I am looking to purchase 6 domestic flights (Brisbane > Sydney) and 6 hotel rooms (Circular Quay) soon for October 2022 as gifts for an upcoming special event.
I’m wondering if I’m able to earn points with any airline frequent flyer program or hotel loyalty program by purchasing flights and rooms that I won’t be using myself.
I have an Amex Platinum Charge Card, and a preference for earning Qantas points over Velocity Points (but obviously beggars can’t be choosers in this scenario). I don’t own my own business so can’t go down that route either.
You can put those purchases on the platinum card. That has a pretty decent points earn rate and you can transfer to Qantas or Virgin or a ton of other partners later down the line.
As for the actual frequent flyer miles and the hotel miles, it depends on if they are your family members and are you staying with them at the hotel.
For flights, if they are your family, you can transfer points from each family’s account to your own family account. And for Virgin, you can even pool together their status credits as well.
Obviously, if you want to earn Qantas points, you should book a Qantas flight.
Hotels are a little bit different. You can book all 6 rooms under your name provided you are the one that checks them all in. So if you are travelling with these people, its a relatively simple process and you’ll have all the points and nights go straight to your desired loyalty program. BUT, if this is a gift where you aren’t participating, I’m afraid you are out of luck.
With the 6 hotel rooms, I will physically be able to go and check them all in myself. Do you know if this is against hotel rules in general? i.e. when i’m at reception checking in 6 rooms, they’re going to know I can’t possibly be sleeping in all 6 myself. Are they likely to make me change the names of the bookings to the individuals staying in the rooms?
No it shouldn’t be against the rules if you make 1 single booking with the 6 rooms in your name. Just as you might book 2 rooms for a family holiday, you can use the same method for booking 6 rooms. Make sure this is all booked under the one loyalty program account and you’ll be good to go for earning points for all 6 rooms. Note though that qualifying nights (for status) is typically restricted to one room. So if you stay 3 nights, you’ll get three nights, and you won’t get more for each additional room.
