That grinding sound you can hear across Australia today is the noise of frustrated Qantas frequent fliers unable to use their accumulated points before Qantas removes their value. From today, the value of accumulated points has been cut by between 40% and 50% in most cases.

That has resulted in thousands of frustrated frequent fliers around the country who have been unable to use their points by booking ahead. On many flights there are no frequent flier seats in any class, with the problem particularly bad across the Pacific in business class. According to someone who tried to book one, there’s not a frequent flyer points business class seat available on Qantas between Sydney and LA for the next 12 months.

The best deal for using the points is round-the-world tickets – 130,000 for economy, 240,000 for business and 300,000 for first class until today, when it all goes up. These tickets give you five stops and up to 35,000 miles. Trouble is, they’re very difficult to use on Qantas right now.