Qantas Club members have had little opportunity to access Qantas Clubs since March/April this year. At the time, Qantas announced a six-month extension to membership expiries to reflect the closure of the lounge network.
For a time, it looked as though the six month extension would be enough. Things were getting back to normal, and lounges started to reopen. Unfortunately, the path to returning to normal stalled, and, well, things aren’t all that much better at the moment. In fact, many lounges remain closed, and with border closures and restrictions, people still aren’t flying that much.
As a result, Qantas is extending Qantas Club memberships by another six months. For many members, this will mean they will have received a total of 12 months over the original expiry date. That consists of the original six month extension, and now the second extension.
Qantas Club in 2020
Back in March, as the country was shutting down and restrictions introduced, Qantas had to shut down its Qantas Club lounges. This included all their international and domestic lounges.
As mentioned, their initial response was to extend all paid memberships by six months. Now it is six months later. While Qantas has managed to open a handful of lounges, many remain closed. At present, there is no indication of when they may reopen. According to Qantas, they will reopen when demand allows.
Qantas Club Extension
According to the Qantas website, all paid members current on 23 September 2020, will get an additional six months of membership. As a result, anyone that currently has a membership expiring on or after 23 September will gain an additional six months.
Lounge Invitations
In addition, most complimentary lounge invitations will be extended by a further six months. This extension will be automatically applied, and the new expiration date will be visible in your online profile.
There are a couple of exceptions to the extension of the lounge invitations. In particular, lounge invitations received by renewing silver members, and those received through the Qantas Points Club will not be extended.
Thoughts
At the time of the initial extension, Qantas probably thought six months was enough. It almost turned out that way, but it wasn’t to be. It is good to see Qantas come to the party with a further extension.
Virgin Australia moved to make similar extensions at the same time. Since then we have heard little from them on how they plan to handle the extended closure of their own lounges. Hopefully, we will hear something on that front in the not too distant future.
