A Tennessee road trip flying Business Class both ways on points

Australians tend to arrive in the United States on one coast or the other. California and New York absorb most of the traffic, and the middle of the country barely registers as a holiday idea here. Tennessee makes a strong argument against that habit, and it happens to be reachable on a combination of Qantas and Velocity Points without much cash changing hands.

Two of us flew Melbourne to Los Angeles and back in Business Class, connected onwards to Nashville, drove a loop through Lynchburg and Memphis, and came home. The cash outlay was $414.56 per person for the entire set of flights.

The flights, and what they cost

The trick to keeping the cash figure this low was splitting the trip across two programmes. Velocity Points covered the westbound crossing; Qantas Points covered the eastbound crossing and all the domestic flying inside the United States.

The balance of cabins was deliberate. Lie-flat seats earn their keep on the long overnight legs across the Pacific; the daytime hops between American cities are three hours or less and perfectly comfortable in Economy. It is also a reasonable argument for collecting in both Australian programmes rather than picking one: balances in each opened up two different long-haul products, and doubled the number of dates where a reward seat existed at all.

Sydney to Los Angeles in United Polaris

United does not run its own lounge in Sydney, but a Business Class ticket opens the Star Alliance partner lounges. We used the Singapore Airlines lounge, which has good natural light, tarmac views and a buffet with a cooked breakfast and barista coffee.

Polaris on the 787 is laid out 1-2-1, and the two centre seats have an electronic partition that can be lowered if you are travelling with someone you want to talk to. We left ours up for the full thirteen hours.

Dinner arrived promptly after departure — the Moroccan-spiced lamb with couscous was the sensible order ahead of a week of ribs, the caramel sundae afterwards less so. Bedding is soft and warm, the amenity kit is by Therabody, and once the lights went down the cabin was cool enough for a solid seven hours of sleep.

From Los Angeles it was a three-hour American Airlines Economy flight to Nashville — 18,000 Qantas Points and $8.23 per person, which is about as efficient as a domestic redemption gets.

Nashville

Nashville bills itself as the official home of country music and commits to the premise entirely. The city recorded USD$28.9 billion in direct visitor spending in 2023, though the overwhelming majority of that comes from Americans travelling domestically. The population is past 1.3 million and still growing.

The centrepiece is Honky Tonk Highway downtown, where more than thirty multi-storey bars open their windows and doors from ten in the morning and keep live bands running until the early hours. On the busiest nights the street draws upwards of 200,000 people and closes to vehicles entirely. Acts rotate through the day and nobody charges to walk in. It is not all country, either — plenty of venues run pop-rock covers and heavier material.

Three days is enough to also fit in an ice hockey game, the Country Music Hall of Fame, a whiskey tour through craft distilleries in neighbouring counties, and, if you want an oddity, the city's full-scale replica of the Parthenon.

Then there is the Grand Ole Opry House. The Opry has been running for close to a century, and the weekly show has been broadcast from this venue to radio across North America since 1974. You do not need to be a country fan to get something out of an evening there — our night detoured into 1980s rock when Jim Peterik of Survivor turned up, and it worked.

A word of warning on the food: Nashville hot chicken is graded by heat, and the top grade is not a dare worth taking.

Lynchburg

An hour's drive southeast of Nashville is Lynchburg, a dry county where buying and selling alcohol is prohibited — a lingering local consequence of Prohibition — and which also happens to contain the Jack Daniel's distillery. The contradiction is the town's entire personality.

We joined the first tour of the day at 8am. The guide covers the production process, the company's history and its relationship with the land. The detail that sticks is that every bottle is made on site using water drawn from a nearby limestone cave, which is credited with the flavour profile. The site sits among forest and rivers and in autumn it is a pleasant morning walk, right up until the 9am tasting.

Lunch is at Miss Mary Bobo's in the centre of town, which is less a restaurant than a communal dinner. You are seated with strangers at a shared table, plates of fried chicken and mac and cheese keep arriving as long as you keep eating, and a host works the room with local stories. There is sweet iced tea and no alcohol, this being a dry county.

We happened to be in town for the annual Jack Daniel's World Championship Invitational Barbecue, which draws competing teams internationally, including one from Perth.

Memphis

Memphis is a scenic four to five hours west. Graceland is the obvious stop, and the house tour is worth it as much for the interior decoration — uncompromisingly 1970s, escalating room by room — as for the Elvis history. Aviation-minded visitors can also see his aircraft, the Lisa Marie. Book ahead: it was busy even in the quiet season.

Beale Street is the music strip, lined with bars and blues clubs. In late October it was subdued compared with Nashville, and locals told us the city comes alive over the American summer, particularly around the Beale Street Music Festival in May. The find was BB King's Blues Club, a two-storey venue running jazz, blues and rock acts from the afternoon through to late. We went back a second night.

The other recommendation is architectural: the Bass Pro Pyramid at the top of town, which contains an outdoor store, a hotel, a bowling alley, a gun range, restaurants, a bar, a hunting museum and an observation deck, all inside a pyramid.

Heading home

The return ran Memphis to Los Angeles in American Airlines Economy via Dallas, then Qantas 787 Business Class through to Melbourne. The Qantas leg does what it always does on this route — flat whites, Australian accents, vegetables in quantity, branded pyjamas and a sleep mask.

Planning notes

• October is a quiet month in Memphis. If live music is the priority, the American summer is livelier, but reward availability and hotel rates both get harder.
• Nashville works well as the arrival point and Memphis as the departure point, with Lynchburg slotting in between. A hire car is essential.
• If Elvis and barbecue are not the draw, the same Nashville base reaches the Great Smoky Mountains National Park to the east, and the drive south towards New Orleans is an obvious extension.
• Reward seat availability across the Pacific is the constraint on a trip like this, not the points balance.

Frequently asked questions

How much did the flights cost in total? Per person, 144,400 Qantas Points, 95,500 Velocity Points and $414.56 in cash, covering Business Class both ways across the Pacific and three Economy sectors within the United States.

Why split the booking across two programmes? Holding balances in both Qantas and Velocity widens the pool of reward seats you can reach, and here it allowed two different long-haul Business Class products rather than the same one twice.

Is it worth using points for the domestic US flights? For short daytime sectors, Economy is the better value. One Los Angeles to Nashville leg cost 18,000 Qantas Points and $8.23.

Can I use a United lounge in Sydney? United does not operate its own lounge there, but a United Business Class ticket grants access to Star Alliance partner lounges, including Singapore Airlines.

How long do you need in Tennessee? This itinerary ran about seven days: three in Nashville, a day trip to Lynchburg and a few nights in Memphis.

When is the best time to visit? Late October is comfortable but quiet, particularly in Memphis. The American summer brings the bigger music events, including the Beale Street Music Festival in May, at the cost of tighter reward availability and higher accommodation prices.

This information is general in nature. It does not take your personal circumstances into account.