Elite status with Qantas Frequent Flyer, Velocity and other frequent flyer programs is a valuable perk for those flying frequently in Economy who want to skip queues and access airline lounges.
We regularly update this guide with some of the better, more accessible and useful deals for obtaining enough Status Credits (SCs) for Qantas Gold status in one trip, with our current flight pick on sale until 7 January.
We also have guides to the cheapest ways of earning Velocity and Star Alliance Gold status in one trip.
While there might be cheaper options out there, we will try to strike a balance between cost and logistical appeal of the fares we find. Finding a 27-sector fare to a destination no one wants to fly to isn’t our goal here.
Current deal
Fly round-the-world on a combination of Qantas, Finnair and oneworld airlines, with stops in the US, Europe and Asia for about the same price as a return ticket to Europe.
From $5788. On sale until 7 January. Must include North America, Europe and Asia. Five stopovers permitted, including (but not limited to) Bangkok, Hong Kong, Tokyo and Singapore in Asia, and LA, San Francisco, New York and Miami in the US.
More details here.
Why is Qantas Gold status valuable?
When you have Gold status with Qantas, you will enjoy the following benefits on Qantas and its partner airlines:
- Lounge access at Qantas, Emirates and oneworld partner lounges
- Extra baggage allowance (usually one extra checked bag)
- Use of Business Class check-in counters (even when flying Economy)
- Access to Premium Security Lanes at Sydney (Domestic), Melbourne, Brisbane and Perth Airports
- Priority boarding
- Priority standby lists
- Priority baggage handling
- 75% bonus points on Qantas, Jetstar and American Airlines flights
To obtain Gold membership, you need to earn 700 Status Credits in a 12-month period.
To maintain (or extend) Gold membership for another year, you need to earn 600 Status Credits.
Once you have Gold status with one frequent flyer program, you can status match to others.
Thinking of going the extra mile for Platinum Status? Read our guide here.
Business Class to the US, Europe and Asia on Qantas, Finnair and oneworld partners from $5788
This fare permits travel from Australia to Europe via North America in one direction, and via Asia in the other.
You could enjoy Qantas’ newest Business Class product on its Boeing 787 Dreamliner flights to/from the US
Finnair A330 Business Class on long-haul flights to/from Asia and the US
Example 1: (almost) reach Gold status from $5634
Routing: Sydney – Los Angeles – Helsinki // choose from 60+ European stopover cities // Helsinki – Bangkok – Sydney
Status Credits earn: 680 (20 short of Gold)
Example 2: via North Asia from $5948
Routing: Brisbane – Sydney – Tokyo – Seoul – Helsinki – Milan // make your own way to // Rome – Helsinki – New York – Dallas/Fort Worth – Sydney – Brisbane
Status Credits earn: 860
Example 3: Boost SC earn from $5788
Routing: Perth – Sydney – Singapore – Hong Kong – Helsinki – Madrid // make your own way to // Barcelona – Helsinki – Chicago – San Francisco – Melbourne – Perth
Status Credits earn: 1020 (380 short of Platinum)
Key terms
- On sale until 7 January 2019, with payment required by this date
- For departures between 16 January and 30 June 2019
- Valid from all Australian capital cities, with one Qantas domestic connection permitted in each direction
- Up to five stopovers permitted (including European destination)
- Six-month maximum trip duration
- All flights must be with oneworld alliance airlines, including but not limited to Qantas, Finnair, Cathay Pacific, Japan Airlines, Malaysia Airlines and American Airlines
- Itinerary must include North America, Europe and Asia (either as stopover or transit)
- You can travel in either direction, e.g. Asia first and the US last (or vice versa)
- You can choose your destination from the 60+ cities that Finnair services in Europe
- If you are looking to increase Status Credits earn, try to visit cities in Europe that are further from Helsinki, such as Madrid and Barcelona (80 Status Credits each way) rather than Paris, Rome and London (60 SCs)
See also our guides to the cheapest ways of earning Velocity, Star Alliance Gold status in one trip and oneworld Sapphire status in one trip with Qatar Airways.
