The Cost-Saving Strategy of Earning Status Every Two Years

Qantas A330-200 international Economy Class
There are lots of strategies to maximise your airline status. Photo: Qantas.

Frequent flyers are often looking for strategies to maximise their airline status, while minimising the cost of acquiring that status.

In most frequent flyer programs, there are lots of tricks you can use to attain status without overspending on flights. For example, you could use double status credit offers to earn twice as many status credits on your flights.

You could also look for the kinds of routings and fare types that make good “status runs” because you’ll earn lots of status credits for relatively little spend. The old adage of “why flight direct when you can connect” often applies here, as connecting flights typically gain you more status credits.

In addition, if you already have status with one airline, shortcuts like status matches and challenges can fast-track you to elite status with another airline. One example of this is the Qantas Tier Accelerator challenge.

In fact, even if you don’t already have status with any airline, you can get a shortcut to Star Alliance Gold status by simply taking out a HSBC Star Alliance credit card.

Get Star Alliance Gold status without flying…

HSBC Star Alliance Credit Card
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There’s another little-known airline status strategy that I think is worth talking about in this article. It has its downsides, but it could also save you quite a bit of money if you’re not otherwise flying enough to earn a higher status tier with your preferred airline every single year.

The cost of attaining and retaining status

With the Qantas Frequent Flyer and Virgin Australia Velocity programs, your status tier is based on the amount of status credits you earn over a 12-month period.

Let’s say, hypothetically, that you earn an average of one Qantas status credit for every $15 spent with Qantas and its Oneworld partner airlines.

Of course, in reality, you won’t always earn at this rate. With Qantas, your status credit earn is based on the route and type of ticket you fly on.

In some cases, you’ll earn at a lower rate – like if you earn 20 status credits on a $681 Economy Flex ticket from Melbourne to Sydney, giving a return of 1 status credit per $34 spent. In other cases, you might earn at a higher rate – for example, you might get the cost down to under $4 per status credit by booking a status run during a Double Status Credits promotion.

But to keep our explanation simple, let’s just assume you earn an average of 1 status credit per $15. Bear with me on that.

Qantas 737 business class
Qantas 737 Business Class. Photo: Qantas.

With Velocity Frequent Flyer, you also currently earn status credits based on the distance you fly and fare type you booked. But Velocity will move to a new system of awarding 1 status credit per $12 spent on most Virgin Australia tickets in 2025, tying your status directly to your spend.

Let’s use Qantas Platinum as an example…

For now, let’s stick to Qantas Frequent Flyer for this example.

To earn Qantas Platinum status, you’d need to attain 1,400 status credits within a year. If we assume you earn 1 status credit per $15 spent on flights, this means you’d need to spend around $21,000 during your Qantas Frequent Flyer membership year.

As soon as you upgrade to Qantas Platinum status, you’ll get to enjoy your benefits for the rest of your current membership year, plus all of your next membership year.

To retain your Qantas Platinum for a further 12 months beyond that, you’d then need to earn another 1,200 status credits during your next membership year. That would mean spending another $18,000 on flights, under our hypothetical model. And the same again the next year, to renew Platinum for a further 12 months…

Different requirements to earn and retain status

Qantas and Velocity both make it easier to retain your current tier than to upgrade to a higher one – with the exception of their very top tiers. This is a clever way of disincentivising status downgrades.

Qantas status requirements

These are the amounts of Qantas status credits you’d need to earn or renew Qantas Frequent Flyer status (you also need 4 eligible sectors):

Qantas tierStatus credits to earnStatus credits to renew
Silver300250
Gold700600
Platinum1,4001,200
Platinum One3,6003,600

Velocity status requirements

These are the amounts of status credits you’d need to earn with Velocity Frequent Flyer to earn or retain Virgin Australia status:

Velocity tierStatus credits to earnStatus credits to renew
Silver250200
Gold500400
Platinum1,000800
Platinum Plus (launching 1 October 2025)2,0002,000

Soft landings

If you don’t fly enough during your next membership year to retain your elevated status level, the airline won’t necessarily downgrade you all the way back to the base tier in the following year. Both Qantas and Velocity use “soft landings”, only downgrading members by one status tier at a time.

For example, if you are a Velocity Gold member and don’t earn any status credits at all before your next review date, you’ll only drop down to Velocity Silver for the next 12 months. You won’t drop all the way back to Red straight away.

(With Qantas Frequent Flyer, you might also have the option to “buy” a status extension with your Qantas points. The going rate is currently 80,000 points to renew Gold status or 120,000 points to renew Platinum, but you may need to have earned at least half of the required status credits during your current membership year to be eligible for this offer.)

The strategy of upgrading your airline status every second year

If you want to ensure that your status tier never gets downgraded, and you haven’t yet earned lifetime status, you would need to earn enough status credits to renew your tier every 12 months.

Using our previous assumptions, that potentially means spending $18,000 every single year to retain Qantas Platinum status. In other words, you’d be spending $36,000 over a two-year period.

Qantas planes at Melbourne Airport including an Airbus A220
You need to do a substantial amount of flying within a 12-month period to earn status. Photo: Matt Graham.

Now, consider an alternative scenario. For simplicity, we’ll assume that your Qantas Frequent Flyer membership year starts in January and ends in December…

Say, for example, that you earned 1,400 Qantas status credits at the start of 2025 and upgraded to Qantas Platinum status. You’d get to keep your benefits until December 2026.

