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At least several time a month I see posts on Facebook about people “losing” all points from their Qantas Frequent Flyer account. In a nutshell the points expired. Qantas, like many other airlines, expire points if an account is inactive – no points earned or used. Now this usually comes as a shock to account holder that the points they may have earned on their overseas trip 2 years ago are all gone. Unfortunately Qantas are quite strict and rarely re-instate the points. Once gone, they are gone. They do notify you around 60 days prior via email, so it really pays to ensure your personal details are all up to date in your account.
So what can you do to stop points from expiring aside from taking a flight somewhere? Luckily Qantas does offer quite a few ways to keep accounts from expiring, you just need to know which method(s) to use. As long as there is some point activity inside of 18 months, either earning or “burning”, your points will remain active. This excludes Family Transfers.
Here are a few tips to get you started on ensuring those points do not expire.
Earning Points
Credit Cards
Have a credit card that direct points monthly to your Qantas account. As long as you make a single purchase, points will transfer to your Qantas FF account monthly and your account won’t expire. Most banks offer a credit card that earns points that transfers to Qantas, however the earn rates aren’t the best. I will compare credit cards later, but a good starter card is the Woolworths Credit card. It earns at 1:1. There is a current promotion with 16,000 bonus points. For information, click here.
One common issue is family members, mainly children, having their points expire. So naturally the above option will not work as children cannot have Credit cards and points can only be “swept” into the matching account holder. Fortunately there is a nice method to get around this
Woolworths
Pop into your local Woolworths/Safeway and pick up and Everyday rewards card. Earning 1 point per dollar over $30, this is by far the simplest way to keep points flowing into Frequent flyer accounts. You can pick up an EDR card from Woolies or Big W out the front. simply register the card online and use the Link for Qantas Frequent Flyer. Enter your details and the accounts will be linked. As there is no age limit for having an EDR card, simply cycle through the cards when you go shopping and points will go to that account. Remember you can use the EDR card at Big W too. Remember you need to spend $31 in a single transaction to earn a point.
Petrol
Did you know with your EDR card you can swap from the fuel savings to points earning. This can be swapped once per month and instead of saving a few dollars on your fuel, you can earn points instead. you can change your options in your EDR account.
Using Points
Flights
Of course the popular method to burn points is redeeming them for a flight. There are Classic awards and Any Seat Awards. I won’t explain these here but redeeming points for a flight counts as activity.
Qantas Shop
If you don’t want to fly somewhere, there are plenty of items in the Qantas store from Toasters to TV’s. Some will say they are a bad use of points, but an item from the store is better than no points left.
Family Transfers
If all the options above don’t work for you, the best method is to perform a family transfer. You need a minimum of 5000 points in the account to transfer out and you can only perform one transfer every 12 months. The idea is that you can transfer them into 1 account to then use later. The thing to remember with a family transfer is they do not count for point activity. So while it is good to clear points out of other accounts, you want to make sure your main account has points coming from somewhere else.
These are just a couple of methods to have some point activity on your account. Keep an eye out for my next post on how you can monitor your accounts more effectively.
Join in our forums where other fellow frequent flyers will share their tips! Click here
One small point – family transfers won’t keep the account active.
Dear Nick, thank you for your timely article which I came across by chance in my Facebook news feed. I had never heard of Qantas frequent flyer points expiring so your article spurred me to check the latest email I had received from Qantas with my points balance. Imagine my horror when the email stated they were due to expire yesterday!
After many years of being a Qantas customer, participating in their loyalty program and saving my 75,000+ points..imagine my upset and disappointment to be told by Mark (who works in the outsourced call centre) tough luck, there is nothing that can be done! For all my years of loyalty, I wasn’t even allowed to speak with a supervisor..
Mark claimed I had been sent two emails warning me the points would expire. We triple checked the spelling of my email address, the contents of my inbox and spam filter, and although I have been receiving a few promotional emails a month from Qantas just fine, there was no sign of the emails warning me that my points would soon be expiring. Believe me, if there had been, I would have taken appropriate action in time to save them.
I have not been able to afford to fly anywhere during the last 12 months, but had been saving these points for a special trip I was planning.
Could you please help me understand if there are any circumstances through which points could be reinstated (to be used today – just hours after they expired) and the best way to try and navigate this situation? I find it very hard to believe that any sane, logical management at Qantas would deny me of these points. Surely they would realize that by treating a customer who has participated in their loyalty program in this kind of way, they would lose a customer for life and create a vocal, passionate anti Qantas advocate, ready to voice my disappointment in Qantas and their treatment of loyal customers to anyone and everyone who will listen (in person and on social media) forever more.
Incidentally, I lost 80,000 FF points when Ansett went under.
