Won’t be able to retain your Qantas Gold or Platinum status beyond your current membership year? Rather than booking an unnecessary trip to make up the extra status credits, you might simply be able to spend some of your Qantas Frequent Flyer points to extend your status.

Qantas is proactively offering selected Gold and Platinum frequent flyers the option to pay for 12-month status extensions for fixed amounts of points.

This offer isn’t available to everyone. Qantas is only inviting selected frequent flyers to renew their status with points, and there’s no guarantee you’ll get an offer.

But there is a chance. And if you’re quite a bit short of the status credits needed to retain your status tier, it could be a very good deal. Here’s how it works…

How many Qantas points would you need to spend to renew status?

Eligible Gold frequent flyers are being offered 12-month status extensions for a cost of 80,000 Qantas points. Gold frequent flyers normally need to earn at least 600 status credits during their membership year to renew their status.

A similar deal is available to some Qantas Platinum members. Instead of earning the usual 1,200 status credits to re-qualify for Platinum membership, Qantas is offering renewals for 120,000 points.

If your Qantas Gold or Platinum membership is due to expire in the coming weeks, you may receive an email from Qantas Frequent Flyer. The email invites eligible members to call a dedicated phone number to learn more about their retention offer.

Not everyone will receive this offer

Even if you don’t receive an invitation, you may still be able to take up this offer by calling the Qantas Frequent Flyer Service Centre yourself. But, while it can’t hurt to ask, Qantas is under no obligation to sell you a status extension for points.

We don’t know what criteria Qantas uses when deciding which Gold and Platinum members to contact. But you may need to have already earned at least 50% of the usual required status credits during your current membership year to qualify for this offer. It’s also possible that Qantas will only make this offer if you’ve already held your status continuously for several years.

You probably won’t receive this offer if you:

• Earned less than 50% of the status credits normally required for a renewal during your current membership year,
• Have not flown with Qantas or Jetstar at least four times this year,
• Have only held your status for 1-2 years so far, or
• Already used Qantas points to renew your status in a previous year.

Some examples of offers received by AFF members

A few AFF members have received Qantas status renewal offers over the past couple of months. Here’s what some of them wrote on our forum:

I took the offer – which was 80,000 points [to renew Gold]. When I called up they tripled checked that I didn’t have any upcoming flights that would bring me over the 600 required.

Points were taken from my account about 24 hours after accepting the offer over the phone, with an email confirmation provided a couple days later. Status was updated almost immediately after the points were deducted.

Called this morning using the “dedicated” phone provided. The recorded greeting was something like “Welcome to QF, thanks for calling regarding your tier retention invitation”. After entering my details, I think I was put through to the Philippines… The person didn’t seemed to know the details but cutting the story short, the current offer is 120k pts to extend WP [Platinum] for 12mths.

There is a cooling-off period

If you decide to take up Qantas’ offer and spend 80,000 or 120,000 points to extend your status, you can still change your mind until the end of your current membership year.

For example, if you were 120 status credits short of retaining Gold and paid the 80,000 points, but then ended up booking a last-minute trip that got you over the line to Gold in your own right, you could retract your acceptance of the status extension offer. You can also choose to simply let Qantas downgrade you and get a refund of your points. This option expires at the start of your next membership year.

Is it worth spending Qantas points to retain status?

Spending points to retain your Qantas status could be worthwhile if you’re well short of the status credits required. It’s also worth considering if you have more Qantas points than you can use, or can easily earn the points back using a credit card sign-up bonus.

As well as lounge access, Qantas status gets you lots of useful benefits when flying with Qantas and other Oneworld alliance airlines.

On the other hand, 80,000 or 120,000 Qantas points can get you a lot of award flights or upgrades! To put it into perspective, 132,400 Qantas points (plus taxes & carrier charges) is enough to book a round-the-world trip on Oneworld airlines in Economy.

If you don’t plan to travel in the next year, this offer would also have limited value. That’s because you can only realise most of the value of airline status when you fly.

If you’re only a little short of the status credits you need to renew in your own right, you might find it better value to book a Qantas status run instead.

Don’t expect a complimentary Qantas status renewal

Until around 2018, Qantas used to sometimes offer complimentary status renewals to loyal frequent flyers on a case-by-case basis. The airline would reportedly consider the average number of status credits you’d earned over the past three years in deciding whether to “comp” your status for another year.

These complimentary status extensions ended around 2018 when Qantas first began selling status extensions for frequent flyer points. The cost in 2018 was the same as today – 80,000 Qantas points for a Gold status renewal or 120,000 points for Platinum.

These offers were paused from early 2020 until June 2023. During that time, most frequent flyers were being given complimentary status extensions anyway.

If you don’t earn enough status credits to renew your Qantas status, and don’t take advantage of a renewal offer, you can expect to be downgraded by only one status tier. For example, if you currently have Gold status and don’t renew it, Qantas would downgrade you to Silver at the end of your membership year. This is due to what’s known as Qantas Frequent Flyer’s “soft landing” policy.

Matt Graham

The editor of Australian Frequent Flyer, Matt's passion for travel has taken him to over 90 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.