The Qantas Frequent Flyer program offers four status tiers – Silver, Gold, Platinum and Platinum One – to reward its most frequent flyers. Qantas also offers a separate program called Qantas Points Club which rewards members who earn lots of points on the ground.
Aimed squarely at frequent buyers, rather than frequent flyers, Qantas Points Club launched in March 2020. It offers some excellent benefits to anyone who earns at least 150,000 Qantas points within a year, including Qantas Club perks and the ability to earn status credits on Qantas Classic Flight Reward tickets booked using points. This makes it a lot easier for Points Club members to earn or renew Qantas status when flying on points!
The scheme has two membership levels – Points Club and Points Club Plus. You would need to earn a lot more points to reach the Qantas Points Club Plus level, but this also comes with additional benefits. These include complimentary Qantas Club membership, a 10% discount on Qantas Wine purchases and the possibility to rollover surplus status credits.
Want to learn more about how Qantas Points Club works? Our beginner’s guide explains all the basics…
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How to become a Qantas Points Club member
You’ll automatically become a Points Club member if you earn enough Qantas points within your regular Qantas Frequent Flyer membership year. This is the same membership year that applies to your frequent flyer status, and is based on the month when you joined the Qantas Frequent Flyer program.
If you’re not already a Qantas Frequent Flyer member, join now for free using this link. (There’s no reason to pay the usual ridiculous $99.50 joining fee!)
Then, to get into Points Club, you would need to earn at least the following number of Qantas Frequent Flyer points:
- Points Club: 150,000 Qantas points per year
- Points Club Plus: 350,000 Qantas points per year
Most of these points need to be earned from activities other than flying, as only up to 20,000 points earned from flights will contribute to your Points Club total.
Also, a maximum of 125,000 points earned from any single transaction will count towards Points Club. This is something to keep in mind if you’re transferring a large amount of points from a hotel or bank loyalty program, for example.
Following a recent change, up to 20,000 points/year transferred to you from any Qantas Business Rewards account can also be counted towards Points Club and Points Club Plus attainment.
Qantas points earned in almost any way will count towards your Points Club goal. However, points earned in the following ways are excluded:
- Family transfers
- Loyalty Bonus, Platinum & Platinum One Reward points
- Points refunded due to a flight/reward cancellation
How to see if you’re in Qantas Points Club
If you’re unsure whether you’re already a Qantas Points Club member, log into your Qantas Frequent Flyer account and select “Points Club” from the “Status” drop-down menu:
This will bring up the “My Points Club” page. If you’re a Points Club or Points Club Plus member, your membership level will be shown at the top of the page, below your frequent flyer status tier:
On this page, if you scroll down, you can also track your progress towards earning or maintaining your Points Club or Points Club Plus tier in your current Qantas Frequent Flyer membership year:
Ways to earn Qantas points on the ground
There are so many ways to earn Qantas points on the ground in Australia! Here are some examples…
- Spend on a credit card that earns Qantas points
- Sign up for a Qantas credit card with bonus points
- Buy wine from Qantas Wine
- Shop online through the Qantas Online Mall
- Convert Woolworths Everyday Rewards points to Qantas points
- Transfer points from a hotel loyalty program
- Book accommodation through Qantas Hotels or Airbnb
- Rent a car from Avis or Budget
- Fill up your car at BP
- Take out a Qantas Insurance policy
- Switch to Red Energy
- Earn Qantas points for free by completing Red Planet surveys or challenges in the Qantas Wellbeing App
You can find a full list of Qantas Frequent Flyer program partners on the Qantas website.
What to do if you need a few extra Qantas points quickly
If you’re really desperate, you could also buy Qantas top-up points. These do count towards Points Club, and generally will post to your account quickly. But this is poor value, even on rare occasions when top-up points are on sale!
Instead, if you’re just short of the points needed to reach Points Club, consider buying a case of Qantas wine that comes with a large amount of bonus points. Qantas Wine bonus points offers are updated regularly. You’ll probably end up paying less overall for the same amount of points – and you also get some wine delivered to your home!
Qantas Points Club & Points Club Plus benefits
So, once you’ve reached the lofty heights of Qantas Points Club or Points Club Plus membership, what benefits do you receive?
