I'm learning so much on these forums, thank you. I had always thought the QTag was linked to my FF number, so when Mrs C and I got 2 silver QTags each, I made sure I labelled them his and hers; a week later we received 2 Gold QTags each which I also carefully labelled.
There's so much misinformation on the 'web - one site says
"the Qantas Q-Tag is a permanent luggage tag that passengers keep on their bags, flight after flight after flight. The Qantas Q-Tag is registered by passengers to their frequent flyer information, or passenger information, this information is then linked an embedded RFID chip within the Q-Tag." Which leads one to believe that it is personalised. Qantas themselves say "
each tag contains world-first technology that synchronises your details on your boarding pass or Qantas card with your baggage" which could be interpreted as the Q-Tag being personalised. However, now I understand it's the Q-Tag number that gets attached to your boarding pass, I can see how these devices appear on gumtree and Ebay.
As it has an embedded microchip, I guess you theoretically could put the Q-Tag
INSIDE your suitcase and it should still be picked up by the Qantas scanners (after all you put a microchip inside a dog and walk-through scanners at the Lost Dogs' Home can pick it up).
Sounds like great technology in search of a clear explanation as to how it (should) works.