Qantas Double Status Credits Count Towards Lifetime Tiers Again
When Qantas launched its latest double status credits offer on Thursday, it dropped a bombshell along with it. For the first time, Qantas announced that double status credits earned through this latest promotion would no longer count towards lifetime status.
Frequent flyer community backlash
The backlash from the frequent flyer community, including on AFF, was swift. Many people commented that this would make the offer meaningless for them, since they had already earned enough status credits to earn or renew their current tier for their current membership year.
Here are just a few of the comments that people posted on the Australian Frequent Flyer forum after Qantas launched its current double status credits offer:
For those with status locked in for the year, there is precisely zero value to be gained in booking during the promo period, right? Unless the increase in fares is somewhat offset by the meagre bonus points…
TeaKozy on the AFF forum
Exclusion towards lifetime status – I didn’t see this one coming. It’s an effective way of changing the goalposts without changing the goalposts.
aikman on the AFF forum
This has just probably doubled my time to reach LTG from here and has increased my incentive to fly partner airlines.
mviy on the AFF forum
I think I’m in the +1 group for not using the DSC promo this time around. After already booked travel, I was around 70SCs short of retaining Gold, but am going to get 80 through the Loyalty Gift. With DSCs not counting to lifetime, I have no incentive to book travel during this promo, and will probably wait for things like Triple Points Frenzy promos on Hotels/Holidays to book more travel.
chrispy3276 on the AFF forum
Qantas reverses unpopular decision
There’s now some good news. It seems Qantas was reading the comments on frequent flyer forums and social media. And it’s now reversed course.
After specifically flagging on its web page for this promotion that double status credits would not count towards lifetime status, it has now updated this page.
“We’re pleased to let you know that bonus Status Credits earned as part of this offer will now count towards your Lifetime Status,” the page says.
It comes just a month before Virgin Australia Velocity launches its own lifetime Gold tier for the first time. For the record, bonus status credits earned through Virgin Australia promotions do count towards Velocity’s new “Forever Gold” status.
As a reminder, you would need to earn the following amounts of Qantas status credits to reach lifetime status:
| Tier | Lifetime status credits required |
|---|---|
| Lifetime Silver | 7,000 |
| Lifetime Gold | 14,000 |
| Lifetime Platinum | 75,000 |
Response from Qantas
We got in touch with Qantas regarding its policy reversal.
“We’ve listened to feedback from some of our most loyal members and made the change to ensure that bonus Status Credits earned during this offer will count towards their Lifetime Status,” a Qantas spokesperson told Australian Frequent Flyer.
We had speculated that a low uptake in this offer might have been one of the reasons why Qantas changed its mind about lifetime status credits. But Qantas told us on Friday evening that more than 100,000 members had already registered for this promotion since it launched on Thursday morning. According to Qantas, that’s double the number of members who registered in the first 24 hours for its October 2024 promotion.
Qantas also noted that this is the third time it has offered double status credits in the past 12 months. The previous two promos were in March 2025 and October 2024.
Qantas’ status credit gift still doesn’t count towards lifetime status
On Thursday, Qantas also announced that it will gift all active members of its frequent flyer program with bonus status credits. These will post to members’ accounts in September 2025, but will only count towards each person’s current membership year.
This is of course a welcome gift for some people. Unfortunately, Qantas decided that these status credits also wouldn’t count towards lifetime status.
“The Status Credit gift will not contribute towards Lifetime Silver, Lifetime Gold or Lifetime Platinum status or any other bonuses, including the Loyalty Bonus, Platinum Bonus Reward and Platinum One Bonus Reward,” Qantas said on its website.
At this stage, Qantas has not reversed that decision and did not directly respond to our question about this.