Is this still available? If so how do I book?
This deal is not available (ended on 7 January). We’ll update this guide when another deal comes out.
Is it possible to book those flights through Qantas Business to double dip?
And out of curiosity, how many points would you earn on those examples? (As it would be great to hit ‘business level two’…)
Cheers!
Best to put those questions in the enquiry form to Luke!
Hi Matt – does the route and the travel dates have to be locked in upon purchase by 31 August 2018?
I believe so but this is best confirmed with our travel agent Luke when making an enquiry through the enquiry form.
I am interested in any similar deals for September to November next year 2019 (Qantas), but only 6-7 weeks. Five stops, only 2 tours, Spain etc and the cradle of the Civil War US. Chill out at the other stop overs for 3/4 days.
Any Ideas Welcome
Being new to this, can someone tell me what “eligible purchases” are in relation to earning Frequent Flyer points. What is accepted and what is not? Thanks!
Depends on each individual card. It’s best to read the terms and conditions on each card’s website.
hey guys, thankyou very much for posts like this, they are really good to read. I have previously sent the PH Travel Agent Luke messages and have yet to have a reply to either of the messages.
Hi jmb,
All enquiries that have email addresses attached are responded to directly by me. Could you perhaps try to resubmit your enquiry? Apologies for the hassle.
Regards,
Luke
Thanks Luke for the reply, an email address was included but the message must have slipped through. It was for a December booking that i tried to get in touch with you in early November about. We organised things another way with my regular travel agent thank you but was really keen and interested to try you arranging things. Do you have an email address that we can directly contact you with or is the only contact method via commenting on Posts? Thank you very much
Hi jmb,
Glad to hear you were able to sort out the trip. Feel free to email me at [email protected] in the future and I can assist you directly from there.
Regards,
Luke
I thought the best statue run is Frankfurt to Madrid return via Latam 300-450 return airfare = 120 status. Only 2 hours each way. I think it is the highest Status earning ratio and most importantly short and lots of cheap fare days
Thankyou Wei, this is really good info for if some easy fast Status Credits are required!
Qantas does not let people book frankfurt to madrid from their site. I have also tried sydney-frankfurt-madrid-frankfurt-sydney using multi stop, but still comes up with an error. What am i missing/doing wrong here? Any ideas? Thanks!!
Thank you to the author for this great article.
As I am new to all of us, I just started to see my points accumulate. I just did not know where to start as I have a Qantas FF account.
Seems status is important to be able to acquire those reward seats.
I’m not fully there yet as in to understand everything, to see flights from other oneworld airlines not advertised on the Qantas website.
I now have a goal and that’s to acquire enough points so my family can get to travel RTW in business. As my wife works so hard so it would be great if these points can reward our family for all our hard work (which is like all of us who go on here). I don’t know how I will go about trying to book for 3 people, but when the time comes I hope I am able to do so.
I was able to achieve the status I was after thanks to Luke and at a fantastic price. I’m sure we have dealt with many travel agents where you feel your just the next person in the cue and they get so frustrated if you have questions.
Well Luke here is not like, Luke works very hard for you trying to get the best deal for you and to work what your needs here. I asked so many questions and Luke had no problem going through them all. I would definitely book through Luke again.
Thank you Matt and thank you Luke
Great to hear! Thanks for sharing and congrats on getting status!
I recently get in contact with Luke after a challenge to match Platinum status with Qantas. Luke did an amazing job of finding the most economical flights to achieve the points. Significantly better than I could find. Even more impressive he was travelling and apologised for the delays (which non existent). Thanks Luke..! Naturally worked travel kicked in shortly afterwards and I’ll make those points anyway.. lol On a plus I get a cheap business class trip over to NZ. 🙂
What timing this has worked for me!! I’ve just quit my job got a couple of weeks free in this time period, before I do an around the world jaunt which doesn’t have South America, So I reckon I’m going to Jump on it and squeeze this in before that trip 😀
I’ve always wanted to do South America, Not fussed on renewing gold as I’m basically done that for the year so I might credit to Alaska Mileageplus 😀 😀 😀
Thanks again Point Hacks
I’m trying to work out whether this is worth it for me. My Qantas FF sign up date was in February. Does that mean if I get enough points for gold status by buying this flight, they’ll get wiped out in February?
