Afterpay is getting into the frequent flyer business with Qantas

In a sign of the shifting powers in Australian finance, ASX-listed buy now pay later service Afterpay is joining the Qantas Frequent Flyers program.

New Afterpay customers will earn 500 Qantas Points for joining and adding their QFF membership number to their Afterpay account and then 1 point per $1 spent, up to a total of 5,000 points

For existing Afterpay customers, the first 50,000 to link to their QFF account can earn up to 5,000 points at $1 a point, but have to spend $1000 to qualify before earning the extra points.

The program will launch later this week. The 5,000 points is for the initial term of the partnership and will be reviewed subsequently.

The Qantas Frequent Flyer program, the airline’s wildly successful and profitable business unit, has more than 13 million members. Afterpay has more than 8 million active customers globally in Australia, New Zealand, the US and UK (where is operates as Clearpay)

Qantas Loyalty CEO Olivia Wirth said financial services is one of the most popular ways to earn points in the program.

“It’s the quickest and easiest way to build your points balance,” she said.

Afterpay CEO and co-founder Anthony Eisen said the deal would provide “significant upside” for Afterpay customers.

“Now our customers can earn Qantas Points on their purchases at no additional cost, just by using Afterpay as they normally would,” he said.

BNPL services now account for more than 15% of all online retail in Australia.

Afterpay’s share price is up around 1% on Monday to sit about $68. In March, at the same time Qantas was grounding its fleet and standing down 20,000 workers without pay, Afterpay’s shares fell below $9. Qantas shares are down a little over 1% today at $3.78.