Hellboy666

Hi all.

I am currently at 1200 status credits with Quantas and my membership year ends on 28/Feb/2017. I have a flight booked back to Australia with Cathay Pacific EWR - HKG - MEL for the 24-25/Feb/2017 which gives 220 credits according to Qantas calculator so this would push me over the required 1400 to gain Platinum status. However this is very close to end of my membership year.

Is anyone able to tell me if in case the points are credited late by Cathay (e.g. in March) will I still get the status? Does Qantas count the status points based on the flight date or when they receive the data from other airlines?
There is a note in the activity statement that data from other airlines can sometimes take weeks to appear.

I won't do additional flights within US with AA just to push the status credits.

Thanks heaps for the help.

Cheers

Dave Noble

Flights will be credited as per the date of travel . Even if they credit after the end of the membership year, they will count for the old membership year and you will attain the status if you have met the criteria

Hellboy666

Good to hear, thank you

Platy

To concur with Dave. ^+1

I spoke to QF about this issue s few weeks ago and, yes, status credits are totalled based on date of travel.

Hellboy666

Thanks to you as well. Makes US travels for the rest of the year a bit more rewaring

Platy

(I guess we're assuming that you have also done the required four QF sectors in your membership year (?)).

Hellboy666

Yep thats the easy part, all flights so far are with QF (last one should have been CX as well, but they overbooked and rebooked me to QF - which came pretty handy for 100 credits more haha)
Next membership year is the challenge to do the 4 to keep status, depends on which flights are chosen by employer. Apparently one can't book AA flights within US as the codeshare QF number, or is there a way? (though going offtopic now, probably I just check on this later)

Dave Noble

If you are based in the USA, then you might well be better off changing programmes to AA ,especially if travelling in premium cabins.

You would also no longer need to worry about 4 flights on a specific carrier

Platy

Another angle...QF usually provides Platinums with a soft landing to Gold the subsequent year if they do not make the target of the 1200 renewal status credits in year 1.

If you can live with QF Gold in year 2 options open up (and IMHO very worthwhile advice from Dave Noble's wrt AAdvantage and this rider that his would be especially beneficial for premium cabins).

Dave Noble

if the passenger is , as it would seem, doing a fair bit of premium travel, it seems quite feasible that the passenger will do the 50k-67k travel needed per year to attain Executive Platinum status

Platy

...and therefore should enjoy a very favourable outcome per AAdvantage!

Dave Noble

Ya. Attain EP status and travel business class on AA ( or AA codeshare ) from US-AU and could easily be earning 75,000 miles per trip where ticket is $7000 as an EP member ( almost enough for a 1 way business class redemption with no surcharges to pay )

shuuy

Yes, earn 11 mi per $, but then only 2x or 3x EQMs. So ExPlat for the next year requires 3 SYD-JFK round trips. ;-)

Hellboy666

Wow that much feedback. Thanks for the advice. Though AA is not an option, as I am based in AU and just travelling in 2017 a couple times to US, afterwards it'll be EU, and then not yet sure about schedules. I still want to retain the QF membership to have benefits for Jetstar as well (as those don't work with other Oneworld - I had MH Gold before).

Gold in the following year is no issue, thats basically what I am aiming for, just flew a lot right at end of membership year that brought me just within the Platinum range.
Next offtopic, to get Gold after expiry of Platinum year, do I need to get the "attain" 700 or "retain" 600 credits?

Platy

It is the usual practice of QF to provide a "soft landing" to Gold after your Platinum year.

It is my understanding that this is irrespective of your status credit total (others please confirm or refute)...

So:

Year 1 - Platinum (during which credits don't matter since there'll be a soft landing to Gold anyway)
Year 2 - Gold (during which attain 600 credits and 4 sectors)
Year 3 - Gold (if Year 2 objectives met)