Many AFF members say they haven’t received the promised Green Tier “leaf” for offsetting the carbon emissions of a Qantas flight.
Launched in 2022, Green Tier is a Qantas Frequent Flyer initiative to encourage members to make “sustainable” choices. By completing activities in five out of the six Green Tier categories each year, members can choose between a reward of 50 status credits or 10,000 points.
But Qantas’ systems for recognising members who offset a flight, which is one of the six categories, seem incredibly clunky.
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How the “Offset flying” leaf should work
To earn the “Offset flying” leaf towards Green Tier, this is what the T&Cs on the Qantas website state you need to do:
In order to be recognised for the Green Tier activity, Qantas Frequent Flyer members must tick Customer Carbon Initiative on eligible flights during the booking process or in My account. Carbon offset will be recognised as a Green Tier activity within eight weeks after purchase.
It seems simple. You add a carbon offset to a Qantas flight booking, and a few days later you get a leaf. And sometimes, it really is that simple. As one AFF member posted on our forum:
I got my green leaf automatically a couple of months ago by offsetting an existing short domestic flight, so it does work occasionally!
djkelly69 on the AFF forum
Many Qantas flyers aren’t getting the “Offset flying” leaf
But often, it’s not simple at all. There have been countless reports on the Australian Frequent Flyer (AFF) forum from people who say they’ve offset a flight but didn’t receive the recognition leaf towards Green Tier.
Here are just a few of the comments on our forum:
My Green tier saga from December continues. The carbon offset still hasn’t been credited, and I was told to wait the eight weeks for it to credit (which passed last Friday). I’ve sent off another email but still waiting for action. Will call next Friday if I haven’t heard anything.
MELso on the AFF forum
I offset a current short domestic booking about six weeks ago and no leaf as yet. I emailed a while back and received the standard generic blah blah reply regarding eight weeks and so on.
Cessna 180 on the AFF forum
I also paid for an offset in March, points deducted immediately but no leaf forthcoming. Contacted QFF at 4 weeks, they were rudely adamant it would arrive before 8 weeks.
Tomorrow is 8 weeks and still no leaf. Will be submitting a complaint form about how it was handled.
sudoer on the AFF forum
Anecdotally, it seems the Green Tier leaf does automatically credit most of the time if:
- You buy the carbon offset during the flight booking process (rather than adding it after booking your flight),
- The carbon offset costs at least $1.00, and
- You pay for the offset using money (not Qantas Points).
But even this isn’t guaranteed, as another AFF member found out:
Received four green leaves prior to making this booking on QF website.
liveinsydney on the AFF forum
Booked a revenue oneway ticket SYD BNE in early Feb. QFF was entered and the offset box was ticked during the booking and paid the offset fee together with the air fare the same time at the checkout.
No change was made to the booking.
Flight was taken.
The last offset flying leaf is still grey.
Australian Frequent Flyer got in touch with Qantas about this. They told us they weren’t aware of any known issues with the Green Tier leaves not crediting, but passed on our feedback.
If you don’t get your leaf within a few days, be prepared to wait…
In general, it seems that Qantas will automatically credit the “offset flying” leaf within a few days of you purchasing the carbon offset… if everything works properly in the back end. This is based on the date that you buy the offset, and is unrelated to the date of the flight.
If you don’t receive this leaf within a few days, then it’s almost certain that something went wrong in the back end. In this case, you probably won’t get the leaf at all unless you follow up with Qantas.
But if you try contacting Qantas to chase up the missing leaf, the Frequent Flyer Service Centre will fob you off until at least eight weeks have passed. You can call or send an email once eight weeks have passed since you bought the carbon offset, and only then will Qantas take note of your complaint. After that, you could expect to wait up to three more weeks for Qantas to manually credit the missing leaf.
Not exactly a great customer experience, eh?
I tried testing this myself
I haven’t yet earned my “offset flying” leaf for my current Qantas Frequent Flyer membership year. So, I decided to test how the system is working – or not – for myself.
On 14 May, I submitted an offset request for an upcoming flight on the Qantas website. Since this was for an existing booking, the only option provided was to pay using points.
After submitting the request, I got a confirmation that it would be processed within 24 hours:
However, Qantas never actually processed this. The points were never taken from my account and the request still shows as “pending” more than a month later. Clearly, since I was never able to actually offset the flight, I didn’t receive a Green Tier leaf either.
After waiting more than a week, I contacted the Qantas Frequent Flyer Service Centre and got a reply saying that the request would be processed within 24 hours. “We appreciate your patience during this time and assure you that the offset will be recorded accordingly,” the email said.
This still didn’t happen, so I sent another email. This time, the reply said “We have reviewed your booking and can confirm that the carbon offset for your flight was successfully purchased on 14 May 2025.”
This wasn’t true. The offset was not “successfully purchased” at all, so I replied again.
The next reply said: “After reviewing our records, I regret to inform you that the booking has been rejected. I have tried to contact you using the mobile number linked to your account, but sadly, I have not received a response. Please reach out to the reservation team at 13 13 13 to expedite the carbon offset status request.”
Clearly, something is broken in Qantas’ IT systems.
Qantas no longer matches carbon offset contributions
The fact that Qantas never processed my offset request isn’t the only problem.
As you can see in the screenshot above, the website clearly stated when I tried to offset my flight in May 2025 that Qantas would match my contribution. That’s nice, but Qantas stopped doing this in July 2024. Qantas probably ought to update its website…
What’s going on with Green Tier?
Green Tier still remains a useful way to earn 50 status credits, which count towards your Qantas Frequent Flyer status. It’s one of the few ways you can earn valuable status credits on the ground.
But there’s a growing sentiment among the frequent flyer community that Qantas isn’t really committed to maintaining or investing in the Green Tier program any more.
Aside from the issues already raised in this article, some examples of this include…
- The list of sustainable hotels is limited – all are in Australia, and Qantas hasn’t added new hotels since 2022
- The Qantas Hotels website does not make it clear when you’re booking a sustainable hotel
- After hosting a few exclusive events for Green Tier members when the program first launched, there haven’t been any lately
- You can no longer earn a Green Tier leaf for offsetting a wine delivery
- Qantas has added barely any new ways to complete activities in each of the six categories since launching Green Tier
