How to earn extra airline status credits with your credit card

Qantas and Virgin Australia status credits are normally your reward for flying rather than spending, but two top credit card deals on the market right now can help you boost your status credit tally, useful when climbing through the Silver, Gold or even Platinum frequent flyer ranks.

Certainly, you won’t get there from credit card spend alone, but these extra, plastic-provided status credits could prove useful if you’re close to reaching a new frequent flyer level or are locking-in your current tier for another year, potentially providing year-round perks like airport lounge access and priority check-in.

Whether your loyalty lies with Qantas Frequent Flyer or Virgin Australia Velocity, here’s how to give your hard-earned bounty of status credits an easy bump.

Earn 75 bonus Qantas status credits with ANZ

Note: As of January 2018, ANZ is no longer offering bonus status credits. This content was correct when the article was originally published in October 2017.

With no annual fee in the first year, ANZ’s Frequent Flyer Black Visa credit card is your free ticket to 75 bonus Qantas status credits when you apply and are approved by January 24 2018, and then book and take a return Qantas flight by May 31 2018.

Yes, you still need to travel somewhere, but if you’re earning status credits throughout the year anyway from your regular travels, you may as well book your next journey with this card to earn extra status credits over and above what you’d normally collect in the air.

New ANZ cardholders can also pick up 75,000 bonus Qantas Points after spending $2,500 on eligible purchases within the first three months, and can earn one Qantas Point per dollar spent on everyday purchases up to $7,500 per month (7,500 Qantas Points).

Unlike some banks, ANZ doesn’t cap the overall number of points you can earn each month or year on this card, instead reducing the earn rate to 0.5 Qantas Points per dollar spent (without limit) on transactions beyond the monthly $7,500 ceiling.

Collect 100 bonus Velocity status credits every year with AMEX

While ANZ’s Qantas offer is a one-off boost, American Express Velocity Platinum cardholders can sweep up 100 bonus Velocity status credits each and every year, when $50,000 or more is spent on the card in the 12-month period between annual fees ($375/year).

That’s not an easy goal to reach, but there’s a strategic way to help get you over the line. Because AMEX allows you to have an additional cardholder on the account at no extra charge, you could give a card to your partner or spouse, and have them use it for their everyday spending too, to boost your yearly tally.

For example, an annual spend of $50,000 is on-par with a monthly spend of around $4,168. Divide that by two – because there are two of you making purchases rather than just one – and that’s equal to a monthly spend of $2,084 each, or just over $500 per week per person.

Using the card for the bulk of your everyday purchases, particularly for larger transactions like rent, groceries, utility bills and travel costs, could make that yearly $50,000 target much more achievable, and earn you 1.5 Velocity points per dollar spent on most transactions.

Chris C.

Chris is a a former contributor to Executive Traveller.