Qantas Mulls Lounge Membership Gifting for Points Club Plus

Qantas regional lounge KTA — The Qantas Club at Karratha Airport. Photo: Qantas.

For Qantas Frequent Flyer members who earn at least 350,000 points each year, Points Club Plus membership comes with some great benefits. But for Qantas flyers who already hold Gold, Platinum or Platinum One status, one of the key Points Club Plus benefits is absolutely useless.

Qantas has realised this, and could now be considering changes to make the highest tier in its Points Club program more attractive.

Qantas Club perks for Points Club members

Introduced in March 2020, Qantas Points Club offers exclusive extra benefits to Qantas Frequent Flyer members who earn large amounts of Qantas points on the ground.

The first tier, Points Club, is unlocked after earning 150,000 Qantas points within a single membership year. The second and highest tier, Points Club Plus, is unlocked by earning 350,000 Qantas points in a year. Only a maximum of 20,000 points earned from flying can be counted each year towards Points Club, so the majority of these points need to be earned from non-flying activities (such as credit card spend).

Perks of Qantas Points Club membership include the ability to earn status credits on reward flights, hotel & wine vouchers and Qantas Club lounge access benefits.

As a reward for reaching Points Club, the lower-tiered Points Club members receive two complimentary Qantas lounge invitations each year. These are transferrable and can be given to anyone.

Upon reaching the higher Points Club Plus tier, Qantas goes further by giving out complimentary Qantas Club membership. However, this is not transferrable and can only be used by the member who earned it.

The problem with gifting Qantas Club membership to Gold, Platinum & Platinum One frequent flyers

Qantas frequent flyers with Gold, Platinum or Platinum One status already receive complimentary Qantas Club membership as a benefit of their status. So, the free Qantas Club benefit that comes with Points Club Plus membership offers no additional benefit.

If anything, some Gold frequent flyers who also happen to be Points Club Plus members may decide to let their status lapse since they already receive Qantas Club membership for free anyway.

For some Points Club Plus members, complimentary Qantas Club membership is a great perk. But for those who already have status with the airline, the Qantas Club benefit given to lower-tiered Points Club members is actually more valuable as it can at least be used by a friend or family member!

What is Qantas considering changing?

Qantas has hinted that it’s considering changing this in a recent survey sent to selected Points Club Plus members. In this survey, it asked Platinum frequent flyers who also held Points Club Plus membership how they would prefer to use their “extra” Qantas Club membership.

One option suggested was the ability to “retain the Qantas Club membership for yourself to extend the expiry date of your current membership”.

Another option could be “the ability to transfer Qantas Club membership to another QFF member”.

This idea has a lot of merit. Firstly, it addresses the bizarre situation where some people may actually consider Points Club membership to be more valuable than Points Club Plus membership – even though Points Club Plus requires more than double the number of points to earn. The result could be an added incentive for top-tier frequent flyers to earn more points on the ground.

This could also incentivise more people to fly Qantas. As one AFF member suggests…

Both those options seem good, but gifting probably the better. It would be nice to actually have the option.
It’s actually in QFs interest to gift it. It would incentivise whoever you’ve gifted it to to fly QF rather than another airline.
Another option that would be good would be a travel credit to the value of QC membership. That will never happen though.
– Daver6, 1 July 2022

Since launching Points Club more than two years ago, Qantas has only made changes to the program once. In May 2021, it added hotel & wine vouchers as well as a “Milestone Bonus Reward” to the line-up of program benefits.

Join the discussion on the Australian Frequent Flyer forum: Point Club Plus – Sharing of Qantas Club membership under consideration

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.

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Community Comments

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ChrisMars Jul 01, 2022 #1

I guess its nice they look at enhancing the program.
This option doesnt feel fully rational unless it also applies to gold.

Did you pick "other": capacity to escalate to competent agent when qantas stuff up my booking? Thats the only perk worth chasing those days.

Reply 12 Likes

exceladdict Jul 01, 2022 #2

Interesting and cool. I do think either option would push me to more points earn; current gold access means there's less incentive to hit PC+.

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Daver6 Jul 01, 2022 #3

Both those options seem good, but gifting probably the better. It would be nice to actually have the option.

It's actually in QFs interest to gift it. It would incentivise whoever you've gifted it to to fly QF rather than another airline.

Another option that would be good would be a travel credit to the value of QC membership. That will never happen though.

Reply 4 Likes

exceladdict Jul 01, 2022 #4

Both those options seem good, but gifting probably the better. It would be nice to actually have the option.

It's actually in QFs interest to gift it. It would incentivise whoever you've gifted it to to fly QF rather than another airline.

Another option that would be good would be a travel credit to the value of QC membership. That will never happen though.

I had a similar survey (only PC, not + yet) and suggested a range of ideas that are probably less likely to happen 😅

sudoer Jul 01, 2022 #5

View attachment 283507

Hi all,

Just completed Point Club Plus survey - covers all features of program levels. See picture for highlight though - they're considering ability to transfer membership for Platinum.

Check your email today for survey - it looks like this:

View attachment 283508Cheers.

I'd absolutely love to be able to gift my QC membership, but I'm sceptical anything will come of these surveys. They've sent a few over the last two years (e.g. the proposed level above PC+ for 800k+) but have made zero changes to the program...

Reply 2 Likes

click to expand...

F Fil-Ski Jul 01, 2022 #6

PC+ had the opportunity to be something good but the benefits are limited

SYD Jul 01, 2022 #7

I assume that first option applies to paid QP membership that would be on hold while WP or SG? So, wouldn’t be relevant to LTG or LTP. Now, if they offered to extend your WP status for another year, then that would be interesting! Card churn, here I come! 😀

Reply 5 Likes

opusman Jul 02, 2022 #8

I have a paid lifetime QP membership which just vanished in a puff of smoke when I reached LTG. I would love to be able to gift that to someone else.

Daver6 Jul 03, 2022 #9

There are reports that people in this situation have been able to get a partial refund from QF.

bodog Jul 03, 2022 #10

Got the survey on Friday and had already given them a serve about this issue in the comments in the early part of the survey so was happy to see it come up as a specific question. Fingers crossed they do listen and make a change for Points Club Plus members who are LTG and/or Platinum - and I guess Gold are in the same boat as well

It’s the “Clayton’s” benefit as it stands - the benefit you have when you’re not having a benefit! (Who is old enough to remember that reference?)

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