In 2026, you don’t worry about earning status credits and do most of your flying on Classic Reward tickets. At the end of December 2026, your status will drop to Gold.

Then, in January 2027, you do a bunch of flying on Qantas again and earn another 1,400 status credits. Your status will then get upgraded back to Platinum until December 2028.

Under this model, you might only be spending around $21,000 every two years, rather than $36,000. So, you spend a lot less, but you still hold status for most of those two years.

If you became a Qantas Points Club Plus member during 2027, you could also get a status credit rollover that gives you a head-start of 100 status credits in 2028. So, not all of the status credits you might earn in 2027 would go to waste.

This strategy has an obvious downside

The downside, in this example, is that your status will drop to Gold in January 2027. This means you won’t get to enjoy benefits like First Lounge access when completing your January 2027 flights.

That may not be such a problem at airports like Auckland, where Qantas’ First and Business Lounges are basically the same…

The Qantas lounges at Auckland Airport
The Qantas lounges at Auckland Airport. Photo: Matt Graham.

But if you’re flying internationally out of Sydney, having to walk past the Qantas First Lounge as you make your way to the Business Lounge might not be the most fun experience. 😂

Salt and pepper squid in the Qantas First Lounge
In Sydney and Melbourne, you have to be in the Qantas First Lounge to get that delicious salt & pepper squid! Photo: Matt Graham.

You do get your Platinum benefits back, though, once you’ve flown the required 1,400 status credits in your new membership year.

While I’ve mainly talked about Qantas status in this article, this strategy could also work for most other airline frequent flyer programs. It could even work for hotel loyalty programs as well. It’s definitely not for everyone, but it could make sense in some situations.

Have you used this two-year status strategy, and if not, would you consider it? Let us know on the AFF forum!

The editor of Australian Frequent Flyer, Matt's passion for travel has taken him to over 90 countries… with the help of frequent flyer points, of course!
Matt's favourite destinations (so far) are Germany, Brazil & Kazakhstan. His interests include economics, aviation & foreign languages, and he has a soft spot for good food and red wine.

You can connect with Matt by posting on the Australian Frequent Flyer community forum and tagging @AFF Editor.
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Nice article and handy tips.
I think some airlines like BA also give you a grace period. So, your status is valid for an extra month even if you don't meet the requirements that year.

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Nicely put and simple economic equation to work off, maybe changing that number to say $20 per Qantas Status Credit might be a decent 'rule of thumb' for people unable to do last minute or plan a year in advance leirure flights or status runs and/or flying BFOD Y a lot, as you say, a simplified example but well written.

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This article sounds almost like my strategy for the past few years! maybe not the full two years benefit, but certainly trying to achieve it early in the anniversary cycle.

The hardest part of this strategy, especially if trying to tie in with a DSC promotion is having dates that far out to commit flights to. Less of an issue if the travel is leisure, but if work/business related, plans are not often made that far in advance.

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In this article, I outline a somewhat left-field airline status strategy where you only earn the required status credits every two years. It's definitely not for everyone, but there are some people who do this quite effectively - including to maintain Platinum One status on Qantas with half the amount of flying.

What do you think of this idea? You can leave a comment or discuss this topic below.

View image at the forums

I think the circled area needs to be Velocity tier?

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A lot cheaper than Lifetime Platinum with almost the same result.

Yes you drop to Gold for a few months every second year but it's good to get back to the real world every now and then to make you appreciate what you are missing.

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The other downside of this strategy is that all your regular flights during those two years basically go to waste in terms of status attainment/retention (apart from the tiny 100SC points club plus rollover).

That arguably makes it more expensive than the traditional way of attaining/retaining Platinum — a status run at the end of the year to make up any missing SCs.

A regular person might spend, say, $5-15,000 on flights that they want to take and then attain/retain Platinum with just a few hundred extra dollars spent on a status run.

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Are you able to change your membership date? Our renews end of August, but we generally travel June-August, so we never get to keep our status for as long.

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View attachment 414656

I think the circled area needs to be Velocity tier?

Thanks, have fixed this.

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After JASA
This had been my preferred strategy as it made sense to aim to get it early and then get closer to two years of Flounges while spending squat all on airfares (points redemptions)

During the middle period in between the end of JASA and the beginning of Points Club it was a way to maximise the longevity (also helped to have a couple of comped WP as well) but it was more of the yo-yo style

Having idled for several years (WP) over COVID and 93% of the way to LTG Kinda cured me from the “need” to Flounge (although I did do a couple of farewell JQ dom PAX on international flight) Lounge runs in the weeks before I dropped out of WP)

And in any event if you wishEd to check out the J lounge in Adelaide it had not existed so no great incentive to chase further (an egalitarian lot here so everyone mixed in the same relaxed lounge (soon to be a relic of a by-gone era)

Besides one can still park in the Flounge if flying F so that’s also an option when doing rewards F redemptions

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I have done this with Qantas Points Club for the last few years. I can't be bothered churning credit cards so I use Woolworths rewards; 30%-40% of my Points Club qualifying earn has been from "Bank for Christmas" accumulation turned on into my new year, every second year. Add 20K from flying, 20K from QBR combined with a few points earned here and there (such as Hotels) including a couple of strategic wine purchases from Qantas Wine.

I am then earning SC's on awards flights for the next 22 months or so.

(I have no desire or need for Points Club Plus.)

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