Often overlooked by Australian frequent flyers, the Qatar Airways Privilege Club program could be worth considering as an alternative to Virgin Australia status following the recent Velocity changes.
Qatar Airways is unique because it’s both a partner of Virgin Australia and a Oneworld alliance member. So, with Privilege Club status, you can enjoy benefits not only when flying with Qatar Airways, but also with partner airlines including Virgin Australia and Qantas.
When crediting flights to Qatar Airways Privilege Club, you’ll also earn Avios. You can use these for some great redemptions, or transfer them to other frequent flyer programs that use Avios.
However, there are some quirks to earning status with Qatar Privilege Club, such as earning restrictions on both Qantas and Virgin Australia.
This guide explains the benefits of Qatar Airways Privilege Club status, and how to earn it…
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Qatar Airways status benefits
All Qatar Airways Privilege Club members start out as Burgundy (base level) members. From here, there are three status tiers to aim for: predictably named Silver, Gold and Platinum.
As Qatar Airways is a member of the Oneworld alliance, Silver, Gold & Platinum members also receive Oneworld Ruby, Sapphire and Emerald benefits, respectively. This means you’ll receive reciprocal benefits when flying on any Oneworld airline, including Qantas.
When flying with Qantas, Privilege Club Gold members have access to domestic Qantas Club lounges and international Business Lounges. Privilege Club Platinum members can use domestic Qantas Business Lounges and international Qantas First Class lounges.
Privilege Club Platinum status also gets you into the excellent Al Safwa First Class Lounge, the best Qatar Airways lounge in Doha, with a Qatar Airways Business Class ticket.
Other Oneworld alliance-wide benefits include increased baggage allowance, priority check-in and priority boarding. There are also some unique benefits offered with Qatar Airways status that include personalised luggage tags, guest lounge passes for use in Doha, discounts at Qatar Duty Free, and waived fees when booking Qatar Airways award flights.
A full list of Privilege Club tier benefits is available on the Qatar Airways website.
Using Qatar Airways status benefits while crediting your flight to a different program
You may be able to access some benefits by simply showing your membership card when flying. But some partner airlines are likely to require that you add your Qatar Airways Privilege Club member to your flight booking/s.
Beware that if your Qatar Airways Privilege Club number is still listed on your boarding pass when you board your flight, you’ll probably be crediting your flight to Privilege Club – even if the flight is ineligible to earn Avios or Qpoints.
Benefits on Virgin Australia flights
Privilege Club Gold and Platinum members can access Virgin Australia lounges when flying with Virgin Australia, although this benefit isn’t available on arrival.
Status members also get extra baggage and priority check-in/boarding.
If you’re flying on Virgin Australia – including on the wet-lease flights between Australia and Doha operated by Qatar Airways – you won’t have access to lounges operated by Oneworld airlines other than Qatar Airways.
For example, if you have Qatar Gold status and are flying on a Qatar flight from Sydney, you can access both the Air New Zealand lounge (the Qatar-contracted lounge) and the Qantas International Business lounge (via Oneworld). However, if you’re on a Virgin Australia flight from Sydney to Doha, you can only use the Air New Zealand Lounge.
Qcredits for Gold and Platinum members
Qatar Airways Gold and Platinum members also receive Qcredits which can be redeemed for a range of Qatar Airways services. Gold members automatically receive 40 Qcredits each membership year, and Platinum members earn 60 Qcredits. These are valid for 24 months (as long as you retain your tier).
Qcredits are redeemable for things like:
- Flight upgrades
- Excess baggage
- To cover change/cancellation fees on award flights
- Guest lounge access (available if the guest is travelling on Qatar Airways within three hours of the main member).
Award upgrades are subject to availability and are only available on flights operated by Qatar Airways. The Qcalculator will tell you how many Qcredits (or Avios) you need to upgrade a given flight.
As an example, it would cost 39 Qcredits to upgrade from Economy to Business on a flight from Sydney to Doha, or 55 Qcredits to upgrade from Sydney to London (via Doha). So, by reaching Gold status, you would already have enough Qcredits to upgrade a flight from Australia to Qatar!
How to earn & renew Qatar Airways Privilege Club status
Qpoints are the equivalent to status credits, and count towards status qualification and retention in the Qatar Airways Privilege Club program. (Meanwhile, Avios are the program’s currency and can be redeemed for things like award flights and upgrades.)
Normally, you would need to earn the following amounts of Qpoints within any 12-month period to upgrade your status tier:
| Silver | Gold | Platinum | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Qpoints to upgrade | 150 | 300 | 600 |
| Qpoints to renew (in 1 year) | 135 | 270 | 540 |
| Qpoints to renew (in 2 years) | 270 | 540 | 1,080 |
To earn or renew status, there is also an additional requirement to do a minimum amount of flying on Qatar Airways marketed and operated flights. As per the Qatar Airways website:
In addition to the below tier qualification and retention criteria, you will need to have earned at least 20% of your Qpoints or have flown 4 sectors (within 12 months prior to retention) or 8 sectors (within 24 months prior to retention) on flights marketed and operated by Qatar Airways.
