Clever or crazy? How I cracked the airline status game with one flight

Would you fly to Brisbane and back overnight without leaving the airport? This traveller's quest for airline perks reveals the extremes some will go to.

Would you hang out in an airport in your quest for gold status? Picture: iStock

You may think I was stupid for doing this, but hear me out.

Recently I jumped on a plane at 8pm, flew more than two hours to Brisbane, hung around in the international arrivals hall there for five hours, then flew back – arriving home by 8am.

No, I don’t have a weird fetish for spending the very early hours of the morning on an airport chair surrounded by international travellers and their crying babies.

But I do have – perhaps disturbingly – a thirst for chasing airline rewards, including status credits.

Frequent flyer points have effectively become a currency for travellers and shoppers, and status credits are, too, for those seeking some extra luxury.

While millions of Aussies can turbocharge their frequent flyer point balances through shopping, credit card use and, of course, travelling, building a decent pile of status credits mainly requires people to fly.

Airport lounge access is a key benefit for people with more status credits. Picture: iStock

For the uninitiated, Qantas and Virgin allow frequent flyers to move up status levels and get fancy perks with each new level attained. These perks include extra points earned on flights, priority boarding at airports, bigger baggage allowances, enjoying airline lounges around the world and getting first dibs on reward flight bookings before lower-status flyers get a look-in.

Each program has five levels. Qantas Frequent Flyer has bronze, silver, gold, platinum and platinum one, while Virgin’s Velocity has red, silver, gold, platinum and platinum plus.

It’s around gold level where the benefits start to kick in significantly, including free access to airport lounges and priority boarding.

So, back to this crazy Brisbane trip. After almost two decades of trying to reach coveted gold status I was tantalising close.

I would have been that close well before the annual deadline if not for a family emergency that meant flights booked earlier in the year had to be cancelled.

I couldn’t let the chance to hit gold escape me. My deadline was looming, so using some frequent flyer points and a few dollars, I booked the return Brisbane flight knowing I would never leave the airport.

Qantas and Virgin offer valuable perks to people with status credits. Picture: iStock

Sure, it seems crazy. But for me the perks were too alluring. I no longer wallow at the back of the queue. Airlines have made booking and boarding an exercise in class prejudice. Even your boarding pass on your phone is colour coded to your status.

There will the frequent flyer aficionados who will point out I wasted points and money by booking the Brisbane excursion, but putting a price on the perks made it personally worthwhile.

You can’t buy status credits and traditionally they have flowed in decent amounts only to frequent business or international travellers.

However, today both major airlines allow people to earn them in other ways.

Velocity lets people earn status credit up to a maximum of 120 per year through shopping for groceries and booze using Flybuys or through some credit cards.

Meanwhile, Qantas recently announced an initiative to allow its frequent flyer program members to earn up to 110 status credits via eight categories including Qantas-linked credit cards, food and wine, shopping and hotels. However, to get gold status with Qantas you must collect 700 credits in one year, and 600 annually to maintain it, so there’s still a fair amount of flying required. To reach gold with Virgin you need 500 status credits and to maintain it requires 400 status credits.

Boarding a commercial flight has become a class prejudice exercise. Picture: iStock

The simplest way to build a status credit balance quickly is by flying long distance and/or business class or, for a fortunate few, first class.

A long-haul flight in economy can deliver almost 100 status credits each way, and the credits can be earned on partner airlines, not just Virgin or Qantas.

But beware of booking traps. For example, while Qantas customers can earn status credits on Emirates flights, they come only if you book the Emirates flight with a QF flight number. For Virgin’s partnership with Qatar Airways, it can have a QR or VA flight number.

Another booking trap can be timing. Just like frequent flyer points, you earn the status credits only once you have flown and not once you’ve paid for it. So don’t get to the end of your frequent flyer year coming up a few credits short of the next tier.

If you get this timing wrong, you might find yourself flying to Brissie and back in one night.