QFF membership year question

[mathiar86]

So I can’t find an answer to this so please forgive me if it’s somewhere and I’ve missed it

I don’t have status anymore, COVID plus two new kids means everything expired ages ago.
I’m flying with work to Europe on feb27 and landing in Denmark Feb 28. That leg of the itinerary will get me to silver if I do the whole thing in QF (EK with QF codeshare). The whole return trip however is likely to get me pretty close to Gold (600 something)

I’ll be flying one way from the US in 2023 as well (combo of points) and could use Fiji airways to get them the rest of the way to gold. I’ll meet minimum QF sectors with a few short domestic trips.

My question is this
- using the QF website it says I’ll earn 300 SC for my first leg to Europe. I arrive feb 28 and presumably SC will expire the next day
- will this status extension thing post COVID apply to me? Ie will some of those SC roll over meaning it’s worth it to try with for gold with Fiji?
- or will none of this make a difference and I should just book with whoever because I’m not going to have a chance at reaching QF gold

 

[mviy]

You need 700 Status Credits to level up to Gold.

If you have silver status you should have 100 Status Credits rollover to the next membership year with your current membership year ending in February 2023. So you would need 600 more after February to level up to Gold.

QF does do Double Status Credits offers from time to time. There's usually one in February-April where you get say about 4 days or so to book flights and earn double the normal rate if QF marketed and operated.

If you get Gold status what would you do with it? You would keep it till the end of the following membership year (and even longer if you retain it).

 

[mathiar86]

You need 700 Status Credits to level up to Gold.

If you have silver status you should have 100 Status Credits rollover to the next membership year with your current membership year ending in February 2023. So you would need 600 more after February to level up to Gold.

QF does do Double Status Credits offers from time to time. There's usually one in February-April where you get say about 4 days or so to book flights and earn double the normal rate if QF marketed and operated.

If you get Gold status what would you do with it? You would keep it till the end of the following membership year (and even longer if you retain it).

Yea I understand the number I need to get there (eg 700 and 600 to retain)

What I didn’t know was by achieving silver status on that first leg (I’ll get to 300+ after arriving in Copenhagen) will that make me
Eligible to roll over status (100SC) to the next year. I will have earned silver after this announcement by Qantas RE: extension, I haven’t had silver this whole time.

 

[Seat0B]

Does your membership year expire 28 Feb? You will only keep SC (apart from any roll over you qualify for) for your membership year. The next day it resets to zero (part from the following over you might get).

 

[mathiar86]

Does your membership year expire 28 Feb? You will only keep SC (apart from any roll over you qualify for) for your membership year. The next day it resets to zero (part from the following over you might get).

I believe so. On my QF app it says I need to achieve 250 status credits before Feb27 to reach silver
My flight is booked for Feb27! There’s no flexibility with this as it’s for a conference and work is paying
So either ill get silver status when I touch down on my first leg of the trip or that will count as a new year since I land on feb28 and then none of this is relevant…

 

[Seat0B]

OK that seems a bit odd because I thought the memberships all expired on the last day of the month - so 28th February for you. The SC may take a day or 2 to credit, but they do relate to the date you fly, and I think from experience (but without anything formal to back me up) that the flight has to be completed ie you land before you are eligible for the SC.

So yes, they would be credited as earned on 28 Feb. which I actually think is highly likely to be your membership year end date. If this ticks you over to silver, then you will retain silver for the full next membership year until Feb 2024.

here’s the link to FAQ re status extension https://www.qantas.com/au/en/frequent-flyer/status-and-clubs/status/status-support.html
and reading that, you are not eligible for status extension because if you earn silver by flying, that gives it to you automatically for 12 months, same as status extension. so I’m not sure if you would get any rollovers or not.

all of which suggests you’re likely to be silver as of 1 March 2023 until 28 Feb 2024. If you want to go up to gold, you will have to get 700SC between those dates - and if you are lucky and jag it for some rollover, it will be a bit less that you have to get. With about 300 from the return flights which will be in your new membership year, you will “only“ have to get another 400 in the period 1 Mar 23 to 28 Feb 24 to reach gold. I think. Hope that helps.

if you had taken all your flights within a single membership year, then you would have the full 600 SC credited in that year and only 100 more to go to get gold. I know it’s hard with work, but you might want to try to group up your flights to maximise status earn in the future, because situations like yours are pretty frustrating.

