Amex-Webjet tie-up

[crazydave98]

Watching SBS last night - lots of advertising for the tie-up between Amex Membership Rewards and Webjet. The idea is simple enough - use Amex points to pay for any flight booking on Webjet, and there is an option to top up with cash where you have insufficient points.

It is not clear whether you have to be enrolled in the more expensive Membership Rewards program which allows you to transfer points to airline programs, but the lack of mention hopefully means this is not the case.

However, the rate is 10,000 points = $100. This is the same rate as redeeming vouchers for Flight Centre, Harvey World Travel and Travelscene but not the value you get out of airline programs even using "any seat" options and nowhere near the perceived value of "classic" reward seats (the beauty for the airlines of controlling the "distressed inventory" of rewards seats).

American Express Membership Rewards Now At Webjet - Webjet.com.au

So, what do members think? Who is this designed to appeal to?

I'm a little surprised Amex didn't just "white label" the Webjet technology so it could all be done within their site - but then again maybe they asked and Webjet wouldn't do it without the branding.

cheers

CrazyDave98

[moa999]

Appeals to those who have lots of points and don't know any better.

Just like anyone who uses points for vouchers

[JetLagged]

I agree with moa999 - disastrous redeem rate!

[pauly7]

Dave... I have a friend who works in Amex marketing...

One of the key reasons they have done this is because they have had huge and continuing complaints from members ever since QF rationalized their CC earning partners to mostly direct sweep.

Although there was extensive advertising and notifications of the changes, new products introduced etc a lot of people are ringing up STILL to try and transfer their points to QF... and of course now cannot!

So this was another solution to try and help appease the situation... Apparently they even had a guy picket their head office a couple of
months ago when he found his points were 'trapped' in MR, unable to get them to QF!...

For astute members it appears to offer little value...just a band aid for other purposes...

[markis10]

The tie up has been around for 6 months and was discussed extensively on launch here:

Webjet

[oz_mark]

There already exists some ability to redeem points directly throught the Amex travel portion of the Amex site, although I guess that Webjet is more flexible, offering more options.

While the value is not as good as using 'classic awards', I am not sure that Amex can do much about it. My understanding is that they buy QFF points at somewhere around the same redemption value (around 1c per point), and the uplift of value comes in the FF scheme itself.

I guess the person picketing their office, should have been told that it was Qantas that forced this change, not Amex.

[StevePER]

But for QF you have always been able to redeem directly through Amex travel, and the rate is quite a bit better than through Webjet. So it's really only "useful" for other airlines anyway.

[Andyzx]

It would be useful for non linked "other" airlines. But as mentioned you can do better through Amex travel. I guess its good for Webjet as well they will make a good margin out of it too.

I suppose if you used it for your FF airline you get miles from the flight so its a little better but still crappy transfer rate

[crazydave98]

The tie up has been around for 6 months and was discussed extensively on launch here:

Webjet

oops - sorry - missed it first time round. Hadn't seen it advertised before last night so assumed it was new.

[Worldtraveller8888]

The burn rate isn't great, but relative to the other non frequent flyer point redemption offers, it is ok. It is a better rate than for gift vouchers and for many of the physical products from the 'store'.

That said, it is not an option that I would take up.

WT