Qantas Points Club Explained — Status for Spending, Not Flying
By Craig McNamara · Published on 26 July 2026
Qantas has two ways of recognising members. Frequent Flyer tiers (Silver, Gold, Platinum) reward flying. Points Club rewards earning points on the ground — which for most people means credit card spend.
If you collect points mainly through cards rather than flights, Points Club is the closest thing you'll get to status. One important caveat up front: Qantas has announced it's retiring the whole program in late 2026, so this is a benefit with an expiry date. I'll cover what that means at the end.
The two levels
Points Club has two levels, unlocked automatically based on how many Qantas Points you earn in a Membership Year (Qantas Points Club page):
| Level | Points earned in a Membership Year |
|---|---|
| Points Club | 150,000 |
| Points Club Plus | 350,000 |
Your Membership Year runs from the anniversary of the date you joined Qantas Frequent Flyer — not the calendar year, and not the same thing as your points balance. It's the same clock that governs Status Credits; I explain it properly in how Status Credits and Membership Years work.
Once you unlock a level, the benefits run from that moment until the end of your next Membership Year — so a mid-year unlock effectively gives you up to two years of benefits from one qualifying year. To keep it beyond that, you earn the threshold again each year.
Which points actually count
This is the part most people get wrong. Not all points count, and there are caps (Qantas eligible-points table):
| Source | Counts towards Points Club? |
|---|---|
| Points earned on the ground (credit cards, insurance, car hire) | Yes — up to 125,000 per transaction |
| Points transferred from another loyalty scheme (e.g. an indirect-earn credit card) | Yes — up to 125,000 per transaction |
| Points from flying | Yes — up to 20,000 per Membership Year |
| Points from a Qantas Business Rewards account | Yes — up to 20,000 per Membership Year |
| Top-up points purchased | Yes — all count |
| Family Transfers | No |
| Loyalty Bonus / Platinum Bonus / Platinum One Bonus | No |
| Refunded points | No |
Three things worth pulling out of that table:
Credit card sign-up bonuses count. A card bonus posts as an on-the-ground earn, so it goes towards your 150,000. This is why a single big card bonus plus a year of normal spend can get an ordinary points collector over the line.
The 125,000-per-transaction cap can clip a big bonus. Qantas counts a maximum of 125,000 points from any single transaction. A bonus credited as one lump sum larger than that loses the excess for Points Club purposes; a bonus paid in instalments (as some cards do) posts as separate transactions, each assessed against the cap on its own. Current bonus sizes and structures are on the Qantas cards page — and if you're curious how those bonuses have moved, see Qantas sign-up bonuses over time.
Flying barely helps. Only 20,000 flight-earned points per year count. Points Club is deliberately built for ground earners — if you fly enough for flight points to matter, you're chasing Status Credits instead.
Transfers from bank programs (Amex Membership Rewards and the like) count as on-ground earn under the same per-transaction cap — the mechanics of getting bank points into Qantas are covered in transferring bank points to Qantas.
What you get
The main benefits, side by side (Qantas Points Club page):
| Benefit | Points Club | Points Club Plus |
|---|---|---|
| Lounge access | Two lounge invitations per Membership Year | Complimentary digital Qantas Club membership |
| Status Credits on Qantas-marketed Classic and Classic Plus Flight Rewards | Yes | Yes |
| Status Credit rollover | — | Up to 100 into next Membership Year |
| Qantas Hotels and Holidays voucher | $50 | $100 |
| Bonus points on Qantas Hotels bookings | 25% | 50% |
| Qantas Wine | Premium membership + $50 voucher | Premium membership + two $50 vouchers + 10% discount |
| Qantas Marketplace discount | 5% | 10% |
| Travel insurance premium points | Double | Triple |
| Avis one-class vehicle upgrade (AU/NZ) | Yes | Yes |
| Milestone bonus at 250,000 points earned | 2,500 points | 2,500 points |
The two that matter in practice:
Status Credits on reward seats. Normally, Classic Flight Rewards earn zero Status Credits. Points Club members earn them on Qantas-marketed reward bookings — the only way in the program to make points-paid flights push you towards Silver or Gold. If tier status is what you're actually chasing, I've ranked the options in fastest ways to earn Qantas Status Credits.
Lounge access. Two invitations a year at the base level is nice-to-have; the Points Club Plus benefit is genuinely valuable — complimentary digital Qantas Club membership for as long as you hold the level, covering Qantas Club and Qantas-operated International Business Lounges when flying Qantas or Jetstar that day. If you hold Gold or above in the same year, the tier lounge benefit prevails — you don't get both.
One more quirk: hit 250,000 points earned in a Membership Year (between the two thresholds) and Qantas drops a 2,500-point Milestone Bonus into your account automatically.
How card collectors actually reach it
Not advice — just the arithmetic of how the thresholds tend to be met:
- A sign-up bonus does the heavy lifting. A single bonus on one of the bigger Qantas cards can cover most of the 150,000 on its own — current offers and bonus sizes are on the Qantas cards page.
- Everyday spend fills the gap. At typical earn rates around 1 point per dollar, ordinary household spend adds tens of thousands over a year.
- Bank-point transfers top it up. Amex and bank program transfers into Qantas count as ground earn, subject to the 125,000-per-transaction cap.
- Timing matters. Points count in the Membership Year they post, not when you spent the money. A bonus that posts a week after your anniversary date counts towards the new year.
Points Club Plus at 350,000 is a different proposition — that's serious volume, usually multiple card bonuses plus heavy spend in a single year.
Worth remembering the points themselves still expire under the normal rule — earning or using points at least once every 18 months keeps the balance alive (Qantas Frequent Flyer Terms and Conditions). More on that in how to keep Qantas Points alive.
The retirement: late 2026
In February 2026 Qantas announced sweeping changes to status and its sub-programs, and Points Club didn't survive them. Per the official program changes page:
- Points Club and Green Tier retire in late 2026. You can keep attaining and retaining until then.
- Existing benefits run to natural expiry. Attain or retain before the retirement date and you keep the benefits through your current Membership Year and until the end of the next one. Vouchers and lounge invitations issued before the date stay valid on their existing terms.
- The replacement is "on the ground" Status Credits. From late 2026, earning Qantas Points across ten categories — credit cards, banking, insurance, utilities, hotels, shopping and more — earns actual Status Credits, capped at 140 per Membership Year, and those count towards Lifetime Status too.
That's a real philosophical shift: instead of a parallel club for spenders, ground earn will feed directly into the same Silver/Gold/Platinum ladder as flying. Whether 140 Status Credits a year (Silver requires 300) is a better deal than Points Club's benefits depends entirely on how much you fly — but it's the deal we're getting.
The short version
- Points Club = 150,000 points earned in a Membership Year; Points Club Plus = 350,000. Unlocks automatically, benefits last until the end of your next Membership Year.
- Credit card earn and sign-up bonuses count, capped at 125,000 points per transaction. Flying points barely count (20,000/year cap).
- Best benefits: Status Credits on Classic Flight Rewards (both levels) and complimentary Qantas Club membership (Plus only).
- The whole program retires in late 2026, replaced by up to 140 on-ground Status Credits a year feeding the main tier ladder. Benefits earned before then run to natural expiry.