Here’s a full list of the exclusive member benefits of both levels:
| Benefit | Points Club | Points Club Plus |
|---|---|---|
| Earn status credits on Qantas reward flights | Yes | Yes |
| Qantas Club benefits | Two lounge invitations (transferrable) | Complimentary Qantas Club membership (non-transferrable) |
| Roll over surplus status credits to next membership year | No | Up to 100 (excludes Platinum One earn) |
| Bonus points on Qantas Hotels bookings (excludes Airbnb) | 25% | 50% |
| Annual Qantas Hotels voucher (excludes Airbnb bookings) | $50 | $100 |
| Accor ALL Silver status fast track | Requires 2 stays of at least 2 nights each | Requires 1 night |
| Qantas Wine benefits | Free Premium membership + $50 Qantas Wine voucher in birthday month (minimum spend $149 exc. GST) | Free Premium membership + 2x $50 Qantas Wine birthday vouchers + 10% discount (excludes Penfolds) |
| Discount when redeeming points at Qantas Rewards Store | 5% | 10% |
| Bonus points on Qantas Travel Insurance | Double points | Triple points |
| One-class car upgrades on Avis rentals in Australia/NZ | Yes | Yes |
| Exclusive flying offers throughout the year | Yes | Yes |
| Priority when calling the Qantas Frequent Flyer Service Centre | Yes | Yes |
You’ll find more information about any of these benefits on the Qantas website.
Earning status credits on Qantas Classic Flight Rewards
The most valuable Qantas Points Club benefit is arguably the ability to earn status credits on Qantas Classic Flight Reward tickets booked using points. This makes it much easier to earn or retain Qantas Silver, Gold, Platinum or Platinum One status if you regularly use your points to book award flights! (Normally, you can’t earn any points or status credits at all with a reward booking.)
You won’t earn quite as many status credits on reward tickets as you would for a regular, paid airfare. You also won’t earn points when travelling on points. Nonetheless, this can be quite a lucrative benefit.
As a Points Club member, you can earn Qantas status credits when travelling on any Qantas marketed award flight with a “QF” flight number.
This generally means that you need to fly on a Qantas aircraft, but the flight doesn’t necessarily have to be operated by Qantas. Limited “QF” marketed codeshare flights are also available when redeeming Qantas points to fly with Aircalin, Air Tahiti Nui or LATAM Airlines on selected routes to/from Australia. You just need to be booked on a “QF” flight number and ensure your Qantas Frequent Flyer number is on your boarding pass.
The number of status credits you’ll earn per flight depends on the route. Check the Classic Flight Reward tables on the Qantas website to see how many status credits you can earn.
As an example, here’s what you’ll earn for any Qantas domestic flight:
And here’s what you’ll earn on Qantas international flights departing from Brisbane, Melbourne or Sydney:
As a general rule, the number of status credits earned for a reward flight is a percentage of the normal earn rate for a discounted revenue ticket:
| Class | Economy | Premium Economy | Business | First |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Status credits earned as % of regular amount | 75% | 50% | 40% | 30% |
You’ll earn status credits for each individual flight sector flown. So, you can earn more status credits by booking award itineraries with multiple flight segments!
There’s an Australian Frequent Flyer forum discussion thread about earning status credits for reward flights: SC earning with Points Club and Award Flights
Is Points Club Plus worth it over Points Club?
You’d need to earn at least 150,000 Qantas points annually to get Points Club, or 350,000 points for Points Club Plus. That’s a big difference. So, is it worth aiming for the higher level?
The main benefits of Points Club Plus over Points Club membership are:
- Complimentary Qantas Club membership
- Roll over up to 100 surplus status credits into your next membership year
- Extra 25% bonus points on Qantas Hotels bookings
- 10% discount with Qantas Wine
- Extra 5% discount at Qantas Rewards Store
- Extra bonus points on Qantas Insurance policies
- Complete an Accor ALL Silver status fast track by staying 1 night instead of 2 nights
Of these, Qantas Club membership and the status credit rollover are arguably the most valuable extra benefits.
However, if you already have Qantas Gold, Platinum or Platinum One status, you’ll already have access to all Qantas Club lounges as part of that membership. As you cannot transfer the Qantas Club membership that comes with Points Club Plus, that renders the main benefit of Points Club Plus worthless.
If you’ll be able to use the Qantas Club membership benefit, or would have otherwise paid money for Qantas Club, then it may be very worthwhile for you to go for Points Club Plus. And if you’re earning more than 350,000 Qantas points annually anyway – for example, from credit card churning – it’s certainly nice to have.
Once you reach 250,000 Qantas points in your membership year (half-way from Points Club to Points Club Plus), you’ll also receive a Milestone Bonus Reward of 2,500 Qantas points. This too is nice to have, but definitely not worth going out of your way to achieve.
For most people, the benefits of the lower Points Club tier are more than adequate. After all, the main benefit – earning status credits on reward flights – is available to members of both tiers.
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