A Simple Way Qantas Could Make Points Club Plus More Attractive

Qantas’ Points Club program offers extra benefits to Qantas Frequent Flyer members who earn lots of points for things other than flying – such as spending on credit cards, shopping at Woolies or booking hotels.

If you earn 150,000 Qantas points during your membership year – with at least 130,000 of those points earned on the ground – you’ll become a Points Club member. This comes with some great perks including wine and hotel discounts, two Qantas lounge invitations and the ability to earn status credits on Qantas-marketed Classic Flight Reward bookings.

And if you earn 350,000 Qantas points in one year, you’ll become a Points Club Plus member. This comes with extra benefits above what Points Club members receive, including:

• Complimentary Qantas Club membership
• Roll over up to 100 surplus status credits to your next membership year
• 50% bonus points on Qantas Hotels bookings (up from 25% for Points Club members)
• $100 of annual Qantas Hotels and Qantas Wine vouchers (up from $50 vouchers for Points Club)
• Fast-track to Accor Live Limitless Silver status by staying only 1 night (instead of 2 for Points Club)
• 10% off Qantas Wine orders (excluding Penfolds)
• 10% discount at the Qantas Rewards Store (up from 5% for Points Club)
• Triple points on Qantas Travel Insurance (up from double points for Points Club)

See our Qantas Points Club guide for a full list of benefits and details on how to become a member.

In general, most of the Points Club Plus benefits are an upgrade over what Points Club members get. But there’s one curious exception…

The Qantas Club membership for Points Club Plus is not transferrable

If you’re a Points Club member, you get two annual Qantas lounge invitations. You can either use these for yourself or transfer them to another Qantas Frequent Flyer member.

When you upgrade to Points Club Plus, you get a complimentary Qantas Club membership. On paper, that’s much more valuable as you can use this for unlimited domestic Qantas Club or International Business Lounge visits when flying Qantas or Jetstar. As a Qantas Club member, you can also bring a guest into the lounge with you who is travelling on the same day.

The complimentary Qantas Club membership is undoubtedly a valuable benefit for people with Bronze or Silver status. It could save them hundreds of dollars per year on buying a Qantas Club membership! But for Gold, Platinum and Platinum One frequent flyers, this benefit is actually worse than the two lounge passes.

That’s because the Qantas Club membership that comes with Points Club Plus is non-transferable. You can only use it for yourself.

If you have Qantas Gold, Platinum or Platinum One status, you already get complimentary Qantas Club membership as a benefit of your status. So, the “extra” Qantas Club membership isn’t useful at all. In fact, if you have status, you’re actually better off with the two lounge invitations because you can at least transfer those to an appreciative friend or family member!

A simple way to fix this

The free Qantas Club membership for Points Club Plus members would be a lot more valuable if you could nominate someone else to give it to. But I can absolutely understand why Qantas wouldn’t want to allow this.

Instead, it would be good if Points Club Plus members perhaps had a choice between either a non-transferrable Qantas Club membership or four transferrable lounge invitations. (That’s double the number of invitations that Points Club members get.)

That wouldn’t take anything away from Points Club Plus members who value the free Qantas Club membership – they can still have it. But it would correct the anomaly that makes the Qantas Club benefit of Points Club Plus less valuable for those with status than the Points Club benefit.

Qantas has considered a similar proposal in the past. We also know that Qantas wants to make Points Club more attractive for frequent flyers with status as it recently conducted focus groups seeking feedback on the program. This would be one very simple way to do that.

Matt Graham

The editor of Australian Frequent Flyer, Matt's passion for travel has taken him to over 70 countries… with the help of frequent flyer points, of course!
Matt's favourite destinations (so far) are Germany, Brazil & Kazakhstan. His interests include economics, aviation & foreign languages, and he has a soft spot for good food and red wine.

You can connect with Matt by posting on the Australian Frequent Flyer community forum and tagging @AFF Editor.