Qantas Offers Parental Pause Status for New Parents

All those in favor of pregnancy perks for expectant mothers, let’s see a show of hands (arm in the air over here!) I’m a mother, and while being pregnant is the most amazing and beautiful thing, it also sucks (excuse my poor grammar). There are no more happy hours, there are no more nights in which you get to sleep since you have to pee all the time. You cannot even fly after a certain date, and you can’t cruise, or even fit into your car sometimes. You cannot get comfortable, you cannot see your feet (or your bikini line….yikes) and you’re starving but nothing sounds good – ever.

I’m a mother; I know this. I had three beautiful pregnancies and four beautiful babies. I know that it is not fun or easy to be pregnant, and sometimes it seems that we actually lose out rather than gain. One thing that always bothered me when I was pregnant was losing my frequent flyer status. For one, I was on bedrest for three months with the twins. Secondly, you cannot really fly all that much after a certain point, and you probably aren’t flying that much when you have a newborn baby at home.

The good news is rolling in, mommies-to-be; Qantas is now allowing mothers to keep their flyer status with something called Parental Pause. It’s a program that allows flyers with either Silver, Gold or Platinum status to hold onto their status for up to 18 months since they aren’t traveling as much while they’re on parental leave. If you’re looking to take advantage of this, you’ll be pleased to know the rules are quite simple. You need only:

• Be a parent of a baby due in three months or less
• Be a parent of a baby born within the past six months
• Be a foster parent with the same timelines already mentioned
• Be a parent adopting a child in the same timelines already mentioned

This is great news for new parents, and we are actually really impressed with Qantas for offering such a wonderful new concept for mothers and fathers and parents-to-be.

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