Case Study: How I Renewed Qantas Platinum Status This Year

I’ve held Qantas Frequent Flyer Platinum status for the past few years, and it’s been nice to have. Some of the Platinum benefits I particularly value include access to First Class lounges, better service at the Qantas call centre and the ability to request extra Classic Reward seats.

Many Australian frequent flyers put a lot of effort into earning or maintaining status with Qantas, often going well out of their way to do so. While I’m probably not quite in that category, I do plan my flights carefully and optimise my bookings to ensure I can renew my status without overspending.

There are many different ways to earn the 1,200 status credits needed to renew Qantas Platinum status for another year. In this case study, I thought I would show you exactly how I did it this year – and how much it cost.

Of course, this isn’t the only way to do it! Nonetheless, I thought some AFF readers might be interested to see my approach.

The requirements to earn and renew Qantas Platinum status

Before we get started, let’s do a very quick refresher on what you need to do to earn or renew Platinum status with Qantas.

During a single Qantas Frequent Flyer membership year, you would need to earn at least 1,400 status credits and fly at least four eligible Qantas and/or Jetstar sectors to attain Platinum status for the first time.

To renew Qantas Platinum in subsequent years, you’d need at least 1,200 status credits and four eligible sectors annually.

See our guide to earning Qantas status for full details.

Not all status credits must be from flights

In general, the only way to earn Qantas status credits is by flying on paid tickets with Qantas, Oneworld partner airlines, or on Jetstar if you’ve purchased an eligible fare bundle.

There are a few exceptions. For example, you could earn 50 status credits per year with Qantas Green Tier. You can also prop up your status credits with Loyalty Bonuses, which can give you 50 extra status credits for every 500 that you earn from Qantas or Jetstar flights (excluding bonus status credits). I take advantage of both of these things.

I’ve also been able to earn status credits when flying on Qantas-marketed Classic Flight Reward tickets as I’m a Qantas Points Club member. This is something that you automatically get if you earn more than 150,000 Qantas points per year, with at least 130,000 of those points from non-flying activities. This is something I easily do each year through Qantas credit cards and Qantas Wine bonus points offers.

In addition, as I achieved Points Club Plus last year (by earning more than 350,000 points during the year), I was able to roll over 100 status credits that I earned last year, in excess of the requirement to renew Platinum then, onto this year’s tally.

Qantas Double Status Credits offers

Qantas typically offers Double Status Credits on flights booked during limited promotional periods around twice per year. I also took advantage of these offers when booking some of my flights. However, I wasn’t able to book all of my Qantas flights for the year during Double Status Credit offers.

A breakdown of the status credits I earned over the past year

With all of this in mind, here is the full breakdown of all the status credits I’ve earned during my current Qantas Frequent Flyer membership year:

As you can see, most of my status credits are from Qantas, Oneworld and Jetstar flights. But where possible, I’ve also utilised the other opportunities to earn extra status credits.

And as you can see from the gaps in the flights, I didn’t exclusively fly with Oneworld airlines last year. Where it made sense, I’ve also flown with Virgin Australia, Star Alliance and SkyTeam airlines over the past year.

Note that Jetstar changed its bundles last year, and Economy Flex tickets now earn status credits at the Discount Economy rather than the Flexible Economy rate.

I will most likely earn a few more status credits before the end of my current membership year. But if I stopped flying now, it would be enough to retain Platinum.

How much I spent to earn those status credits

In total, between the Qantas and partner airline flights that earned me status credits, the Qantas-operated Classic Rewards and the cost of attaining Green tier, the above activity cost me a total of $7,584 and 54,800 Qantas points.

This doesn’t include the cost of the 100 status credits rolled over from last year.

There are more efficient ways to earn Qantas status

Did I retain Platinum status in the most “efficient” way possible? Well, no. I could have probably done a few Business Class status runs to Bali or New Zealand, booked on Double Status Credits, and earned a similar amount of status credits for less money.

But all of the flights I’ve taken are ones that I actually wanted or needed to book. So, I haven’t “wasted” money or time flying to places for no particular reason.

Is Qantas status worth it?

There’s no doubt that Qantas status is nice to have. It comes with some lovely perks that, frankly, make flying less miserable and more fun. But is it worth the money you need to spend to get it?

Well, that depends.

If you’re doing enough flying anyway, and you’re not spending too much more or inconveniencing yourself too much to do it on Qantas and its partners, then it’s almost certainly worth it.

If you would need to spend thousands of dollars of your own money that you wouldn’t otherwise, then probably not.

For many people, the status “sweet spot” is actually Gold status. This also comes with very worthwhile benefits, including lounge access, but you only need to earn half the amount of status credits to get it.

My take

Personally, I wouldn’t bother aiming for Platinum status if I wasn’t doing enough travel to get close to it anyway. I don’t think the benefits are worth spending that much more than you would otherwise.

That said, I have managed to get a fair bit of value from Platinum. For example, I’ve enjoyed quite a few visits to domestic Business and international First Lounges.

The most valuable thing I’ve got out of my Platinum status during the past year was successfully requesting the release of a Business Classic Reward seat from Vancouver to Sydney. There were no reward seats available around my travel date – at least, not when I was looking – and the airfare would have been around $8,000.

Admittedly, I wouldn’t have paid $8,000 for that flight. If I couldn’t get a reward ticket, I’d probably just have bought a cheaper ticket in Economy or via Asia. But this was nonetheless a reward that I value highly.

Do you think it’s worth going for Qantas Platinum status? And if you have it, how did you get it? Share your experience on the AFF forum!

Matt Graham

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 aviation, economics & 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.