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Free Qantas Gold (ie BA Silver) if you have any other Gold card …. with a catch

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Australian airline Qantas is offering to match Gold cards issued by any other airline into the Gold level of its Qantas Frequent Flyer programme.

Because Qantas is a member of the oneworld alliance, your Qantas Frequent Flyer Gold card will have the same benefits as a British Airways Silver card – including giving you British Airways lounge access.  It will also get you status benefits, including lounge access, when flying Emirates.

(Qantas Gold does NOT give you the same benefits as British Airways Gold because Qantas uses a different scale.  Their cards go Silver / Gold / Platinum – plus Platinum One – instead of BA’s Bronze / Silver / Gold.)

There is a catch.  You must be a New Zealand resident to take part.  That is not insurmountable ….

If you have any friends or family in New Zealand, you may be able to temporarily move in with them.  Perhaps your employer has an office in Auckland which could forward your new membership card for you.

Head for Points readers with more cunning minds will be able to come up with some other options as well.  I once managed to get a status match aimed at Italians …..

You can find full details of the status match, and the application form to complete, here.  The only card they will not match is Emirates Skywards because of the joint venture deal they have with Qantas.

In an odd twist, though, residents of New Zealand and Australia are not allowed to join British Airways Executive Club.  This is due to a deal which Qantas and BA signed a long time ago.  It is not clear what Qantas will think of New Zealand residents trying to get a match from BA cards!

You have until March 16th to apply.

You can learn more about Qantas Frequent Flyer here.

PS.  Etihad is also offering a status match at the moment.  I will cover this tomorrow.

Category

oneworld alliance partners

Comments (71)

This article is closed to new comments. Feel free to ask your question in the HfP forums.

  • Johnny5a says:
    24 Feb24 February 07:52

    Perfect for me, Mrs J5a is CX Gold and Jr is BA Silver. I have a friend who lives in NZ 🙂

  • Jay says:
    24 Feb24 February 08:02

    Does it work with Cathay Gold?

  • Jon says:
    24 Feb24 February 08:24

    Just submitted – says I am ‘3 steps away’ from Qantas Gold. It doesn’t say what those steps are though.
    It also says it will take 10 business days.

    • xcalx says:
      24 Feb24 February 08:50

      Did you receive an email after clicking the submit button. I just get the downloading 100% then page seems to freeze.

      • Jon says:
        24 Feb24 February 08:52

        Yup. Got an email at my Qantas registered email address. I had uploaded a photo of my CX card, which uploaded fine. No significantly long delays waiting for pages to load.

        • xcalx says:
          24 Feb24 February 09:08

          Thanks . Got mrs xcalx to go the photo route and received this reply.

          Your good to go.
          We appreciate what your status means to you and appreciate you taking the time to take up this very exclusive offer. We are currently checking through all your details and will be back in touch as soon as possible with confirmation of your Qantas Gold Frequent Flyer membership.

        • Jason says:
          24 Feb24 February 09:20

          Jon

          Do you live there, or have friends there?
          I’d like to do this route as my cx gold( and my wife’s) expire at the end of next month.
          Only use, for me though, is seat selection, if travelling, in CW on BA on a redemption flight.
          Although not quite sure if that will happen after the de-valuation, as I’d use a 241 if F is available( on BA) or Qatar via Iberia plus to take advantage of off peak prices.

          • Jay says:
            26 Feb26 February 23:05

            How do you book seats at time of booking on BA with CX gold?

          • Rob says:
            26 Feb26 February 23:37

            Either book without being logged in, adding the Cathay number as you go, or book logged in to ba.com and then swap over your frequent flyer number using the Finnair or Qatar websites’ Manage My Booking function. (I know this sounds odd but it works even though it is a BA flight.) You can then go back into ba.com and it will let you select seats.

  • darrenf says:
    24 Feb24 February 08:43

    My CX gold expires next month and I have friends and colleagues in NZ. Thanks Raffles!

    • The_Real_A says:
      24 Feb24 February 09:15

      Did you get this via AMEX? Ifso dont forget everyone got a free 6 month extention…

      • Anup says:
        24 Feb24 February 10:00

        Is there a link for this?

      • Mark says:
        24 Feb24 February 10:43

        Not everyone. I didn’t, although to be fair I had cancelled the Amex Platinum and never credited any tier point or miles earning flights to the CX account.

  • xcalx says:
    24 Feb24 February 10:10

    Will not match Oneworld partners.
    Ein Status Match mit anderen oneworld® Partner Airlines ist nicht möglich.

  • Mark says:
    24 Feb24 February 10:46

    Interesting… I thought Air Berlin were generally generous when it came to matching non-OneWorld status, yet this implies a hard cut-off of the end of April.

  • Shaun Jones says:
    24 Feb24 February 11:48

    A short while back I managed a CX Gold (Amex Platinum benefit) match to Gulf Flaconflyer Gold (2 year validity) and then matched this to Air Berlin topbonus Gold (1 year validity). Will see if my CX Gold is extended – I did take one flight to Australia with them.

  • Shaun Jones says:
    24 Feb24 February 11:49

    Sorry * Falconflyer

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