Qantas Club airport lounge memberships are on sale until the end of this month, with a waived joining fee (normally $99), 20% off yearly rates and up to 100 bonus status credits available!

Until 30 June 2021, you can join Qantas Club for one year for a cost of $480. You’ll also earn 50 bonus Qantas status credits when joining for a year, which is in addition to the usual 3 Qantas points per dollar earned on lounge memberships.

Alternatively, you could join Qantas Club for two years for $880 and earn 100 bonus status credits! See the Qantas website for more information about this offer.

These offers are only available for new Qantas Club members, but there are other offers available if you renew an existing Qantas Club membership by 30 June 2021 which also come with status credits.

While Qantas has offered discounts on lounge memberships before, it’s unusual for Qantas Club deals to also come with status credits (which count towards your Qantas Frequent Flyer status tier).

If you’d prefer to pay for Qantas Club membership with Qantas points, you can also get a 20% discount on the points required – although this is still a relatively poor value use of points!

Until today, you can also get 20% off the Qantas points required for various other Qantas Frequent Flyer redemptions including Classic Rail Rewards, hotels, car hire, rewards store purchases and Points Plus Pay flight bookings as part of Qantas’ Big Points Sale.

Other ways to access Qantas Club lounges

Keep in mind that you can also access Qantas Club lounges for free with Gold (or higher) Qantas Frequent Flyer status, Oneworld Sapphire or Emerald status, or with a Points Club Plus membership. To reach Points Club Plus, you would need to earn at least 350,000 Qantas points in a year.

If you’re thinking about joining Qantas Club as a new member, the discounted rate available with the current deal is slightly cheaper than the year-round AFF Qantas Club corporate scheme rate for 1-year memberships, but still a bit more expensive than AFF’s rate for 2-year memberships. (Although, the AFF corporate scheme rate does not include bonus status credits.)

The AFF corporate scheme is also available to existing Qantas Club members when renewing. To benefit from AFF’s corporate scheme, you would need to be an AFF Gold supporter.

Virgin Australia is not currently selling lounge memberships

While Qantas is offering generous incentives to entice new lounge members, the sale of new Virgin Australia Lounge memberships remains “temporarily paused”.

But even if Virgin lounge memberships were available for sale, Qantas Club membership is arguably now a significantly more compelling proposition. 22 of the 24 Qantas Clubs at domestic airports around Australia are currently open (only the Rockhampton & Port Hedland lounges remain closed for renovation).

When travelling across the Tasman, Qantas Club members also currently have access to the Qantas First Lounges in Sydney & Melbourne, the international Qantas Business Lounge in Brisbane, and Air New Zealand’s international lounges in Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch & Queenstown across the other side of the “ditch”.

Meanwhile, Virgin Australia now only has airport lounges available at seven Australian domestic airports. Virgin’s premium lounge entries in Sydney & Brisbane, and shower facilities at all its lounges, also remain closed for now – despite Qantas reopening the shower facilities in its lounges months ago.

Virgin Australia has recently opened a brand new lounge in Adelaide, and is currently refurbishing its Melbourne lounge. The airline is also rolling out a fresh new lounge menu at its other locations. But that’s not all that useful if you live somewhere like Cairns, Darwin, Mackay or Alice Springs which no longer has a Virgin Australia Lounge.

You can still access Virgin Australia lounges if you have Gold or higher Velocity status, an Amex Platinum or Centurion card, or a complimentary lounge pass from a credit card. But Virgin doesn’t appear to be currently selling entry at the door.

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.