Qantas Lifetime Platinum Frequent Flyer: is it worth it?

Achieving Qantas Lifetime Gold status is no small feat. As the name suggests, it often takes years of devoted flying to unlock – and given the roll call of lofty benefits that come with it, it’s widely considered the sweet spot in the loyalty program.

Yet there is another tier above this: Lifetime Platinum, and its existence places Qantas on an elite list of only a handful of airlines offering lifetime status at its highest tiers, alongside fellow Oneworld members British Airways and Finnair.

To say it’s a high bar for reaching Lifetime Platinum is a bit of an understatement too. Loyal travellers need to amass a stratospheric 75,000 status credits across the lifetime of their Qantas Frequent Flyer membership – 61,000 more than for Lifetime Gold.

Is it worth the effort to achieve it? That’s entirely up to you and how highly you value benefits like access to international first and domestic business class lounges for the rest of your days.

That said, there is an easier path to those perks, which we’ll touch on below.

How to earn Qantas Lifetime Platinum status

To pocket a Qantas Lifetime Platinum card, you’ll need to ratchet up a massive total of 75,000 lifetime status credits throughout your Qantas Frequent Flyer membership. Make no mistake, that’s a lot of flying. 

It’s the equivalent of 938 business class return trips between Sydney and Melbourne; 300 return business class treks between Sydney and Singapore; or almost 130 business class return trips between Sydney and London. All up? Over 6,000 bum-numbing hours in the air.

Anyone unlocking Lifetime Platinum would be intimately familiar with every seat in the network.

Comparing it to Qantas’ two other lifetime status programs; it’s more than ten times the threshold for Lifetime Silver, and almost six times that of Lifetime Gold. If you’ve earned it, you’ve really earned it.

Keep in mind, however, that Loyalty Bonus and Double Status Credit promotions do count towards your Lifetime Platinum tally, meaning that with a bit of help and booking at the right time, seriously high flyers might actually have a realistic chance of locking away one of these lifetime memberships.

Extra perks for Lifetime Platinum members

Qantas Lifetime Platinum perks mirror those of year-by-year Platinum status holders, including access to Qantas International First Lounges, double Qantas Points on flights, priority check in and Oneworld Emerald status, albeit without the annual status renewal.

Qantas' Singapore First Lounge is one of those you'll enjoy lifetime access to.

On top of that, however, Qantas’ top-tier lifetime status comes with perks, service and recognition above and beyond standard Qantas Frequent Flyer Platinum, rolled into a secret set of "unpublished benefits" - such as the ability to open up award seats.

Is it worth aiming for Qantas Lifetime Platinum?

With such a high number of Status Credits needed to achieve Lifetime Platinum after you’ve hit the 14,000 needed for Lifetime Gold, it’s worth pausing to consider where you go next after achieving what is already a highly useful status.

Lifetime Platinum is virtually unreachable for all but the most regular of high flyers.

Our shiny solution is to chase Lifetime Gold status in British Airways’ Executive Club (BAEC) which is, for now, the closest thing you can get to lifetime Qantas Platinum.

You'll earn BAEC frequent flyer points (which BA calls Avios) on services with British Airways flight numbers, including codeshare services, such as Qantas flights in and from Australia; around the USA with American Airlines and with other Oneworld partners.

The magic number for benefits similar to Qantas Platinum is 35,000 BAEC tier points, which equates with Oneworld Emerald status.

How many tier points you’ll earn depends on both the fare you’ve paid and how far you’re flying. 

British Airways' Boeing 787 Club Suite is certainly a nice place to while away the hours.

Seventy-three return business class trips from Sydney to London, for example, will get you that much-awaited Lifetime Oneworld Emerald card, and that’s assuming you don’t travel anywhere else.

That’s basically eight trips each year for 10 years, which isn’t out of reach for some – and when you combine other domestic and international travel, the wait is shorter still.

Mixing in domestic connections from Melbourne or Brisbane to Sydney at the start and end of those journeys reduces the climb to 63 return trips: shedding two years off your wait for a lifetime of Platinum-grade luxury.

That said, you won't get all the benefits of Qantas Platinum status, such as those extra points or priority on upgrades – but you’ll enjoy what we consider to be 'core travel perks' such as airport lounge access, priority check in and a more generous checked baggage allowance.

There’s no doubt that Lifetime Platinum status is one for the seriously heavy-hitters of the Qantas frequent flyer program, and racking up those 75,000 Status Credits requires an enormous amount of spend with Qantas - making the lifetime Gold status with the British Airways Executive Club program a much more enticing alternative.