier, for obvious reasons - they tend to want to make you pay more for up front seats, but hey, can’t hurt to look.