How to earn 130k points

[honeytrees]

Hi,

I purchased some Classic Rewards flights for start of next year and just realized I can earn points on these flights if I’m part of the Points Club. I’m about 130k points off and need to earn this before the start of the new year which is when the flights are.

I have seen suggestions to purchase wine through their store but I don’t know if I can justify or need $4k worth of wine. I don’t think I’ll be able to get a credit card application approved, sent out, spend criteria met and points credited to my account in time either.

Does anyone have any suggestions please?

 

[encryptededdy]

I purchased some Classic Rewards flights for start of next year and just realized I can earn points on these flights if I’m part of the Points Club.

To clarify: You can earn Status Credits on these flights if you're part of Points Club. There is currently no way to earn Qantas Points on Classic Rewards flights. Unless you already have a reasonable status credit balance, there is unlikely to be much value to earning Status Credits from a few classic rewards trips.

 

[kangarooflyer88]

To clarify: You can earn Status Credits on these flights if you're part of Points Club. There is currently no way to earn Qantas Points on Classic Rewards flights.

In other words, the only real benefit of Points Club when it comes to classic awards is that you can earn some status credits which is the currency Qantas uses to determine what frequent flyer status you earn with them (i.e. it's not used for making reward bookings). If you are looking to earn Silver, Gold, Platinum or Platinum One status with Qantas and you make quite a few classic award bookings, then yes this could be a useful benefit. You can find the number of status credits you can earn towards Qantas Frequent Flyer status here. On a business class award from say Sydney to Melbourne you would stand to earn 18 status credits each-way whereas a long haul Sydney to Perth in business class would earn 38 status credits each way. Flying Sydney to LA in a business classic award would earn you 72 status credits each way.

To earn Qantas Frequent Flyer Silver status (which gives you priority check-in, a couple lounge passes and advanced access to Qantas classic award seats) you would need to earn 300 status credits within a year. For the coveted Gold status (which provides lounge access at Qantas and across the OneWorld network, better access to awards, etc.) you would need to earn 700 status credits per year. Platinum which comes with access to such things as First Class lounges and the ability to request classic awards to be made available to you, you would need to earn 1400 status credits in a year. Lastly, for top tier Qantas Platinum One which provides priority customer service you would need to earn 3,600 status credits in a year of which 2,700 would have to come from Qantas marketed flights.

The easiest way to earn a ton of points to qualify for Points Club membership would be applying for a Qantas credit card that has a healthy sign up bonus. For instance, several credit cards available today offer a sign up bonus of 100,000 Qantas Points which would very quickly get you to the 130,000 Qantas Points you need to earn Points club status. One thing to keep in mind is when your program year ends with Qantas. For instance, mine ends this month meaning that any activity generated on December 1 wouldn't count towards the current program year but to next program year. Keep in mind too that there is some lead time (i.e. days perhaps weeks) between you qualifying for the bonus points and them landing in your Qantas account. You would want those points to land before your program year ends.

-RooFlyer88

 

[bussyboy]

That many points in a month or so might be tough: definitely credit card offers is best bet, maybe Qantas Health insurance signup bonus or LOTS of Christmas shopping on Qantas Rewards store, Qantas Shopping, and Qantas wine may push you over. With everything though, read T&C's as the timing of points landing is often 60+ days.

Check out https://www.qantas.com/au/en/frequent-flyer/earn-points.html for more ideas and to find different bonus offers on offer.

And of course, consider if this is really going to be beneficial earning those SC's for the upcoming trip in order to boost your status

 

[kangarooflyer88]

That many points in a month or so might be tough: definitely credit card offers is best bet, maybe Qantas Health insurance signup bonus or LOTS of Christmas shopping on Qantas Rewards store, Qantas Shopping, and Qantas wine may push you over. With everything though, read T&C's as the timing of points landing is often 60+ days.

In a perfect world (and I know we don't live in a perfect world) you'd want to earn your Points club and frequent flyer status within the first month of a given membership year. In that way you effectively get 23 months of frequent flyer membership for the effort of one month of flying. The key (as with anything) is to have a plan on how you'll earn the points (for Points Club membership) and status credits (for Qantas Frequent Flyer status) and follow that plan. I know many folks who half heartedly went about this and ended up travelling a fair bit with QF only to realize all they got out of it was Silver status.

And of course, consider if this is really going to be beneficial earning those SC's for the upcoming trip in order to boost your status

That's the big one! In theory those status credits earned from classic flight awards could be significant, but the key is whether you can actually find Qantas classic awards on the routes that have the sizeable status credit offerings, and whether you have the points and time to take said trips.

One question I thought I'd raise (since I don't think it is answered elsewhere) is whether the double status credit promotion applies for QF classic award bookings made by points club members during the promotional period? In addition, to classic award upgrades count in any way towards greater status credit accrual? If so, then one could argue that this benefit of points club can be quite lucrative if deployed correctly.

-RooFlyer88

 

[encryptededdy]

I know many folks who half heartedly went about this and ended up travelling a fair bit with QF only to realize all they got out of it was Silver status.

Also it's important to know that classic rewards earn less than revenue fares. To be fair, "Classic Reward" isn't an option on the status credit calculator, and looking up the table does require one to know where it is on the website.

I have at least one friend who didn't realise this. I recall them telling me that they have a few return business fares booked to New Zealand, and that it would get them to gold (from NB). I replied "oh nice, how much did you pay for them? Just over $1000 return on sale?" to which they replied it was classic reward. Oh no.

You'd have to take like... >20 trans tasman business classic reward flights to reach gold.

 

[RichardMEL]

As above. It's not really going to be worth it. One only earns a proportion of "normal" earn SC for the reward flights - which is nice - but unlikely to earn serious levels of status, and there's no actual point earn.

Also a reminder this SC earn only applies to QF operated rewards flights.. so codeshares partner flights ertc earn nothing.

I would not chase Points Club, specially with trying to earn 130k/150k(what, about 90%) of the points required to earn it just for this (If I was at say 140k/150k and the reward was say in F, then maybe... but even then it depends).

Enjoy the flights.

 

[Mr H]

That many points in a month or so might be tough: definitely credit card offers is best bet, maybe Qantas Health insurance signup bonus

Qantas health insurance bonus takes at least 60 days to arrive.