Register for the promotion and book a flight from now until 25 Feb 2020, 9pm Singapore Time.

For the minority of you who are Qantas Frequent Flyer members, Qantas is running its double status credits promotion again. The promotion runs until 25 Febuary 2020 9pm Singapore Time, for travel between 28 February 2020 and 14 February 2021.

How to register for the promotion

The mechanics are fairly simple:
1. Register for the promotion here. Needless to say, you need to be a Qantas Frequent Flyer member first. You will receive an email confirmation, after which you are good to book your flights.

2. Book your flight between 20 to 25 February 2020. Your flight(s) must be between 28 February 2020 and 14 February 2021. Note that the deadline for booking is 11.59pm AEDT (Sydney time), so that means 9pm Singapore time.

3. Only Qantas-operated flights with a Qantas flight number (QF XXXX) are eligible for the promotion. So if you booked an Emirates-operated flight with a QF flight number, or a Qantas flight with a codeshare number, tough luck.

4. Travel and wait for your bonus status credits to come in!

Now the fine print…

Only flights booked after you registered for the promotion will count. So be sure to receive the confirmation email before you start booking.

You can book as many flights as you want during this promotion and all of them will qualify for bonus status credits.

Unlike the previous promotion, you will have to fly on a Qantas-operated flight this time round to qualify for this bonus. This means a flight that is operated using a Qantas aircraft, using a Qantas crew with a Qantas flight number.

What does this do for me? Can I use them for flights?

As with many other Oneworld programmes, Qantas has two separate currencies: Qantas points which you can use to redeem for award flights and use them as cash, and Status Credits which accumulate towards a higher membership tier, opening up benefits such as lounge access.

While you can get points pretty easily through non-flight activities, such as transferring from credit cards (DBS and Citibank are transfer partners here in Singapore), status credits are hard to come by as you will need to physically fly in order to accumulate them.

So how many status credits will I need?

For Qantas, 300 credits will get you Silver (oneworld Ruby), 700 credits to Gold (oneworld Sapphire) and 1,400 credits to Platinum (oneworld Emerald).

So of course, silver is rather lame in my opinion, with the only re benefit being the 50% bonus Qantas Points you will earn with every flight.

Gold is where the real deal begins. With Gold and oneworld Sapphire, you will get access to Qantas business lounges (except when travelling domestically in Australia, you will get Qantas Club access instead), as well as oneworld business lounges, such as the incredibly good Cathay Pacific lounges in Hong Kong.

Best part of being a QFF Gold member based in Singapore is that if you are flying Jetstar Asia (3K), you can also access the Qantas Singapore lounge before your flight.

You also get 75% more points on all eligible flights, so that’s pretty awesome if you ask me.

Platinum is where you probably want to be if you are a serious flier. However, it’s gonna be really hard to hit 1,400 status credits in a single year unless you visit London five times a year in Business class. That’s way too much money to spend on prestige, but if you have that kind of money, you will get access to oneworld First Class lounges, including Qantas’ flagship First lounge in Sydney and their latest first class lounge right here in Singapore. You will also enjoy 100% bonuses on all Qantas points earned.

How many status credits will I earn under this promo?

This promotion offers 100% bonus, so that is pretty hefty. If you can clock just 350 status credits before the 100% bonus, that will launch you straight to gold.

Flying business class on Qantas from Singapore to Sydney and back? That’s 120 status credits one way, so giving you a total of 480 status credits with the double status credits promotion.

If you don’t mind taking a little detour, plan your trip with a transit via Melbourne, and you will get 160 status credits each way for a total of 640 roundtrip, after the bonus. That’s just a little shy of gold.

My strategy – keeping it around $5 per status credit

As most of my travel are spent on my own dime, I often try to find flights that work out to around $5 per status credit. Qantas flights are typically expensive for the number of status credits they offer, but with this double status credit promotion, it comes close to that sweet spot of $5 per SC.

I’ll be taking this chance to try Qantas’ premium economy cabin on the new(-ish) Dreamliner come May, which has gotten great reviews since it was launched two years ago.

My flight was about $1,700 roundtrip to Sydney (via Melbourne) and I’ll be netting 320 status credits, translating to an average of $5.31 per SC. Still a little off the mark, but good enough.

Final thoughts

While I’m a fan of Qantas Frequent Flyer because of the ease of accumulate status credits using Jetstar flights, Qantas’ own flights tend to be a little expensive when it comes to their own services.

It’s been a long while since Qantas offered an open status credit promotion, since the last one back in August 2018. Qantas has been experimenting with targeted status credit promotions since, and sadly most offshore members are not included in the targeted promotions.

This promotion is probably timely, given the global slowdown in air travel given the ongoing Covid-19 issue, so this will help to give that much needed boost to bring people back in the air. And hey, it’s never too early to plan for year-end holiday right now.