Qatar Airways Privilege Club is offering a status match to top-tier members of the Virgin Australia Velocity program. The offer is also available to frequent flyers with Emirates, Etihad Airways, Singapore Airlines, Turkish Airlines and South African Airways.
If you’re eligible for the Qatar Airways Privilege Club status match, you’ll receive 12 months of complimentary status. You’ll then have the opportunity to extend your status for another 12 months by earning half of the Qpoints usually required.
As Qatar Airways is a member of the Oneworld alliance, this opens a pathway for Virgin Australia Velocity members to get a status match with a Oneworld airline. Qatar Airways Privilege Club status is recognised on all Oneworld airlines, including Qantas.
We expect that Velocity Silver, Gold and Platinum status would be matched to Qatar Airways Privilege Club’s Silver, Gold and Platinum tiers, respectively. Those tiers are equivalent to Oneworld’s Ruby, Sapphire and Emerald levels. The offer terms & conditions state that “Privilege Club reserves the right to decide on the corresponding tier”.
How to get a Qatar Airways status match
To apply for a Qatar Airways status match, you should have existing status with Virgin Australia or another airline that’s eligible for this promotion.
If you aren’t already a member, the first step is to join Qatar Airways Privilege Club on the Qatar Airways website.
You’ll then need to send an email to [email protected] with the following information:
- Your Privilege Club membership number
- Last two months’ account statements from your current frequent flyer program (i.e. Velocity)
- Photo/copy of your current frequent flyer membership card (with your name, status and expiry date clearly showing)
This promotion ends at 11.59pm (Doha time) on Wednesday, 20 May 2020. (That’s 6.59am on Thursday, AEST.) You must apply by email by this deadline, and Qatar Airways will inform you of the outcome within 10 business days.
Full terms & conditions are available on the Qatar Airways website.
Renewing your Privilege Club status
As part of this Qatar Airways status match promotion, members can renew their matched Privilege Club status by earning just half of the normal amount of Qpoints required over the next 12 months:
Qpoints can be earned by flying on any Qatar Airways marketed flight, or any flight operated and marketed by a Oneworld airline. That includes Qantas flights, however Qpoints are not earned on all fare types.
Qatar Airways Qmiles and Qpoints, which count towards status, are earned on all Qantas Premium Economy, Business and First class fare types (excluding Classic Flight Rewards). But in Qantas Economy class, only Flex fares and Economy Red-eDeal or Saver fares booked into “V” class are eligible to earn anything. (As Qantas doesn’t display fare classes on its website, this makes it quite difficult to know whether you’re booking an eligible fare category.)
You can use the Qatar Airways Qcalculator to determine what you’ll earn for a given flight. As an example, you would earn 5-10 Qpoints for a one-way Qantas Economy class flight from Sydney to Melbourne, or 12 Qpoints in Business. However, note that the Qantas partner page on the Qatar Airways website states that “accrual on Qantas domestic flights are only eligible when they are in conjunction with an international flight marketed by either Qantas or Qatar Airways on the same ticket.”
For a return Qatar Airways Business class trip from Melbourne to London via Doha, you would earn at least 170 Qpoints.
In addition, Qatar Airways normally requires members to earn at least 20% of their Qpoints or fly at least 4 sectors on Qatar Airways marketed or operated flights within 12 months, in order to earn status. (Qantas Frequent Flyer and Velocity Frequent Flyer have similar requirements to fly a minimum number of sectors on Qantas or Virgin Australia, respectively.) The offer terms & conditions do not mention this requirement, so it’s not clear whether this is being waived for this promotion.
At the very least, Velocity members can benefit from 12 months of complimentary Oneworld status with this free Qatar Airways status match. For Velocity Gold members, this should mean access to Qantas Club lounges and other benefits when flying with Qantas. And Velocity Platinum members would have access to Qantas’ domestic Business lounges, once they re-open, when flying with Qantas.
Join the discussion on the Australian Frequent Flyer forum: Qatar Airways status match to Virgin Australia
