When booking a flight on the Qantas website, you’ll normally be able to see how many Qantas points and status credits you can expect to earn for each itinerary and fare category. But some routes incorrectly show as earning zero points and status credits.

Why does this happen?

This often happens when Qantas has recently launched a new route and hasn’t yet updated its Qantas Points Calculator. That’s where the Qantas booking engine draws its information about the amount of points and status credits you’ll earn. If a route is not loaded into that calculator, the flight booking interface also won’t pick up that you can earn points and status credits on it.

The Qantas Points Calculator does show the amount of points and status credits you’ll earn on most Qantas routes, as well as many of the most common partner airline routes. But there are also quite a few partner airline routes that don’t appear in the calculator.

So, how can you work out the number of Qantas points and status credits you’ll earn if the Qantas website is not showing the correct information?

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You will earn points & status credits on all Qantas marketed flights

The most important thing to remember is that the Qantas booking page, and even the Qantas Points Calculator, are not primary sources when it comes to earn rates. They are secondary sources that do not necessarily reflect what you will actually earn. The amount of points and status credits you’ll earn is solely based on the Airline Earning Tables on the Qantas website.

When you book a Qantas marketed flight – that’s anything with a “QF” flight number – you will almost always be eligible to earn points and status credits. The main exception is charter flights, which are usually numbered as QF6xxx, but these are not available for the public to book on Qantas.com.

Qantas routes missing from the Points Calculator

At the time of writing, Qantas’ newly announced Brisbane-Koror route was missing from the airline’s Points Calculator. The Qantas website is therefore showing this route as earning zero points and status credits, which is not correct.

There are also quite a few Qantas-marketed codeshare routes missing, including:

• Canberra (CBR) – Nadi (NAN) operated by Fiji Airways
• Adelaide (ADL) – Nadi (NAN) operated by Fiji Airways
• Johannesburg (JNB) – Cape Town (CPT) operated by Airlink (plus all other Airlink codeshare routes to/from Johannesburg)
• Santiago (SCL) – Puerto Montt (PMC) operated by LATAM
• Santiago (SCL) – Concepcion (CCP) operated by LATAM
• Santiago (SCL) – La Serena (LSC) operated by LATAM

What you’ll earn on these routes

To check what you’ll actually earn for these flights, see the Qantas and Jetstar Earning Tables on the Qantas website. If the flight route is not listed in one of the tables (e.g. Brisbane-Koror, as Palau is not a destination listed on any chart), refer to the “All other flights” table.

Based on those tables, this is what you can expect to earn on the following Qantas marketed flights that are not shown in the Qantas Points Calculator:

The above earn rates only apply when you’re booked on a QF flight number. They exclude any Status Bonuses you may be entitled to, and some points values may be higher than what’s shown in the relevant table due to Qantas’ Minimum Points Guarantee.

Remember, you’ll earn points and status credits for every individual sector in your booking. So for example, if you’re flying from Sydney to Koror via Brisbane, search separately for Sydney-Brisbane and Brisbane-Koror.

The Qantas website sometimes shows incorrect earn amounts

Sometimes, the Qantas website’s booking page could also show an amount of points and status credits that is wrong. For example, this is what the Qantas website shows you’d earn flying from Adelaide to Nadi via Sydney on Qantas marketed flights:

The highlighted $563 fare is an Economy Sale fare. This should earn:

• 800 Qantas points + 10 status credits for the Adelaide-Sydney sector, plus
• 1,100 Qantas points + 20 status credits for the Sydney-Nadi sector (since this is a QF marketed flight)

For some reason, the Qantas website is not recognising that you’ll earn points and status credits on the domestic connection. That’s bizarre, but in reality you should still earn the full points and status credits – despite what’s shown on the booking page.

What about partner marketed flights?

If you’re flying on another Oneworld airline, and the flight is also operated by a Oneworld airline, you can earn Qantas points and status credits for that too. You can also earn Qantas points, but not status credits, when flying on non-Oneworld partners. For example, if you book an Emirates flight with an EK flight number, you’ll only earn Qantas points.

To check if your booking is eligible, and calculate the earn rate, you first need to know which fare class you’ve booked. Then, see how that fare class corresponds to the Qantas Frequent Flyer Earn Categories. Note that some fare classes are not listed, and therefore are not eligible to earn any Qantas points or status credits.

Once you’ve determined your fare’s earn category, you can plug the route into the Qantas Points Calculator. If the route is not listed, consult the Partner Airline earning tables on the Qantas website instead.

See our guide to calculating the Qantas points & status credits you’ll earn flying partner airlines for more details, as this can be tricky!

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.