Qantas and Virgin Australia have teamed up with several international hospitality brands to allow members of their Qantas and Velocity loyalty schemes to earn points on domestic and international hotel stays.

With many of these hotels, guests will need to join the hotel’s own loyalty programme first, then push points towards their airline loyalty membership.

Accor’s Le Club scheme allows members to earn Le Club points when staying at Accor properties – such as Sofitel, Pullman, Novotel and Mercure hotels – and later convert the points to airline frequent flyer miles. Point awards depend on which hotel brand you’re staying with and your membership tier, and as soon as you’ve earned 4,000 Le Club Points, these can be converted to an equivalent number of Qantas frequent flyer points. The minimum 4,000 points can also be converted to 2,000 points with the loyalty schemes of British Airways, Cathay Pacific, Emirates, Etihad, and Singapore Airlines, among other airlines. Le Club points can also be used to fund future stays at Accor properties.

Hilton HHonors members can earn airline frequent flyer miles by setting their earning preferences to ‘Points & Miles’. For stays at Hilton brand properties, including Hilton, Conrad, Waldorf Astoria, and DoubleTree, members will earn 10 HHonors points per US$1 spent, along with two Virgin Australia Velocity points or one point or mile with Qantas, Singapore Airlines, United, Emirates, Etihad, and others. The second option is to select the ‘Points & Points’ earning preference, which allows guests to earn 15 HHonors points per US$1, which can then be manually converted to frequent flyer miles as 1,5000 miles with Qantas or Virgin Australia, or 1,000 points on most other airlines.

For stays at InterContinental Hotels, Hualuxe, Crowne Plaza, Holiday Inn, and other brands under the InterContinental Hotel Group umbrella, members of the IHG Rewards Club programme must choose between earning Rewards Club points or airline miles. Earning rates for the airline option vary by carrier and hotel brand. With Qantas, Rewards Club members earn three points per dollar on hotel stays in Australia, and a fixed 1,000 miles per stay at international InterContinental Hotels & Resorts properties, and 600 miles per stay with all other brands. Within Australia, Virgin Australia offers the same rates, but overseas, offers 600 miles per stay with any hotel brand; other airlines –  such as Emirates, Etihad and Cathay Pacific – offer a flat rate of 500 miles per stay at any property. Other airlines – including American Airlines, Singapore Airlines and United – offer two miles per US$1 spend at most hotel brands.

Starwood properties, which include Westin, Sheraton, W Hotels and Le Meridien, offer Starwood Preferred Guest members to earn Starpoints, which can be converted to frequent flyer miles. While Qantas is not an SPG partner, Starpoints can be converted to frequent flyer miles on a 1:1 rate with Virgin Australia, Cathay Pacific, Emirates, Etihad, Singapore Airlines and more, or a 2:1 rate with United. High-earners will enjoy an added bonus of 5,000 extra Starpoints for every transfer of 20,000 Starpoints, boosting to 25,000 frequent flyer miles for most airlines.

Qantas and Virgin Australia also offer earning through hotel bookings made at Qantas Hotels of Virgin Australia’s dedicated Agoda booking channel. Earning rates differ for each scheme, and even within the Qantas Hotels booking engine, travellers should be vigilant about making sure their chosen hotel is part of the Qantas Frequent Flyer scheme. www.qantas.com.au, www.virginaustralia.com.au