To renew an existing status tier, you would need to earn a slightly lower number of Qpoints (10% less than the amount required to upgrade) before your renewal date, 12 months later.
At your renewal date, Qatar Airways considers the number of Qpoints you’ve earned in both the last one and two years. If you qualify on either count, your status will be renewed for another year.
So, if you earned twice as many Qpoints as needed in one given year, you could theoretically earn no Qpoints in the following year and still requalify based on the number of Qpoints you’ve earned in the past two years.
Downgrading to a lower tier
Qatar Airways has a formal policy of “soft landings”. As such, you would only be downgraded one tier at a time if you fail to requalify. So, if you have Platinum status but don’t earn enough Qpoints to renew in the next 12 months, you would drop down to Gold status (and not all the way to Burgundy) next year.
There is an exception. Since 1 March 2024, if you have had no activity in your Privilege Club account for more than two years, you’ll drop all the way back to Burgundy.
Earning Qpoints from flying
You could earn Qpoints, which count towards your status, when flying with Qatar Airways or any other Oneworld alliance airline. However, the rate at which you’ll earn Qpoints depends on the airline, route and fare class of your ticket.
Some of the cheaper tickets on partner airlines, including Qantas, do not earn any Qpoints or Avios.
You can earn Qpoints on Virgin Australia operated flights, but only if the flight is marketed by Qatar Airways. In other words, the Virgin Australia flight needs to be part of an international ticket booked through Qatar Airways. You will still earn Qatar Avios though if crediting a Virgin Australia marketed and operated flight to Privilege Club.
You can see which fare classes on each of Qatar Airways’ partner airlines earn Avios and Qpoints on the Qatar Airways website. To check the number of Qpoints earned per flight, use the Qcalculator.
To give you an idea, you would earn at least 170 Qpoints for a return Qatar Airways Business class flight from Sydney to London (via Doha).
Alternatively, you could expect to earn between 6 and 12 Qpoints for an eligible one-way Qantas Economy flight from Sydney to Auckland. For Business Class on the same route, you would earn 16 Qpoints.
Earning Qpoints on Qantas flights
Unfortunately, there’s a huge catch for Australian-based flyers. You cannot earn Qpoints on Qantas domestic flights unless they are part of the same ticket as an international flight marketed by either Qantas or Qatar Airways. The Qantas partner page on the Qatar Airways website states:
Accrual on Qantas domestic flights are only eligible when they are in conjunction with an international flight marketed by either Qantas or Qatar Airways on the same ticket.
AFF members have confirmed that this is happening in practice.
Bizarrely, Qantas Frequent Flyer also changed its terms and conditions to prevent earning Qpoints or Avios when flying Qantas domestically on a route where Virgin Australia also operates, without an international connection.
In any case, most of the cheaper Qantas tickets are ineligible to earn anything. On international bookings (or connecting domestic flights), only the following Qantas fare classes will earn any Avios or Qpoints:
Basically, most Qantas Economy Red e-Deal, Sale and Saver fares (except fare classes M, V and L) earn nothing in the Privilege Club program. All Qantas Flex, Premium Economy, Business & First Class fares are eligible to earn Qpoints and Avios, but only on some routes. (Premium Economy fares, which use the fare classes W, R & T, earn at Economy rates.)
As Qantas does not tell you which fare class you’re booking on its website, this can be a bit of a minefield to navigate.
Even though you don’t earn Avios/Qpoints for Qantas domestic flights, you’re still entitled to all the benefits of Oneworld status as normal.
Earning Qpoints on the ground
Qpoints can be earned on duty-free purchases at Doha Hamad airport, with 1 Qpoint earned per USD100 (~$AU160) spent.
You can also buy up to 50% of the Qpoints required, at a cost of USD25 (~$AU39) per Qpoint.
AFF member experiences with Qatar Airways status
Quite a lot of AFF members got status matches with Qatar Airways during a promotion in 2020. They have shared their experiences as Qatar Airways Privilege Club members on this AFF thread.
As discussed in another thread, the restrictions on earning Qpoints for Virgin Australia flights and Qantas domestic flights could make it hard to earn Privilege Club status if most of your flying is within Australia. The requirement of a minimum amount of segments or Qpoints from Qatar Airways marketed flights also means you would need to do at least a bit of flying on Qatar Airways itself.
But if you fly overseas regularly, including from Australia to the Middle East or Europe at least once or twice per year, it could make a lot of sense to earn status with Qatar Airways.
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