CommBank Awards Eliminating Most Transfer Partners

The CommBank Awards program is about to become a whole lot less useful for frequent flyers, with the bank eliminating all but one of its airline and hotel program partners on 1 October 2025.

Currently, CommBank customers with a credit card that earns CommBank Awards points can transfer their points to an impressive 12 airline and 3 hotel loyalty programs. But from October, Virgin Australia Velocity will be the only remaining program.

The announcement about the upcoming change is hidden in the CommBank Awards terms & conditions, as well as within the Awards program section of the CommBank website and App. On the same page, CommBank also advises that Awards eShop, Flight Centre and Points Plus Pay redemptions will end on 1 October 2025:

Why this is a devastating devaluation for CommBank Awards members

One of the ways that Australian banks compete for customers in our competitive credit card market is by offering reward points on credit card transactions. This could be in the form of Qantas Points, Velocity Points, or points with the bank’s own rewards program.

Bank-operated credit card rewards program can be highly attractive because each of the banks lets you transfer your points out to multiple different airline frequent flyer programs – and in some cases, hotel loyalty programs as well.

More transfer partners means more flexibility and more opportunities to use the points you’ve earned, since each program partner opens up different redemption opportunities. Therefore, the more partner programs offered, the more valuable the points are.

As you can see in the AFF Credit Card Points Transfer Matrix, most of Australia’s major banks partner with around 3-5 airline programs. These typically include the likes of Virgin Australia Velocity, Singapore Airlines KrisFlyer and Cathay.

So, the fact that CommBank Awards offers the option to transfer points to 13 partner programs has been a unique value proposition. CommBank Awards is currently the only Australian bank program that offers transfers to the valuable Air France/KLM Flying Blue program, for example. Other highly useful partner programs currently include Qatar Airways Privilege Club and Air Canada Aeroplan.

Sure, CommBank Award’s transfer rates are not the most attractive out there – and those conversion rates sometimes fluctuated without warning. But for frequent flyers, the sheer number of transfer partners was the most attractive thing about that program. Australia’s largest bank is now removing that value proposition.

Transfer to KrisFlyer via Velocity

Going forward, CommBank Awards members will still at least be able to transfer points to Singapore Airlines KrisFlyer – but only indirectly, via Velocity.

For most CommBank Awards cardholders, transfers from CommBank Awards to Velocity are at a 2:1 rate. (As an exception, the entry-level CommBank Awards credit card has a 2.5:1 conversion rate to Velocity.)

After converting your points into Velocity Points, you could then transfer those Velocity Points to Singapore Airlines KrisFlyer at a conversion rate of 1.55:1. Unfortunately, this isn’t as good value as you could get right now, transferring CommBank Awards points directly to KrisFlyer at a 3:1 rate.

CommBank Awards first added transfer partners in 2018

CommBank Awards didn’t always have an impressive list of airline and hotel transfer partners. Until 2018, Awards cardholders had the option of either earning Qantas Points (for an additional fee) or earning Awards points which could be redeemed for things like merchandise or transferred to Velocity Frequent Flyer.

Then, in late 2018, the program unexpectedly added 10 transfer partners including United MileagePlus, Japan Airlines Mileage Bank and Lufthansa Miles&More. Some of those partners have changed over the years, but the line-up remained solid until now.

Unlike most credit card rewards programs, which manage their travel program transfer partners directly, CommBank appointed a Singapore-based third-party called Ascenda to manage these partnerships.

Alternative credit card reward programs

You can see a full list of transfer partners for Australia’s credit card reward programs in our matrix.

If you’re looking for an alternative to CommBank Awards that lets you transfer your points to a large range of different airline and hotel programs, the obvious alternative would be American Express Membership Rewards. That program partners with 11 airline and two hotel programs – plus Qantas Frequent Flyer, if you have a Platinum charge card.