Qantas Aquire: earning frequent flyer points for your business

Make it your mission to maximise your businesses' potential to earn Qantas Aquire points, which can later be converted to Qantas Frequent Flyer points.

Qantas’ Aquire scheme rewards businesses for their everyday expenses like insurance, car hire, and of course, for Qantas flights taken by staff.

Aquire Points are amassed without affecting the frequent flyer earning of a company’s business travellers, and membership is open to any entity – large or small – with an ABN.

That means that on Qantas flights, road warriors continue to earn both frequent flyer points and status credits, while the business notches up Aquire Points at the same time.

Aquire Points can later be funnelled to Qantas Frequent Flyer on a 1:1 basis – whether that’s to the accounts of employees as a reward or to clients as a ‘thank you’ gesture.

Savvy businesses could also use Aquire Points to offset their hefty travel costs by swapping them for award seats or flight upgrades through Qantas Frequent Flyer.

It costs just $89.50 to join the program but then nothing to renew your membership year-on-year: just head to the Qantas Aquire website to enrol.

Earning Aquire Points: the basics

Through Qantas’ non-air partners, including Secure Parking, GIO Business Insurance, Staples and QBE, you’re awarded Aquire Points which are ready for immediate redemption, unlike 'pending Aquire Points' which can't be redeemed straight away:

Regular Aquire Points don't expire if you earn or redeem them at least once every 18 months, although pending points do expire and reset to zero at the end of each membership year – so if you or your employees don’t fly very often and don't spend heavily with Aquire partners on the ground, you may struggle to find benefit with the program.

To unlock that pending balance and save your points from expiry, you’ll need to earn at least 20,000 points from flights and book paid travel for at least two employees. Any ‘pending Aquire Points’ then simply become Aquire Points, and can be redeemed as desired.

From air travel, businesses can earn up to 1,000,000 Aquire Points each year, although there’s no cap on the number of points earned from all other partners.

Earning Aquire Points in the air

Whether pending or confirmed, Aquire Points are earned when an employee travels on a Qantas (QF) flight number on Qantas, QantasLink, American Airlines and Emirates flights.

Flights taken on other Oneworld partners such as British Airways and Cathay Pacific – or on Jetstar, Qantas’ low-cost offshoot – don’t attract Aquire Points, even if booked on the QF code.

The number of points earned is based on the haul of a Bronze-tier frequent flyer on that same flight, and oddly, to earn Aquire points, the traveller's Qantas Frequent Flyer number also needs to be attached.

In economy, Aquire pays out 30-40% on the Bronze rate and a straight 40% across all premium economy fares.

Business class travel earns between 40 and 50% in Aquire, while anything in first class is a solid 50%.

Simply put, on a business class flight from Sydney to Melbourne a regular Bronze frequent flyer would earn 1,400 points under the revised ‘minimum points guarantee’.

From that flight, the less-expensive business class tickets would see 560 pending Aquire Points (40%) hitting the business’ account, while the more flexible fares amass 700 Aquire Points (50%).

Unlike personal Qantas frequent flyer points – which come with bonuses for Silver, Gold and Platinum travellers – Aquire doesn’t award bonuses for frequent flyer status.

These can take a week to appear online, and don’t necessarily arrive at the same time as the traveller’s frequent flyer points.

Earning Aquire Points on the ground

Earning points on the ground is as simple as quoting your Aquire membership number (your ABN) when transacting with any of the program's partners:

Where a business is partner to both Aquire and Qantas Frequent Flyer, just be sure to select the correct program – such as with Secure Parking when reserving a car space online:

The number of points you’ll earn varies from partner to partner, although it's generally between one and three Aquire Points per dollar spent, with the exception of the Westpac BusinessChoice Aquire Rewards card, reeling in two Aquire Points for every $3 charged.

Redeeming Aquire Points

The only way to redeem Aquire Points is to send them across to Qantas Frequent Flyer on a 1:1 basis – so if you’d like to book a flight, they’ll need to be converted and then redeemed.

Transfers aren’t limited by number, rather quantity – a minimum of 3,000 Aquire Points can be converted at a time, and you’re only able to convert fully-fledged ‘Aquire Points’, not those trapped pending points unless you've reached the 20,000-point target.

After shipping them over to a Qantas Frequent Flyer account, they’re exactly the same as any normal frequent flyer point and can be swapped for award flights, upgrades and other rewards.

They also face the same expiry rules as all other Qantas Points, which require members to earn or redeem Qantas Points at least once every 18 months to keep their account active.

Also read: 1,000 free Aquire Points and one year Regus membership

Follow Australian Business Traveller on Twitter: we're @AusBT

Chris C.

Chris is a a former contributor to Executive Traveller.