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Since my last video where I discussed how I earned 900,000 points with Qantas, I've been busy spending those points. I've been from Sydney to London and back in business with the upgrade paid for points and I have booked flights for myself and my whole family to Japan and back again with points. But despite all that spending, as of today I've actually got more points than before 934,000 points.
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In this video, I'm gonna tell you how I got the upgrades, how I earn those points. I'm also going to discuss some changes coming to the Qantas system which will make it both more difficult and more straightforward to earn points going forward.
0:41 How to get upgrades
The first thing we're gonna talk about is how I managed to get the upgrades between Sydney and London and back in business. Now there's a couple of things that influence the chance of you getting a rewards upgrade when you apply for one with Qantas. And aside from how sold out the flight is and how many spare seats there are, the biggest contributing factor is your status with Qantas - Gold, Silver, etcetera
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Now I'm currently Platinum with Qantas, which makes me the second highest priority aside from Platinum One for getting a rewards upgrades on the flight. Now I don't normally fly enough with work or in my personal life to achieve platinum level status. The way I managed to do it was by having a child. Now I know this isn't something that everybody can do but if you have had a kid recently or you have one on the way and you're going on parental leave from work then you can use that as a reason to lock your status with Qantas.
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If you're going for leave above a certain period of time, you get a letter from your company, you send it in to Qantas, they lock your status. The benefit of locking your status is that while it's locked for that two year period you continue to earn status credits and they don't expire. So a few trips home to Ireland and back in the first couple of years of my kid's life managed to get me platinum status which made me high priority for the upgrade. That's something worth looking at.
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Aside from that, travelling in smaller parties, travelling on your own makes an upgrade more likely and in this case, I booked premium economy and upgraded to business. So that gives you a better chance than if you just book economy.
2:05 How to earn more points
Those two business upgrades cost me about 70,000 points each way gone from my account. How do you replace the points when you're using the points? Well the main way I did it over this last three months was with shopping and with purchasing wine firstly with Qantas Wine. Look for cases on Qantas Wine's website that come with bonus points particularly around sale periods or stock clearance periods. You can get up to 25,000 bonus points per case.
2:29 What you want to make sure is you're not paying above odds for those points. So you want to check the prices of all the wines in the case versus availability elsewhere. That can be pretty time consuming. But recently I found that ChatGPT does a pretty good job of doing the price checks for me.
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So that's one way to earn points that covered one of the upgrades for me over the last 3 months and the second way is via shopping, by converting my Woolworths points to Qantas Points. For more details on that, you can check my previous video. But also by shopping and spending via my American Express Ultimate card which costs $450 a year in an annual fee.
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But you get all of that back in Qantas travel credit. It earns 1.25 points per dollar which is one of the best earn rates on the market and that's been the main way I've been earning points.
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for the last few years now, it's worth noting Qantas program changes. There are some changes coming to the Qantas rewards program. Some good, some bad. Basically, it breaks down into four different changes. First of all, Qantas are adding more reward seats on partner airlines like KLM Hawaiian Airlines and Air France which is good because it means you can use your points to book business or economy seats on other airlines, which might have better availability than Qantas.
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The second change is Qantas is now going to be offering more points earned on domestic flights. They say about 25% more, though I gotta be said, it's gotta be said flying doesn't generally earn you that many points anyway. A fraction of the points I earn actually from flying. But if you're flying domestically regularly that could be a good way to earn extra points.
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Third change is that they are going to make it cheaper to book rewards seats with Jetstar. So that's a positive. But the drawback, the fourth point here is from August, Qantas are going to make it more expensive to book Classic Reward seats. So you have to spend a higher percentage of points to get those seats.
4:13 Virgin status match vs Qantas
Overall, it's a bit of a mixed bag. You can check out an article from Angus Kidman on Finder which I'll link in the description below. For more information on these changes, finally, it's worth noting that there is another major airline in Australia. I know we really should have more than two, but Virgin Australia is also available and the benefit of being high status with one airline is you can often use that to match your status with the other
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so I managed to get Virgin to match my status with Qantas. Not quite match. I got gold with Virgin and I'm platinum with Qantas but getting gold with Virgin allowed me to fly on Virgin with status and use their lounges. I've done a domestic flight and I've got a international flight coming up.
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So in future, we will do a video looking at the difference between the flying and club experience between Qantas and Virgin and answer the question "Which is better?". Which is worth spending your time investing in?
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Thank you for your time watching this video you can find more frequent flyer news on finder.com.au.
Can a retiree apply for a frequent flyer credit card?
Hi William. Thanks for your question. If you meet the minimum eligibility requirements, which can be found on at the bottom for each card’s review and application page, you can apply for the card. I hope this helps and let us know if you require more information. Jacob.
How do I check to see how many frequent fly points I have?
Hi Cheryl. Generally this will involve logging on to your frequent flyer account online. Head over to the website of your frequent flyer account and log into your account to view your points balances and options for redeeming your rewards. If you tell us the name of the frequent flyer program we can give better instructions on how to check your balance. Thanks for your question. Jacob.
Is it possible for my father to link his credit card to my (his daughter) Frequent Flyer membership card? Dad, does not have his card linked to FF program.
Hi Diane. Thanks for your question. You should be able to link your frequent flyer membership to your fathers credit card provided there is no frequent flyer membership linked to the card already. You may have to speak to the lender to do this though, alternatively you may be able to manage your linked frequent flyer account through your online banking facility. Jacob.
Hi there. I don’t have a credit card, haven’t had one for almost 15 years. Wondering what the transfer interest rate means? What is this fee for? I want to accumulate qantas points plus I am looking at low annual and interest rate fees.
I look forward to your reply.
Thanks.
Hi Julie,
Thanks for your question.
The promotional interest rate charged on balance transfers refers to how much you have to pay in interest when you transfer a balance from one credit card to a credit card with another institution. It’s generally a promotional interest rate. This is available to people who open a new credit card account. If you’re looking for more information on this, you can watch a video from Fred talking about the basics of balance transfers.
Frequent flyer and rewards credit cards generally come with the higher purchase, cash advance rates of interest and an annual fee. It’s a case of you don’t get something for anything. There are two Amex frequent flyer credit cards, the rest of the frequent flyer cards we compare charge an annual fee.
The most important consideration when selecting a frequent flyer or rewards credit card is that the net value of the rewards / FF miles must be greater than the card’s annual fee. If you’re not spending enough to recoup the cost of the card’s fee in rewards then the card is not a cost-effective product.
Hope this helps.
Regards,
Jacob
Which frequent flyer cards can be used to pay the Australian tax office and earn points for that payment?
Hi Rosie,
Thanks for your question.
American Express is the only credit card issuer at the moment whose terms and conditions states that you can earn points by paying tax in the Australian market, given that you do not use BPAY. You may also refer to our guide on earning rewards points-paying your tax bill.
Before applying, please ensure that you meet all the eligibility criteria and read through the details of the needed requirements as well as the relevant Product Disclosure Statements/Terms and Conditions when comparing your options before making a decision on whether it is right for you.
I hope this helps.
Cheers,
Jacob