Beginner’s Guide to Qantas Points Club

Qantas Perth international transit lounge
Qantas Points Club comes with a range of useful benefits, including Qantas Club perks. Photo: Qantas.

The Qantas Frequent Flyer program offers four status tiers – Silver, Gold, Platinum and Platinum One – to reward its most frequent flyers. Qantas also offers a separate program called Qantas Points Club which rewards members who earn lots of points on the ground.

Aimed squarely at frequent buyers, rather than frequent flyers, Qantas Points Club launched in March 2020. It offers some excellent benefits to anyone who earns at least 150,000 Qantas points within a year, including Qantas Club perks and the ability to earn status credits on Qantas Classic Flight Reward tickets booked using points. This makes it a lot easier for Points Club members to earn or renew Qantas status when flying on points!

The scheme has two membership levels – Points Club and Points Club Plus. You would need to earn a lot more points to reach the Qantas Points Club Plus level, but this also comes with additional benefits. These include complimentary Qantas Club membership, a 10% discount on Qantas Wine purchases and the possibility to rollover surplus status credits.

Want to learn more about how Qantas Points Club works? Our beginner’s guide explains all the basics…

How to become a Qantas Points Club member

You’ll automatically become a Points Club member if you earn enough Qantas points within your regular Qantas Frequent Flyer membership year. This is the same membership year that applies to your frequent flyer status, and is based on the month when you joined the Qantas Frequent Flyer program.

If you’re not already a Qantas Frequent Flyer member, join now for free using this link. (There’s no reason to pay the usual ridiculous $99.50 joining fee!)

Then, to get into Points Club, you would need to earn at least the following number of Qantas Frequent Flyer points:

  • Points Club: 150,000 Qantas points per year
  • Points Club Plus: 350,000 Qantas points per year

Most of these points need to be earned from activities other than flying, as only up to 20,000 points earned from flights will contribute to your Points Club total.

Also, a maximum of 125,000 points earned from any single transaction will count towards Points Club. This is something to keep in mind if you’re transferring a large amount of points from a hotel or bank loyalty program, for example.

Following a recent change, up to 20,000 points/year transferred to you from any Qantas Business Rewards account can also be counted towards Points Club and Points Club Plus attainment.

Qantas points earned in almost any way will count towards your Points Club goal. However, points earned in the following ways are excluded:

  • Family transfers
  • Loyalty Bonus, Platinum & Platinum One Reward points
  • Points refunded due to a flight/reward cancellation

How to see if you’re in Qantas Points Club

If you’re unsure whether you’re already a Qantas Points Club member, log into your Qantas Frequent Flyer account and select “Points Club” from the “Status” drop-down menu:

Qantas website screenshot

This will bring up the “My Points Club” page. If you’re a Points Club or Points Club Plus member, your membership level will be shown at the top of the page, below your frequent flyer status tier:

Qantas website screenshot

On this page, if you scroll down, you can also track your progress towards earning or maintaining your Points Club or Points Club Plus tier in your current Qantas Frequent Flyer membership year:

Qantas Points Club progress

Ways to earn Qantas points on the ground

There are so many ways to earn Qantas points on the ground in Australia! Here are some examples…

  • Spend on a credit card that earns Qantas points
  • Sign up for a Qantas credit card with bonus points
  • Buy wine from Qantas Wine
  • Shop online through the Qantas Online Mall
  • Convert Woolworths Everyday Rewards points to Qantas points
  • Transfer points from a hotel loyalty program
  • Book accommodation through Qantas Hotels or Airbnb
  • Rent a car from Avis or Budget
  • Fill up your car at BP
  • Take out a Qantas Insurance policy
  • Switch to Red Energy
  • Earn Qantas points for free by completing Red Planet surveys or challenges in the Qantas Wellbeing App

You can find a full list of Qantas Frequent Flyer program partners on the Qantas website.

What to do if you need a few extra Qantas points quickly

If you’re really desperate, you could also buy Qantas top-up points. These do count towards Points Club, and generally will post to your account quickly. But this is poor value, even on rare occasions when top-up points are on sale!

