Here at Point Hacks, we often hear stories of frustrations with frequent flyer programs and sometimes they can turn into good news.
Point Hacks reader Adam shared his story with us:
I recently had what I consider to be a big Point Hacks win with Qantas, and it is ultimately down to the content that you share and publish. I wanted to share my experience as I think others could learn something and it may help them avoid suffering a similar fate.
In April 2017, my grandfather transferred about 112,000 Qantas Points to my mum. Unlike myself, she does not check her points balance on a daily or weekly balance and was left shocked when she logged in and all of her points had disappeared.
What Mum did not realise at the time of transfer was that her current points balance (at that time, a mere 12,000 points) was due to expire in May 2017 due to almost 18 months of inactivity. I am well aware that family transfers do not count as activity, but I was extremely surprised to learn that any points transferred across take on the same age as the balance in the account.
To cut a long story short, she called me quite angry and upset. She had not received any emails alerting her to the fact that her points were due to expire—I do not believe she would have intentionally ignored these emails—and the person on the phone who processed the transfer did not mention anything either. I advised her to call Qantas and get as much information as possible and try to reason with them to have the points reinstated.
She had no luck.
I then called Qantas on her behalf and spoke with a lady who was actually really helpful and somewhat empathetic—if you are a reader too, thanks Angeline! Thanks to Point Hacks, I had read about a case where points were reinstated once a points challenge was completed. I asked Angeline if she could put this in place and after being on hold for six minutes and then another two, she said she would do it as a gesture of goodwill—but only this one time.
All Mum had to do was earn 2,500 points within the next six months and her balance of around 124,000 points would be reinstated.
As soon as I was off the phone, I sent Mum the link to Qantas EpiQure and got her set up with six bottles of red wine delivered to her door for $140, with 5,000 bonus points included.
And now my mum has been happily reunited with her six-figure Qantas Points balance and plans to use it on a return flight to Los Angeles—though I’m trying to convince her not to make an Economy Class redemption as it represents poor value, something I’m sure you know!
We are really happy to hear that Adam’s mum got her points back and thank Adam for sharing his story with our community.
She may consider putting her balance to work with one of the best uses of Qantas Points, including premium cabin travel with Emirates, a trip to Western Australia in a lie-flat seat, or save up some more points for a round-the-world trip in Business Class!
Have you had any experiences with Qantas Points expiring? Were you able to get them reinstated?
My husband’s points (167,000) expired 1 Dec 19. I discovered this and called Qantas today, 7 Jan 20. I have challenged this and I’m waiting back for a call from the Qantas rep’s supervisor. Will update.
– Expiry policy came into place ~2000. After I joined the program.
– I did not receive emailed statements or warning of pending expiry because my email preference for account related emails is set to NO. I do not recall making this setting intentionally so suspect it is because I did not have have an email address when I joined in 1996.
– When QFF cannot email the statement because of email preference they do nothing. No Call, no SMS or no statement in the post.
– I cannot ‘challenge’ because my points expired over 6 months ago.
The QFF representative I spoke to even had the gall to thank me for the constructive feedback regarding the deficiency in their communication, before adding that nothing could be done to reinstate the points. To me that is admitting fault but not accepting the responsibility.
BUT, worry not, because here’s what I did – with the help of really lovely customer service folks, especially Mickey who made everything happen over two separate calls, and Jenny who originally let me know you can do this (if you ever read this, thank you SO much). If it’s too late to get a points challenge, the only other way I was offered was that if there was a flight I had taken in the eighteen months before the points expired that was eligible for me to claim points on, my old points would be reinstated.
It happened that my parents had booked a couple of flights for me in that time frame (so obviously no points because they hadn’t booked them). I was able to claim them, and because the reps who helped me were so nice (again, especially Mickey), the claims were fast-tracked – I needed the points ASAP to head to a wedding I wouldn’t have otherwise been able to afford. I got ALL 70,000 of my expired points back, plus the points of the flights I claimed (thanks mum and dad).
I do want to point out that it was me being negligent of the points that made them expire, but in my defence, I was a child when I first got the account and I never even knew that points could expire.
Anyway, a happy ending for me and my points, we’ll be heading to a wedding in a few weeks! 🙂
p.s. don’t significantly change your behaviour for the sake of points, but given that I always shop at Woolies because it’s closest I’m finally going to set up a rewards card and set it to reward me with Qantas points so that I don’t have to stress about this happening again. and get the Qantas app just in case.
What does the 2 sources mean. I have 1 credit card linked to QFF but does it mean you must have 2 cards linked to QFF programme? OR using my 1 credit card can I go to various retailers for groceries and liquor, stay at various hotels etc etc. AND is there any limitation over the 6 month period when you can go to these retailers or outlets.
I would be very grateful for guidance as there are a lot of points involved and they disappeared without any notification to me.
Similar happened to my husband and I felt so sick once I saw a big fat zero on his points balance. Yes we were able to reclaim the points back after agreeing to entering the ‘qantas points challenge’…!!????
But we had to earn 2500 points within 6mths FROM 2 DIFFERENT sources. I ordered a carton of wine from epicure, chosen from the points bonuses that are on offer, this is not enough to get the expired points back. From your article it sounded like this is all he had to do but it isn’t the case. It is 2 sources.
So I phoned qantas and the lady understood and I had enough points because of the epicure promotion so my 2nd source I paid $20 on my creditcard and bought a minimum of points. That got me the 2 sources, boom, points back ✋
I just wanted to let you know that qantas customers must make purchases from 2 sources!
For instance:
https://www.smh.com.au/business/consumer-affairs/cancer-patient-asking-for-qantass-compassion-after-frequent-flyer-points-wiped-20180105-h0dt74.html
Perhaps they should keep it in situations like the story you’ve told where it is a case of ‘I forgot’ or ‘I didn’t know’. In instances where it was ‘I couldn’t go due to illness’ like what I’ve linked to, perhaps they should simply just reinstate it as a matter of goodwill.
Just my 2c. I am sure there are people that disagree with me.