Qantas to Soon Have its 10 Millionth Frequent Flyer

4th Feb 2014

The national flag carrier is expanding its loyalty program, banking on the robust spending habits of Australians.

On the first week of February, the airline is expected to launch its new service, the Qantas Restaurants which allows its frequent flyer members to book a table at more than 2,500 restaurants across the country and earn for themselves 100 Qantas Points for each diner booked. If a booking constitutes 5 persons, that booking will earn for the group a total of 500 points.

The total points that they automatically get for the booking will add up to the points that they will earn if they use credit card or Qantas Cash debit card when paying for their meal.

Dimmi, a popular Australian review and booking service powered the Qantas Restaurants booking site and is now online.

The airline has also entered into partnership with Cruise Guru, an online cruise specialist, earlier this month, to enable its frequent flyer members to book their favorite cruise destinations in over 10,000 itineraries. The partnership will officially mark the airline's entry into the cruise market.

Frequent flyer members will be able to earn one point for every dollar spent on the cruise booking.

The launch of the airline's own debit card called Qantas Cash is considered to be the biggest highlight of its Frequent Flyer program.

Members will be able to earn one point for every two dollars spent using the debit card for domestic transactions as against 1 to 1 for overseas transactions.

Since its launch, the airline saw a 61% increase in money loaded onto the debit cards and a 250% spike in spending using the card during the month of December.

Qantas is also preparing to launch a small business rewards program, called Aquire, in the latter part of the first quarter.

According to its Chief Marketing Officer for Qantas Loyalty, Stephanie Tully, Aquire is designed to be as important to their business as Frequent Flyer program is to the consumers. In this scheme, any company holding a Australian Business Number (ABN) can register for the program and earn points in the process on top of the regular Qantas Frequent Flyer points.

The airline is reportedly selling 49% of its Frequent Flyer program to stem its nearly $300 million estimated loss that it accumulated over the last half of the previous year. The sale is estimated to yield for Qantas between $1.3 and $1.6 billion, which is not bad.

Citigroup and Macquarie are the rumored investors of the airline's lucrative loyalty program, which saw a whooping $1.2 billion in sales that resulted to an earning of $260 million last year.