Instead, if you’re just short of the points needed to reach Points Club, consider buying a case of Qantas wine that comes with a large amount of bonus points. Qantas Wine bonus points offers are updated regularly. You’ll probably end up paying less overall for the same amount of points – and you also get some wine delivered to your home!

Earn 20,000 bonus Qantas points with Qantas Wine
Examples of past Qantas Wine bonus points offers.

Qantas Points Club & Points Club Plus benefits

So, once you’ve reached the lofty heights of Qantas Points Club or Points Club Plus membership, what benefits do you receive?

Here’s a full list of the exclusive member benefits of both levels:

BenefitPoints ClubPoints Club Plus
Earn status credits on Qantas reward flightsYesYes
Qantas Club benefitsTwo lounge invitations (transferrable)Complimentary Qantas Club membership (non-transferrable)
Roll over surplus status credits to next membership yearNoUp to 100 (excludes Platinum One earn)
Bonus points on Qantas Hotels bookings (excludes Airbnb)25%50%
Annual Qantas Hotels voucher (excludes Airbnb bookings)$50$100
Accor ALL Silver status fast trackRequires 2 stays of at least 2 nights eachRequires 1 night
Qantas Wine benefitsFree Premium membership + $50 Qantas Wine voucher in birthday month (minimum spend $149 exc. GST)Free Premium membership + 2x $50 Qantas Wine birthday vouchers + 10% discount (excludes Penfolds)
Discount when redeeming points at Qantas Rewards Store5%10%
Bonus points on Qantas Travel InsuranceDouble pointsTriple points
One-class car upgrades on Avis rentals in Australia/NZYesYes
Exclusive flying offers throughout the yearYesYes
Priority when calling the Qantas Frequent Flyer Service CentreYesYes

You’ll find more information about any of these benefits on the Qantas website.

Earning status credits on Qantas Classic Flight Rewards

The most valuable Qantas Points Club benefit is arguably the ability to earn status credits on Qantas Classic Flight Reward tickets booked using points. This makes it much easier to earn or retain Qantas Silver, Gold, Platinum or Platinum One status if you regularly use your points to book award flights! (Normally, you can’t earn any points or status credits at all with a reward booking.)

You won’t earn quite as many status credits on reward tickets as you would for a regular, paid airfare. You also won’t earn points when travelling on points. Nonetheless, this can be quite a lucrative benefit.

As a Points Club member, you can earn Qantas status credits when travelling on any Qantas marketed award flight with a “QF” flight number.

This generally means that you need to fly on a Qantas aircraft, but the flight doesn’t necessarily have to be operated by Qantas. Limited “QF” marketed codeshare flights are also available when redeeming Qantas points to fly with Aircalin, Air Tahiti Nui or LATAM Airlines on selected routes to/from Australia. You just need to be booked on a “QF” flight number and ensure your Qantas Frequent Flyer number is on your boarding pass.

Qantas 787 Business Class
As a Points Club member, you can earn status credits when flying with Qantas on points. Photo: Qantas.

The number of status credits you’ll earn per flight depends on the route. Check the Classic Flight Reward tables on the Qantas website to see how many status credits you can earn.

As an example, here’s what you’ll earn for any Qantas domestic flight:

Points Club status credits for Qantas domestic award flights
Points Club status credit earn rate for Qantas domestic award flights. Source: Qantas website.

And here’s what you’ll earn on Qantas international flights departing from Brisbane, Melbourne or Sydney:

Points Club status credits for Qantas international award flights
Points Club status credit earn rate for Qantas international award flights. Source: Qantas website.

As a general rule, the number of status credits earned for a reward flight is a percentage of the normal earn rate for a discounted revenue ticket:

ClassEconomyPremium EconomyBusinessFirst
Status credits earned as % of regular amount75%50%40%30%

You’ll earn status credits for each individual flight sector flown. So, you can earn more status credits by booking award itineraries with multiple flight segments!