Let say you fly and qualify in August 2107 . Status will expire Feb 2019 .
Couldn’t make the dates work for me to DPS. But anyone who might be interested in booking before close of this offer tomorrow, I did find the following:
BNE-MEL-CHC (Book One Way) J-Class. (Warning: Overnight flight MEL-CHC!) $887AUD, 140SC = 280SC with the bonus.
CHC-MEL-BNE (Book One Way) J-Class. (Requires a 10 hour – or longer if you want it – transit in MEL overnight – ) $840NZD, 140SC = 280SC with bonus.
Therefore 560SC for about $3.05 per SC.
Can you please double check the status credits for the flights mentioned above? I’ve used the QFF calculator, and I’m not getting the same amount of status credits as you.
Another good one that is not mentioned on here so much for cheap business class flights/status is Perth to Noumea. Frequently and consistently can get return for $2000, although the SYD-NOU leg is operated by Aircalin it is on a QF number, no good for the double status credits promotion but is good any other time, considering it costs about $2k one way Perth to Sydney, to get return from Perth to Noumea, which can be configuration all on QF number PER-MEL-SYD-NOU-PER (extra Melbourne leg can be thrown in for status creds for the sake of a few dollars more I’ve seen in some examples).
I see this as a bargain for $2k status run and even more valuable with the double status creds promotion for the qantas operated legs!!!
If you fly from Sydney to Denpasar return in May in Business Class it will cost you just under $2140, earning 480 status credits with this promotion. Not quite as good as the deal from Melbourne but nonetheless still a pretty good earn rate (source qantas.com.au).
Just a heads up this is for flights between Australia and NZ only, no double points earned on other international flights.
Hi Matt
Thanks for the article! Forgive me if I’m blind but I’m not seeing the link to the travel agent. Are you able to provide it? Cheers
Made it clearer now, and you can find the enquiry form here.
What about SYD-MEL/BNE-CHC? The domestic leg is at no extra cost in J.
Wish I saw this earlier! The sale just ended which makes me sad. I am looking to book flights to Barcelona and definitely worth getting the gold status in one go. Any other if this deal will come back?
We’re not sure, but always looking for new deals so keep an eye on this page.
I’ve done the same #1 route but getting a $14k total price. Have I missing something there? I kept the travelling dates between 1 June to end of September. Unless $6k price you are talking about economy not business?
Hi Tim, no, it’s Business Class. These special fares are exclusively available through our travel agent, so click on the link above to get in touch.
Trying to book similar to #1 from Perth and it gives me the following error:
151: You can include only one direct flight between Sydney/Melbourne and Perth – unless your journey includes Johannesburg or Shanghai and you need to travel via Sydney/Melbourne to complete your journey.
Any ideas?
A great article Matt. Thanks. A couple of questions, if I may:
1. How “available” are the fares that you have quoted? Is this pricing rare as hens teeth specials or generally available all the time?, and
2. What sort of advance purchase considerations would I need to take into account when planning a RTW flight of the nature (and price) that you have outlined.
Many thanks. Kerrod.
How many frequent flyer pts will be accumulated on these flights?
this looks great. but according to Qantas status credits calculator, no Qantas points or credits are earnt on SYD-KUL in business.
Journeys between Australia and KUL on MH in business class earn Qantas status credits at flexible economy rate. Journeys within Asia, eg. KUL-HKG, earn at the standard business class rate.
Hi
love all your posts.
whats the best way to get a round the world business ticket cheap.
Wait for a deal? Or buy an economy ticket and upgrade with points? My points are with qantas-
thanks.
chris
Upgrading with points (say, Qantas Points) is fraught with risk – upgrades are a lottery and you can only upgrade on Qantas operated flights.
We have a guide for redeeming points for a rtw itinerary outright, if you have enough points.
Or for paid fares, yes, look out for a deal.