Hope the trip is really enjoyable.

 

[oz_mark]

If you get enough SC for silver you should get bumped up. The status would be good through your next membership year.
Even if they arrive late, Qantas are fairly good at backdated stuff.
I think the real question is whether any of this will happen automatically....

 

[mathiar86]

OK that seems a bit odd because I thought the memberships all expired on the last day of the month - so 28th February for you. The SC may take a day or 2 to credit, but they do relate to the date you fly, and I think from experience (but without anything formal to back me up) that the flight has to be completed ie you land before you are eligible for the SC.

So yes, they would be credited as earned on 28 Feb. which I actually think is highly likely to be your membership year end date. If this ticks you over to silver, then you will retain silver for the full next membership year until Feb 2024.

here’s the link to FAQ re status extension https://www.qantas.com/au/en/frequent-flyer/status-and-clubs/status/status-support.html
and reading that, you are not eligible for status extension because if you earn silver by flying, that gives it to you automatically for 12 months, same as status extension. so I’m not sure if you would get any rollovers or not.

all of which suggests you’re likely to be silver as of 1 March 2023 until 28 Feb 2024. If you want to go up to gold, you will have to get 700SC between those dates - and if you are lucky and jag it for some rollover, it will be a bit less that you have to get. With about 300 from the return flights which will be in your new membership year, you will “only“ have to get another 400 in the period 1 Mar 23 to 28 Feb 24 to reach gold. I think. Hope that helps.

if you had taken all your flights within a single membership year, then you would have the full 600 SC credited in that year and only 100 more to go to get gold. I know it’s hard with work, but you might want to try to group up your flights to maximise status earn in the future, because situations like yours are pretty frustrating.

Hope the trip is really enjoyable.

Thanks that’s helpful! I guess itll
Be a gamble but hands are tied. At the moment tossing up between a one way ticket from NYC to SYD end of 2023 so I may wait till there’s a double SC deal to try and book

Should be a good trip regardless, never been to Denmark, especially on someone else’s dime!

The other spanner in all this is I could possibly go Singapore. Going in two long haul family trips with SQ in economy between December and May so an SQ ticket for this work trip May make more sense - membership anniversary is very different. I’ll have to see if work is willing - itinerary is a bit different (same net outcome). I was hoping to stay with one world but I’ll need to see what work is willing to pay for. I’m flying AirNZ economy to North America return and then again to India return later in the year….could be a better option. I’ve never had status with SQ before so not sure how useful in Aus it is

 

[mviy]

here’s the link to FAQ re status extension https://www.qantas.com/au/en/frequent-flyer/status-and-clubs/status/status-support.html
and reading that, you are not eligible for status extension because if you earn silver by flying, that gives it to you automatically for 12 months, same as status extension. so I’m not sure if you would get any rollovers or not.

It's my understanding that you don't need to be eligible for a status extension to be eligible for a status rollover. They have different eligibility criteria.

I think the real question is whether any of this will happen automatically....

I agree. I may end up needing to call or email QF to get the full rollover. I'll then need to decide whether to do the travel required to retain the status I now have.

 

[RichardMEL]

The wording re status rollover APPEARS to imply it is separate to the status extension offer (which the OP would not be eligible for) and thus in theory the 100 should rollover post 1 March. However given the 300 SC's to Silver may not post by 1 March, and while they will retroactively apply to this membership year as per usual, manual intervention may be required to get the rollover SC's. It all depends on the timing. It may work out.

My personal view though is that the intent is that the rollover SC's are linked t the status extension offer. It's not directly stated on the page, and the wording (in true QF style) is a bit vague on the matter.

just my two cents.

Hopefully it will work in your favour as expected and the 100 are rolled over.

 

[tdimdad]

Be a gamble but hands are tied. At the moment tossing up between a one way ticket from NYC to SYD end of 2023 so I may wait till there’s a double SC deal to try and book

Please note that the double status credit offers usually apply only to bookings departing from Australia. One-way from overseas to Australia would in those cases earn the usual SC's only even when booked during the promo period.

