Why Qantas Wellbeing stopped tracking your steps

In September, Qantas Wellbeing earned me 180 points for walking around doing nothing I wouldn't have done anyway. In October it earned me 36.

I went looking for what I'd broken. I reinstalled, I logged out, I went through the permissions twice. I couldn't find Fitbit anywhere in the list of things to connect to.

That's because there is no Fitbit any more, and because the connection I was looking for was switched off at the end of September. Two separate changes, four months apart, and together they're very good at making you feel like you've done something stupid.

Here's what actually happened and the exact chain of settings that fixes it. It took me longer to work out than it will take you to do.

What changed, and when

Qantas puts it plainly in its own help centre, which is more or less the only place it's said:

That's it. No email I ever saw, no notice in the app, nothing on the dashboard. Your steps simply stop arriving, and because Wellbeing still opens and still shows you a challenge, nothing looks wrong.

The data now has to travel through a middleman. On Android that's Health Connect. On iPhone it's Apple Health. Your watch talks to Google Health, Google Health talks to the middleman, and the middleman talks to Qantas Wellbeing. Break any link in that chain and you earn nothing, silently.

The same thing is happening to Google Fit's direct connection, so if you were using that instead, this applies to you too.

Why it feels like your fault

Because two things changed, and only one of them was announced anywhere you'd look.

1. The Fitbit app became Google Health. Google started the rename on 19 May 2026 and finished it inside a week. Same app, same data, new name and a new layout. So when you go hunting for “Fitbit” in a connection list, it isn't there — and that reads as a broken app rather than a renamed one.
2. The direct sync ended on 30 September. Four months later, with no obvious connection between the two events.

So the symptom is “my steps stopped”, the thing you search for is “Fitbit won't connect to Qantas Wellbeing”, and the actual answer is a settings chain in an app with a different name. I spent a while being annoyed at myself about this and I'd rather you didn't.

The fix on Android, screen by screen

Four stages. Do them in order — each one depends on the last, which is exactly why doing it in a hurry doesn't work.

Before you start: you need Android 9 or higher and the latest versions of both apps. Android 8 and below is no longer supported at all.

1. Let Google Health talk to Health Connect

1. Open Google Health — the app that used to be Fitbit.
2. Tap your profile icon, top right, then Partner apps.
3. Under Action needed, tap Sync your favourite health apps. If you see Set up under Health Connect instead, that's the same thing.
4. Tap Accept on the data sharing terms.
5. Under What data would you like to sync? choose Fitness and wellness data, then Continue, then Done.
6. Back on Partner apps, check that both Google Health and Wellbeing now appear under Connected.

2. Set the permissions inside Health Connect

This is the stage people skip, and it's the one that quietly fails.

1. Open Health Connect, or go to Settings › Health Connect. On newer phones it's built in; on older ones it's a free download from the Play Store.
2. Select Google Health. Under Allowed to write, find Activity and toggle it on.
3. Go back, select Wellbeing, and under Allowed to read toggle Activity on.

One app has to be allowed to put data in and the other has to be allowed to take it out. If only one side is switched on, everything looks connected and nothing moves.

3. Point Wellbeing at Health Connect

1. Open the Qantas Wellbeing app. If it asks for physical activity permission, tap Allow.
2. Go to Profile › Settings › Data Sources › Health Connect — not Fitbit.
3. Choose the activity you're tracking, usually Steps.
4. In the permission window, turn on Allow all, or at minimum tick Activity and Steps. Tap Allow.
5. When it asks whether Wellbeing can read your data in the background, tap Allow. Say no here and it only ever updates while you have the app open, which defeats the point entirely.
6. A tick icon confirms it. Repeat for any other activity you track — swimming and cycling need Exercise permission rather than Steps.

4. Check Android hasn't overruled you

1. Press and hold the Wellbeing icon, then tap App info.
2. Notifications → allow them on. Challenges are time-limited and you'll miss them.
3. Permissions › Health, fitness and wellness → Allow all.
4. Permissions › Physical activity → Allow.
5. Then open Wellbeing, go to your Daily or Weekly Challenge, and pull down to refresh or tap Sync Now.

Don't expect yesterday back. It syncs forward from the moment you connect it. Check again tomorrow rather than staring at it tonight.

The fix on iPhone

Shorter, because Apple Health is already doing the middleman job. You need iOS 15.4 or higher.

1. In Google Health, tap your profile, then Apps and services, then Add Connections with Apple Health.
2. Share Fitness and Wellness activity data and whichever activities you track.
3. In Qantas Wellbeing, go to Profile › Settings › Data Sources › Apple Health, choose your activity, and allow everything it asks for — including background syncing.
4. Tap Sync Now on the Daily or Weekly Challenge.

What the points are actually worth

I'd rather tell you this before you spend ten minutes on it than after.

Those are the real lines from my own activity statement. So the honest number is somewhere between 35 and 180 points a month depending on how the challenges fall — call it a hundred and something in a good month.

For scale: my household's grocery shopping earns more than that in a fortnight. Anyone telling you that walking is a points strategy is not looking at a statement. I've put a whole month's earning broken down by source up elsewhere, and the walking line is almost invisible on it.

But it's free, it asks nothing of you, and it's attached to steps you were taking anyway. Ten minutes of settings against a hundred-odd points a month, indefinitely, is a fine trade. Just don't reorganise your life around it.

One timing note that makes it worth doing this week rather than in January: if you're chasing Points Club before it closes on 8 December, every point earned on the ground counts toward it, and there are only a few weeks of them left.

If it still isn't counting

• Check both directions in Health Connect. Google Health needs write access, Wellbeing needs read access. This is the single most common failure.
• Check you said yes to background access. If you only get steps on the days you opened the app, this is why.
• Update both apps, then reconnect. The permission screens changed with the rename, and an old version can still show you a Fitbit option that no longer does anything.
• Give it 24 hours. It doesn't backfill, and the challenge dashboard updates on its own schedule.
• Then call them. Qantas Wellbeing support is on 13 49 60, weekdays 9am to 7pm AET, or help@qantaswellbeing.com. Worth it if you've lost a month of a challenge.

And while you're in there: if your steps had quietly stopped, it's worth checking what else has. I only found this because I sat down and read a statement line by line, which is a dull hour that keeps turning up money. There's more on the earning that doesn't need a credit card if that's where you are.

Questions I get asked

If your steps quietly stopped too, I'd like to know how long it took you to notice. It took me most of a month.