What are frequent flyer status points? How to earn status points with airlines

Want to boost your status when you fly? Perhaps join those privileged people who disappear through the doors of business class lounges even when they're slumming it in economy class? What gets you inside is status credits.

Status credits 101

Status credits are what determine your frequent flyer membership tier. As well as getting you into business lounges, you get a suite of other perks that get ever more desirable as you climb the membership ladder.

Qantas has five membership tiers, one more than most airlines. Sign up for the Qantas Frequent Flyer program and you're a bronze member by default. Earn 300 status credits and you graduate to silver, which gets you more frequent flyer points each time you fly with Qantas, one complimentary lounge invitation, preferential access to Classic Flight Rewards seats, priority check-in, extra baggage allowance and a complimentary bag tag. Next up is gold, which gives you access to 600 Oneworld lounges around the globe and a better chance of scoring those elusive flight reward seats which you buy with frequent flyer points. Make it to the heady heights of platinum one and you get all that plus the highest upgrade priority, complimentary platinum status for a friend or family member and bonus Qantas points with every flight.

Virgin Australia has four membership tiers: platinum, gold, silver and red (the default). Rewards are similar, thought platinum status entitles you to four free upgrades to business class on domestic flights each year.

Frequent flyer points vs status credits

Buy a new fridge from a retailer or sign up for an airline-affiliated insurance policy and you might collect a swag of frequent flyer points, but there are far fewer opportunities for earning status credits. Also, unlike frequent flyer points, you can't buy anything with status credits, including flights aboard the airline you've earned them from. What they buy you is a chummier relationship with the airline. Beyond the basic level membership you get more frequent flyer points when you fly, lounge access which becomes more liberal as you climb the status ladder, improved access to frequent flyer seats and preferential upgrades.

Frequent flyer points don't have the same cachet with airlines since they do not necessarily reflect how often or how far you've flown with a particular airline. You can harvest 150,000 frequent flyer points just by signing up for a high-reward credit card – and you can have a million points and still languish on the lowest membership tier. While you can earn status credits without leaving the ground, airlines make it a condition that you must fly with them at least once per year to maintain your membership tier.

Airlines sell their frequent flyer points to merchants, which use them to attract buyers, and for some airlines that's a lucrative revenue stream. But the airline is the de facto exchange bureau which decides what its frequent flyer points are worth. As people accumulate more and more points, airlines can adjust how many flight miles those points are worth and restrict what seats they'll buy. During peak times airlines typically strangle their reward seats since they can fill those seats with fare-paying passengers. That's not the case with status credits. The number of credits required to maintain your membership tier or to graduate to the next tier is fixed. Once you've attained a membership tier the privileges are locked in, at least until it comes time to renew membership the following year.