Qantas Frequent Flyer - Maintaining Platinum status without earning sufficient status credits
Last year, without me requesting it, Qantas was kind enough to allow me to maintain for an extra 12 months my Platinum FF status despite me not accummulating sufficient status credits (in fact, because I was based overseas for 2 years, I barely used Qantas or any other OneWorld partner airlines). My Platinum status is due to expire in April and I have once again failed to accummulate sufficient status credits (again, because I was based overseas). Does anyone have any similar experiences? What could I expect to happen? I have just written to Qantas seeking an extension of my Platinum status and have stated (honestly) that I would like to maintain this status because I will be returning to my Australian-based job in July where I expect to undertake significant domestic travel (which is how I attained Platinum status to start with). Any advice relevant to this topic would be most appreciated.
perthite
Feb 17, 07, 5:37 pm
There is another thread that discusses peoples experience with this : http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=383787
For most people one of two things seems to happen:
1) Qantas extend it automatically without any input from the FF user
2) Qantas send a 'please explain' letter requesting details of your expected flying in the next twelve months. This is normally sent about two months prior to your anniversay. Depedning on your response (and in my experience they want to know details of the flights you expect to take e.g. between A and B 5 times in economy) they will either grant you an extenison or not. If not, you only fall back one level at a time, so you could expect that you will get gold status.
There is a fair bit of discussion about this issue here:
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=383787
You will be able to piece together an answer from the last page (or so) of postings. Basically, wait for the "show cause" letter or call and see where it goes. Having some long haul Business or First bookings in the system won't hurt either.