Australian public servants will still be able to claim airline status credits following a review by the Department of Finance, in a victory for Qantas.
As reported by The Australian Financial ReviewFinance has decided not to prohibit bureaucrats from accumulating status credits in official reserves, but has made clear that civil servants should not be eligible for promotions that offer bonus credits.
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“On 14 November 2025, Finance published an Approach to Market (ATM) to establish a new Australian Government Air Travel Services Agreement. The ATM closed on 23 December 2025, and the new dashboard is expected to be operational on 1 July 2026,” a Finance spokesperson said.
“The ATM specified that Government Travelers may accumulate status credits for official travel, but airlines must not provide Government Travelers 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 allowing public servants 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 civil servant travel,” a Virgin spokesperson said.
Qantas, however, responded by saying that access to the benefits of airline status, including lounges, saves the taxpayer “tens of millions” annually.
A Qantas spokesperson told Australian Aviation: “In consultation with the government, we introduced measures in August last year to ensure Australian Government travelers on official business trips cannot participate in ‘dual status credit’ promotions.”
Finance Australian Government Travel Policy Review Report Last year it found that airlines have a fair share of official bookings, roughly in line with the share for the general public, and did not recommend banning government travelers from claiming status credits.
In August 2025, around 3.3 per cent of Qantas bookings and 1.4 per cent of Virgin bookings were for government travel.
Government travelers have not been allowed to claim frequent flyer points for official travel since 2010.