There’s an Australian Frequent Flyer forum discussion thread about earning status credits for reward flights: SC earning with Points Club and Award Flights

Is Points Club Plus worth it over Points Club?

You’d need to earn at least 150,000 Qantas points annually to get Points Club, or 350,000 points for Points Club Plus. That’s a big difference. So, is it worth aiming for the higher level?

The main benefits of Points Club Plus over Points Club membership are:

  • Complimentary Qantas Club membership
  • Roll over up to 100 surplus status credits into your next membership year
  • Extra 25% bonus points on Qantas Hotels bookings
  • 10% discount with Qantas Wine
  • Extra 5% discount at Qantas Rewards Store
  • Extra bonus points on Qantas Insurance policies
  • Complete an Accor ALL Silver status fast track by staying 1 night instead of 2 nights

Of these, Qantas Club membership and the status credit rollover are arguably the most valuable extra benefits.

However, if you already have Qantas Gold, Platinum or Platinum One status, you’ll already have access to all Qantas Club lounges as part of that membership. As you cannot transfer the Qantas Club membership that comes with Points Club Plus, that renders the main benefit of Points Club Plus worthless.

If you’ll be able to use the Qantas Club membership benefit, or would have otherwise paid money for Qantas Club, then it may be very worthwhile for you to go for Points Club Plus. And if you’re earning more than 350,000 Qantas points annually anyway – for example, from credit card churning – it’s certainly nice to have.

Gin bar at the Qantas London Lounge
The Qantas London Lounge. Photo: Qantas.

Once you reach 250,000 Qantas points in your membership year (half-way from Points Club to Points Club Plus), you’ll also receive a Milestone Bonus Reward of 2,500 Qantas points. This too is nice to have, but definitely not worth going out of your way to achieve.

For most people, the benefits of the lower Points Club tier are more than adequate. After all, the main benefit – earning status credits on reward flights – is available to members of both tiers.

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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Live on the Qantas website as well now Points Club Plus - Benefits | Qantas Frequent Flyer

There is a new page “My Point Club” in the account area for tracking your progress, similar to the status credits page.

Reply Like

I've just had some SCs awarded from a classic rewards flight I took 2 weeks back.

Reply 8 Likes

Well that’s annoying.

You’ve earned 138,446138,446 Qantas Points* towards Points Club this Membership Year

Membership year ends in 2 weeks.

Reply 2 Likes

Well that’s annoying.

You’ve earned 138,446138,446 Qantas Points* towards Points Club this Membership Year

Membership year ends in 2 weeks.

Maybe consider buying 12,000 points to get 12 months of benefits. Or some wine!

Reply 2 Likes

Here's the most interesting thing: Classic Flight Reward earning tables

Reply 1 Like

click to expand...

Here's the most interesting thing: Classic Flight Reward earning tables

So the earn tables are kind of as expected IMO. Not as good as cash earn rates, but still better than nothing. I'm still confused how one can book a QF marketed award between Asia and Europe though - maybe this sort of thing is in the works over at Oneworld?

Reply 1 Like

Maybe consider buying 12,000 points to get 12 months of benefits. Or some wine!

Im WP and about to be LTG - I just don’t see the benefit being worth any additional spend, especially in this climate.

Reply 6 Likes

I'm still confused how one can book a QF marketed award between Asia and Europe though - maybe this sort of thing is in the works over at Oneworld?

LHR-SIN I guess. With the option that if they needed to re-route flights via another asian port? Agree that awards are generally limited to the operating carrier's flight number, but I'm not sure how that works for the couple of exceptions QF has with Asiana flights to Seoul (were those awards QF or OZ?)

Reply Like

LHR-SIN I guess. With the option that if they needed to re-route flights via another asian port?

Fair call - hadn't thought of LHR-SIN vv.

Agree that awards are generally limited to the operating carrier's flight number, but I'm not sure how that works for the couple of exceptions QF has with Asiana flights to Seoul (were those awards QF or OZ?)

They're OZ coded. Same as awards to TPE which are CI coded.

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