Qantas Status match play

[777]

As a WP on VA and should easily qualify WP again this year I got to thinking......
Which lead me to send of a polite but cheeky email to QF Customer Service requesting a status match as I would like to spread my spend around and it would open up more options for me both for domestic and international travel, hoping to go on holiday with SWMBO to Europe next year. A CS rep got back to me a couple of days later and asked me to provide proof of my status with VA, which I duly did. A day or so later a received a call from CS again. Basically if I book 5 QF flights they will look at a comp to gold status. Not sure if this is 5 flights in their system at once or just 5 flights over a period of time, I would assume if the later it would have to be in a reasonable time span say a month or so. I think this is fair enough from QF and will follow through so I have the flexibility of both carriers. Still not sure if I will manage to maintain both but if I miss out on recomping for VA in the future I will drop back to Gold which will still give me access to lounges etc. I`ll let you know how I get on......

That is an interesting data point!

Personally i'm a VA WP with many, many Status credits to spare -- myself, my wife, and my mother in law are all VA WP from the amount of flying i do and i could easily scale that back VA WP + Qantas SG at least if i wanted to hedge my bets a little. On the whole i'm happy with Virgin domestically but the partnerships are weak overseas and there are still quite a few domestic destinations they don't do.

I've actually just taken a step in that direction -- i've asked Air Berlin for a status challenge to their QF Gold equivalent tier, i've been accepted, which i will meet on a number of OW airlines (I am flying J to SCL on QF and LAN next month which gets me there in one go). Earn and burn rates of AB are pretty poor but as a fall back plan it has the advantage of being the only program around that gives both QF/ OW and Virgin lounge access.

Tempted to try your trick with Qantas later in the year or as my AB status is drawing to a close (if i'm not close to requalifying with them).