 

[mviy]

My personal view though is that the intent is that the rollover SC's are linked t the status extension offer. It's not directly stated on the page, and the wording (in true QF style) is a bit vague on the matter.

I disagree.

Say someone who flew 500SC this membership year retains Platinum, and somebody else gets 3500SC and retains Platinum and fails to level up to P1. Both have the same status expiry. The member who flew 500SC gets the status extension and the member who flew 3500SC retained Platinum in his own right. Should the traveller who flew 500 SC this membership year get a 500 SC head start over the Platinum member who flew 7 times as much for retaining status in the new year? This would have the perverse impact that travellers who remained loyal to flying QANTAS enough to retain status from their flying finding it harder to retain status when the extensions stop than those who have cut their flying levels compared with pre-COVID.

 

[RichardMEL]

I disagree.

Say someone who flew 500SC this membership year retains Platinum, and somebody else gets 3500SC and retains Platinum and fails to level up to P1. Both have the same status expiry. The member who flew 500SC gets the status extension and the member who flew 3500SC retained Platinum in his own right. Should the traveller who flew 500 SC this membership year get a 500 SC head start over the Platinum member who flew 7 times as much for retaining status in the new year? This would have the perverse impact that travellers who remained loyal to flying QANTAS enough to retain status from their flying finding it harder to retain status when the extensions stop than those who have cut their flying levels compared with pre-COVID.

Fair enough.

So then the question we need answered is - have members who earned a higher status level had SC's rolled over?

 

[mathiar86]

So an update on this is that this all may be moot RE: gold status
Company is flying me via Qatar the whole way (business, D) and according to the Qantas website this will net me just barely 300 SC which is a bit ridiculous compared to the qantas amount but here we are
So I’ll either qualify for silver or nothing
Considering dumping them all into virgin where I’ll get much closer to gold if I take a similar trip later in the year via SQ - but then is virgin gold actually that useful is the next question….questions questions!!

Anyways thanks everyone for the advice, it’s been helpful even for future planning my flights next year

 

[PuravidaTC]

Fair enough.

So then the question we need answered is - have members who earned a higher status level had SC's rolled over?

My status with QF this past membership year went from bronze through to WP - from March 2022 to September 2022 which is my membership year end (30 Sept).

I did not receive any status extension however received 500 SC roll over into this years membership (it showed the 500 SC's 24 hours after year end).

 

[tdimdad]

but then is virgin gold actually that useful is the next question….questions questions!!

This depends on your expected future travel pattern. If it's mostly domestic within the Virgin route network, then yes. It's more of a matter of taste whether you prefer VA or QF status & services & prices (or fly enough to have both).

If you fly international, then you may come across the limitations of Velocity. Personally, I aim to maintain Oneworld status because the locations I most often visit overseas are best serviced by OW carriers. A strong alternative for me would be a StarAlliance program & route network. However, the Velocity membership is of very limited use to me in where I usually roam overseas.

 

[mviy]

Also QF has lifetime status, whereas Virgin doesn't. So earning status credits with QF can progress towards LTS then LTG and if work travel is your life perhaps even LTP (but very few ever get anywhere close to LTP).

 

[mathiar86]

Also QF has lifetime status, whereas Virgin doesn't. So earning status credits with QF can progress towards LTS then LTG and if work travel is your life perhaps even LTP (but very few ever get anywhere close to LTP).

Ah this is a good point, hadn’t considered lifetime status. I’ve got a (hopefully) long career ahead of at least two to three long haul trips a year

 

[Vic]

I disagree.

Say someone who flew 500SC this membership year retains Platinum, and somebody else gets 3500SC and retains Platinum and fails to level up to P1. Both have the same status expiry. The member who flew 500SC gets the status extension and the member who flew 3500SC retained Platinum in his own right. Should the traveller who flew 500 SC this membership year get a 500 SC head start over the Platinum member who flew 7 times as much for retaining status in the new year? This would have the perverse impact that travellers who remained loyal to flying QANTAS enough to retain status from their flying finding it harder to retain status when the extensions stop than those who have cut their flying levels compared with pre-COVID.

Agree, except the 500 SC person only gets a 40% roll over (so 200 status).