1 Oct 2025 Changes to CBA Award Partners

[henrus]

Just noticed quietly hidden away in the awards section of the CBA app a significant reduction to transfer partners.

"From 1 October 2025 members will only be able to transfer with Velocity in the Frequent Traveller Conversion list".

This means a loss of Air Canada (Aeroplan), Air Asia, Accor, Cathay (Asia Miles), Emirates (Skywards), Etihad, EVA, Air France (Flying Blue), IHG, Marriott, Qatar (Avios), Singapore Airlines (Krisflyer), United and Wyndham as transfer partners.

Additionally cards are losing the ability to transfer to flight centre credits, Award eShop and donate points to Charities.

Personally the biggest loss is Air France and Accor. The fixed nature of Accor meant 3.5c worth of value per CBA point and Air France has QF rewards under 600 miles for 5000 Flying Blue points (with a low 2.5/1 transfer rate). I'll be doing a bulk transfer before the cut off!

 

[lovestotravel]

Enhanced

 

[Scr77]

How’s this going to work? Card being renamed to velocity rewards?

 

[henrus]

How’s this work? Card being renamed to velocity rewards?

On some cards you'll still be able to opt in for $90 per year to earn Qantas points then other options like points for hopper flights/hotels (giving a terrible 0.47c per point value), Myer (also 0.47c per point), Cashback to card (even worse 0.35c per point) still exist.

This made Accor redemptions at 3.5c per per point 10x better in value and even better when on premium award seats transferring points to other airlines.

Despite all this I'm still going to hold onto my smart awards card for now. I spend over $2k per month on it so it's basically free ($19 per month otherwise), earns 1.5 points per $1 at "major stores" and 1 point per $1 elsewhere which after the change is still 0.75 velocity points or 0.5 velocity points with no international fees and travel insurance if spending $500 on a trip.

 

[Comoman]

Thanks for posting this - I had missed it. I've just transferred my balance to Singapore Airlines.

 

[jbman]

Other than AMEX who is offering a decent list of options to be able to transfer to these days?