Many airlines loyalty programmes offer lifetime status for their most frequent flyers. All your years of flying accrue and you can hold your status forever. It sounds wonderful really!

Qantas in Australia have lifetime Silver (oneworld Ruby) for 7,000 status credits, and lifetime Gold (oneworld Sapphire) for 14,000 status credits. Another example is British Airways who offer lifetime Gold (in their case, oneworld Emerald) for those who accumulate 35,000 tier points.

Becoming an Expat and Changing Programmes

People who move to another country are faced with a bit of a dilemma. Do you stay with the programme you have always used or do you switch to the one in your new country? Usually it is very beneficial to change to the programme of the new country as perks for flyers of the home airline are higher than that of flying other alliance airlines.


In Australia, Qantas Frequent Flyer is the programme of choice for virtually the entire country. When I moved to Ireland, one of the reasons I was happy to go was the fact Aer Lingus was also a member of oneworld and I could continue to earn points with Qantas. Unfortunately, they left the alliance a couple of years later and I decided to look for alternatives.

British Airways are that alternative, which I am sure comes as a huge surprise to regular readers!

I Want My Lifetime Credit Transferred!

With Qantas, I have 3,999 lifetime credits accrued which means I am well on my way to lifetime Silver. At British Airways I have 4,490 lifetime credits which means I am a long, long way away from lifetime Gold.


Wouldn’t it be nice to be able to transfer this between airlines? I am sure expats understand this well. Our choice to move to another country either temporarily or permanently means that we have lifetime credit sitting in an account we are not using.

Clearly it would make no sense to be able to transfer between airlines in different alliances. Transferring between airlines of the same alliance may be a great idea. Some kind of mathematical formula could be devised to ensure there is no benefit to earning in one airline and transferring to another.

Overall Thoughts

Transferring anything between airlines frequent flyer programmes in the same alliance is generally not done. That is understandable however those who move countries should be able to transfer their lifetime credit if both airlines offer that. It would certainly suit me! Have you had this problem yourself?

Thanks for reading and if you have any comments or questions, please leave them below.

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