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Australian public servants will still be able to claim airline status credits following a review by the Department of Finance, in a win for Qantas.
As reported by The Australian Financial Review, Finance has decided against banning bureaucrats from accruing status credits on official bookings, but has made it clear that public servants should not be eligible for promotions offering bonus credits.
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“On 14 November 2025, Finance released an Approach to Market (ATM) to establish a new Australian Government Air Travel Services Arrangement. The ATM closed on 23 December 2025, with the new panel expected to be in place by 1 July 2026,” a Finance spokesperson said.
“The ATM specified that Government Travellers may accrue status credits for Official Travel, but airlines must not provide Government Travellers with access to any additional status credits as part of any promotional, marketing or incentive activity.
“The updated Travel Policy will be published on the Finance website in early 2026.”
The decision is a setback for Virgin Australia, which had argued that public servants being able to claim status credits unfairly benefited Qantas and that removing incentives to comply with “lowest practical fare” policies would benefit taxpayers.
“Our position on status credits is clear. The simplest and most effective way to support compliance with the Lowest Practical Fare policy is to remove loyalty incentives for taxpayer-funded public servant travel,” a Virgin spokesperson said.
Qantas, however, had countered by saying access to airline status benefits including lounges saves the taxpayer “tens of millions” annually.
A Qantas spokesperson told Australian Aviation, “Following consultation with the Government, we introduced measures in August last year to ensure Australian Government travellers on official business travel are not able to participate in ‘double status credit’ promotions.”
Finance’s Report of the Review of Australian Government Travel Policies last year found that the airlines have a fair split of official bookings, according roughly with the share for the general public, and did not recommend banning government travellers from claiming status credits.
As of August 2025, around 3.3 per cent of Qantas bookings and 1.4 per cent of Virgin bookings were for government travel.
Government travellers have not been allowed to claim frequent flyer points for official travel since 2010.
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