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Yes, your Qantas Frequent Flyer points will expire if you have no activity on your account for 18 months. Per the Qantas information page:
“To ensure you keep your Qantas Points from expiring, you'll need to earn or use Qantas Points through your account at least once every 18 months.”
One thing to note is that although Qantas only resumed international flights to London and Los Angeles on November 1, 2021, it has not implemented any general points expiration suspension like many other airlines. However, Qantas members outside of Australia have been able to request an extension of their points expiration.
How To Ensure Your Qantas Points Don't Expire
You need to earn or use your Frequent Flyer points at least every 18 months to ensure your points don't expire. All the following ways of earning Qantas points count towards keeping your points active:
- Take a Qantas flight.
- Fly with Oneworld partners like British Airways and non-alliance partners like Emirates.
- Earn points through a hotel partner, including IHG, Airbnb, Choice Hotels, World of Hyatt, Marriott Bonvoy, Hilton Honors, and Accor.
- Rent a car from partners like Avis and Budget.
- Shop with Qantas Shopping.
- Spend on select health and leisure activities.
- Earn points with Qantas insurance partners.
- Use partner utility services.
- Earn points for property sales and rentals.
- Purchase fuel from BP and other automotive services.
- Buy food and wine from select partners, including with HelloFresh and Quandoo.
- Earn points for everyday spending with Qantas co-branded credit cards.
Additionally, using your points in the following ways will ensure your Qantas Points don't expire:
- Book award flights or upgrades with Qantas or one of its airline partners.
- Use your points for car rentals with Avis & Budget.
- Pay for Qantas Holidays or Qantas Hotel stays using your points.
- Use your points at the Qantas Rewards store.
- Redeem points Qantas Wines.
- Use your points and cash to pay for your Qantas travel insurance.
One thing to remember is that transfers between family accounts and transfers from a Qantas Business Rewards account will not qualify toward keeping your points active.
Our Take
Unfortunately, Qantas did not take any steps to help out its customers during the COVID pandemic by pausing points expiration — unlike over 20 other airlines. However, it still allowed non-Australian residents to request a points expiration reprieve as a one-off.
Despite this lack of generosity, keeping your Qantas points alive remains a breeze. That's because there are so many options available to earn or use Qantas Points. The most important thing to do is keep track of your Qantas balance and activity to ensure you always stay within the 18-month activity window. This way, your points don't expire.
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Too bad they didn’t extend the expiration for points. I will stick with airlines with no expiration (when I can).
Considering how flying is the best, if not only way for anybody to get to and from Australia, it’s always good to hear about the numerous ways for customers of that airline to keep their accumulated reward points valid for future international or domestic travel.
I am looking to earn Qantas miles so this is really helpful. I will be trying to build miles with them and eventually have redemptions. I am dreaming of Australia and planning on going once it’s completely open again.
The Australian Ebay webiste is a Qantas shopping partner which makes it very easy to keep points alive by buying something at a dollar once every 18 months. It generally seems to take about four months for the transaction to post, so the purchase needs to be made well in advance of the 18 month expiry date to keep the points safe.
A suspension from Qantas in COVID´s time would be a breaking news
Woow, only 18 months? Why this decision so frustrating?
These aren’t customer friendly policies. I prefer airlines with more favorable point expiration terms.
At any rate, Qantas should have implemented more friendly expiration policy or even done away with it altogether, especially in light of the recent “events.”
Thank you for the reminder. I had almost forgotten about these during the pandemic. A quick purchase using quantas shopping helped.
-AJ
Does seem a bit backwards – I appreciate airlines like United and Delta that don’t have expiration anymore.
With so many options, earning to stop expiry has been easy but Qantas haven’t done anything to (temporarily) lower status thresholds while international travel has at times been impossible. Formal removal of the requirement to fly four QF/JQ segments for a year for members outside Australia would have been useful too.