Readers who have taken advantage of the Qatar Airways Privilege Club Status Match last year are now facing a possible dilemma as the status extension has only been approved until December 31st.
Qatar Airways also offers members the option to purchase 80 of the 240 required QPoints at a rather steep price in order to extend their status which is obviously only useful in case there were already 160 QPoints collected.
You can access Qatar Airways here.
There were automated emails going out to members (including those who received the tier match) that the status would be extended until December 31, 2021 but this isn’t reflected in the accounts yet. It will only be processed once the actual tier renewal date passes without sufficient QPoints credit.
You can access our articles about the Qatar Airways Status Match here and later about the extension of that promotion.
Here are the programs that Qatar matched from back in June of last year:
- Emirates
- Etihad
- Singapore Airlines
- South African Airways
- Turkish Airlines
- Virgin Australia
Here is the reduced re-qualification criteria for members:
Under normal circumstances with a functioning aviation environment and open borders to facilitate travel this would be rather easy to extend, however 2020/2021 hasn’t been “normal” in any way.
The following messages now display on the Qatar Airways Privilege Club online account:
The information concerning this extension policy on the Qatar Airways website says:
We understand you may need more time to plan your travel. That’s why we want to honour your loyalty as Privilege Club member, ensuring matters beyond your control don’t impact your status with us.
If your tier end date is before 31 December 2021 and you are unable to retain your tier when it is due to end, we’ll automatically extend your tier status so that it is valid until 31 December 2021.
While this is nice I have a feeling that not much is going to change for the remainder of 2021.
This particular account will have 100 QPoints instead of the 240 required by the time June comes around. I can imagine many others will have zero. I can very well see Qatar Airways amending their extension policy again at the end of the year.
For those who are near their required threshold Qatar Privilege Club offers to buy up to 80 QPoints but it comes with a very hefty price:
US$2000 for 80 QPoints is quite frankly insane. We’re talking about Privilege Club Gold / oneWorld Sapphire status here, not some Emerald level. The benefits while certainly nice aren’t worth paying $2000 for, let alone since that’s not even an outright purchase but a substitute for 1/3 of the tier requirement. Hard pass!
Qatar Airways has maintained a very regular flight schedule throughout the pandemic and that made it possible for many who were stranded abroad to return home even while most other carriers have simply stopped flying. I’m sure many travelers feel at least thankful that QR kept flying.
Conclusion
Qatar Airways will extend your tier including those of members who participated in the 2020 status match as long as your end date is before 31 December 2021. If a member is unable to retain the tier when it is due to end, QR will automatically extend your tier status so that it is valid until 31 December 2021.
I saw Qatar (just like most other carriers) will have to extend the status once more because there won’t be much traveling this year given how little progress has been made in most parts of the world. Borders are still tightly controlled which makes both business and leisure travel next to impossible. The extension period of six months has also been very low to begin with, I’m not sure why such a short term was selected unless they were trying to get away with giving out as little as possible for free. Of course this has backfired and now they have to extend it again or lose most of their tier members.