Hi Justine,
I’d call the frequent Flyer ASAP and at least try to book a flight. Does your account now show as 0 when you log in? You should be able to press to speak to a supervisor and i wasn’t aware the call centre was outsourced. Were you calling 131313?
Unfortunately Qantas, like the other airlines are very rigid on the expiry, not really offering extensions. You could ask them to show you copies of the reminder emails, as many claim not to receive them.
Also they do bank on a certain number losing points as they benefit from it (they’ve already been paid for the points).
Hi Nick, I logged in as you suggested yeterday and the points balance was zero. Is this site or your role funded by or associated with Qantas in any way?
No I am totally independent of any airline. My only association is I fly with them regularly (not sponsored flights either) and use that knowledge to pass on tips to people.
Wake up Justine. Qantas does not gove a toss about you or any other of their guests. They are just too big to care. I left them with 350k on my account and cashed them in for David Jones vouchers which I later flocked on ebay. There was no way I was going to use them on one of their daggy planes. After leaving I put all my business to Virgin where I have now been Gold for two years…WHAT A DIFFERENCE!
Leave them and forget about them. Sadly, they have already forgotten about you.
The other tip worth keeping in mind to keep one’s QFF account active, if desperate, is to purchase a $25 gift voucher for about 2,500 points. This would suit people who have a large number of points accrued, but am not travelling due to a change of employment or finances.
Yes Phil you can buy a voucher – but then you have to use it.
A free way is to install the Qantas search tool bar and perform 1 search a month to keep point activity ticking over.
http://www.thefrequentflyer.com.au/searching-to-earn-points/
Just to confirm it’s actually 4 family transfers within a 12 month period for a maximum of 100000 points. And it doesn’t even have to be a family member as they have no way of proving it. And the family transfer takes on the expiry date of the person you transfer it to, so be careful. If you call them, try calling 13 11 31 not 13 13 13. And when you speak to them, tell them that you couldn’t fly or do anything because of medical reasons or something along those lines or else they’ll down right reject you. And they would be able to reinstate them for 7 days where you have to use them all, but that has to be approved by ‘loyalty’. If they insist that they can’t get a supervisor to jump on then say that you want to escalate the matter and demand that someone jumps on the phone there and then. If you need more info on status, they do give leniency if you’re a few status credits short. Definitely better to go with the virgin loaylty program in my opinion.
you can now transfer 4 x 100,000 per year, up from the single 100,000.
BTW Virgin’s points do expire too, but they are 3 years.
Still, 3 years is a lot better than a year and a half.
The ACCC in the past few years successfully took action against banks for the disproportionate value of the ‘fines’ they charged late paying customers notwithstanding that the customers had been advised of the cost of the fines ….I reckon that Qantas’ actions are just as disproportionate and illegal notwithstanding their fine print warnings…I lost 85,000 points, earned through spending about that amount of AUD’s, because I wasn’t monitoring my emails…I’m taking it up with the ACCC…anyone else?
Hello David and ALL
I am learning that I am not the only one who has lost the hundreds of thousands of Qantas points – I have being exchanging emails with QFF service and until now they are refusing to reinstate my lost points – over the years many frequent flyer members didn’t worry about their account as we knew that the points will never expire. The response we get from Qantas is you must read your emails and for whatever reason you missed their notifications -bad luck!!
Like you, I will not going to give up and I am going to escalate this to ACCC and already to take this case to court!!
My message to all don’t give up ! Those point are money and they belong to you – Don’t allow Qantas to still it from you!!
Best of luck
BTW, did you receive any updates from ACCC?
I’m learning from this forum that I’m not the only one who has lost the hundreds of thousands of Qantas points – I have exchanged emails with QFF helpline service since 2013 and until now they are refusing to reinstate my lost points – over the years many frequent flyer members didn’t worry about their account as we knew that the points will never expire. The response we get from Qantas is you must read your emails and for whatever reason if you have missed their notifications – bad luck!!
If they decided to change their expiration policy at least they apply it to new members and not for all – as many of wouldn’t think that Qantas FF program will change the policy after you have signed it saying that their FF points wouldn’t expire.
Like you, I will not going to give up and I am going to escalate this to ACCC and I am ready to take this case to court!!
My message to all, don’t give up ! claim back your points – Those points are worth money and they belong to you – Don’t allow Qantas to steal it from you!!
Best of luck
BTW, did you receive any updates from ACCC?
Steve,
Given that QF offer numerous ways to keep an account active I cannot see them having two tiers. Remember points have always had an expiry – but it was 3 years and now it’s 18 months. Points were never perpetual.
So the ACCC won’t do anything and taking it to court is a waste – you agree to the T&C’s when you sign up.
Just learn the tricks to keep points active.. And be thankful it isn’t like Singapore airlines where they just expire after 3 years – no way to keep them active.