Best Credit Card for Frequent Flyers

[ctg]

Any suggestions for a card that will give the most Quantas Frequent Flyers, for the smallest annual cost?

Are these really worthwhile?

Thanks in advance,

Carlos

 

[cove]

Today you could go www.everydayrewards.com.au and pick up the Woolworths credit card for $0.00 and 5,000 Qantas reward points. You get a point a dollar to your Qantas account and you can look up the bonus card partners.
I haven't heard of anything cheaper in the first year and it will probably be $89 in the second year.

 

[ctg]

Great thanks for that. I heard Citibank offers 60,000 frequent flyer points for signing up. That would basically be a trip to the uk, well worth the $125 bucks it costs per year. Getting 1 point at a time, with the aim of 60,000 would require a very large spend! How long do points last for?

 

[cove]

Citi will really test you with their backroom. It can be a real struggle but I have 2 Citi Select cards between my wife and I and in October they have been our highest $ use cards.

 

[Isochronous]

Citi will really test you with their backroom. It can be a real struggle but I have 2 Citi Select cards between my wife and I and in October they have been our highest $ use cards.

What do you mean by that?

 

[cove]

The Citi back office can give you three different answers if you ask the same question 3 times.
I find that a bit unusual and I hope it improves because their deals are very good.

 

[angusburns]

Cove is right - Citibank are a nightmare to deal with.

I tried to setup auto pay in full every month three times, by mail, by fax and then by phone. Each time they had no record of my request so I got stuck with late fees etc.

The third time I called up and they said that they could not do it for a Citibusiness card. When I pointed out that the website said you could they went away and then still said no. Then asked for their supervisor and then the next level up.

Finally they agreed to do it but could not tell me it was in place or not - I had to look for a note on the next statement. Eventually it worked.

Had another problem trying to get the optional link to Qantas FF account setup - got different. Information from each operator.

It is also hard to understand them and when they don't understand you they guess rather than saying they don't understand you.

In short, good deals but be prepared for lots of hassle and double check everything.

Good luck!

 

[ramboflyer]

I would like some thoughts about a current offer Westpac has for a rewards Amex/Mastercard.

I have a credit union Mastercard where I get 1 Qantas FF point for every $1. The annual fee is $148 (including additional card holder). Not a bad deal I would think. Our average annual spend is around $40,000. Paid off in full every month. My preference is to stay with Qantas FF program as it appears better value than other programs. I calculate that 8000 points is worth around $100 which is enough for a Zone 1 flight without taxes e.g. Hobart/Melbourne, Melbourne/Sydney.

Westpac have a current offer (expires 30/11/2011) for their Earth Platinum card that seems attractive.
Upside – 33,000 bonus points for joining up (value around $400), 1.5 Qantas FF points per $1 on the amex card – (value around $200 to me). Extra benefits like 2 year extended purchase warranty, complimentary o'seas travel insurance and the other usual extras that come with a platinum card.
Downside – $250 annual fee (no extra for additional card holder). Amex not accepted everywhere, Linked Mastercard attracts only 0.5 FF points.

According to my maths the extra points should more than offset the extra annual fee plus the extra insurances etc should make it OK value but not outstanding. My aim is to accumulate as many FF points as I can for my impending retirement is 3-4 years. Interested if anyone has done something similar or has an opinion

 

[JOC469]

The best card can depend on your spending levels - Citibank offer a CitiBusiness Gold

CitiBusiness Gold - Credit Cards - Citibank Australia - Citibank Australia

$149 annual fee
40,000 bonus points
1.25 points per dollar
Points are capped, and can only be transferred in 10,000 increments

 

[angusburns]

The best card can depend on your spending levels - Citibank offer a CitiBusiness Gold

CitiBusiness Gold - Credit Cards - Citibank Australia - Citibank Australia

$149 annual fee
40,000 bonus points
1.25 points per dollar
Points are capped, and can only be transferred in 10,000 increments

Yes, this is a good card - better now as points were capped at 80,000 when I got my card last year.

As of 1 September the new cap is 250,000 points per year - much more reasonable as it includes the 40,000 points you get on joining, ie you effectively only had a 40,000 points / $32,000 spending cap left for the whole first year when I joined which was a joke - tricky or stupid of Citibank.

For personal use the Citibank CitiSelect card is said to be good for someone who spends a lot, whilst the Woolies / HSBC Visa card is good if your spending patterns are more moderate.

This all assumes you want to accumulate Qantas points...

Hope this helps someone.

 

[cove]

Adding on to what Angus has said you could get 2 of the Citi Business cards if you have a partner so that would max you out at 2 lots of 250,000 points per year for a total cost of 2 lots of $149. This would only be necessary where your card use gets you to the 250,000 point cap during a card year. The bonus starting points are attractive and so is the points earn rate.

 

[ramboflyer]

The best card can depend on your spending levels - Citibank offer a CitiBusiness Gold

CitiBusiness Gold - Credit Cards - Citibank Australia - Citibank Australia

$149 annual fee
40,000 bonus points
1.25 points per dollar
Points are capped, and can only be transferred in 10,000 increments

I was sold by this. I had looked at Citibank but obviously not closely enough. I had assumed the points were for a non Qantas FF program. Made my mind up - went to the site and started filling out the application for the Citibusiness Gold card. Got the part about which rewards program and decided to ring up about extra fees for their Citi rewards program and transferring points. Got told repeatedely that its an extra $49 to transfer points tp Qantas FF program despite this:

Qantas Rewards Fee

$49

Charged for Qantas Direct Earn (available for Signature & Select Cards) upon enrolment and then on each anniversary of enrolment date.

This fee applies only if you wish to join the Qantas Direct Earn Rewards program (available for Signature & Select Cards)

My current credit card has automatically tranferred monthly for no cost. Does anyone know if that fee applies to the Citibusiness Gold card? The lady on the phone was far from convincing.

 

[Dantine]

No fee applies to Citibusiness. Only catch is you can only transfer points on demand, in blocks of 10000 at a time, and it can take a few days for the transfer to happen. It is not a direct sweep at the end of month thing. Earn rate of 1.25 makes it worth it though

 

[angusburns]

My current credit card has automatically tranferred monthly for no cost. Does anyone know if that fee applies to the Citibusiness Gold card? The lady on the phone was far from convincing.

I just checked my Citibusiness statements - I renewed a couple of months ago and was only charged $149. I have transferred points to Qantas with no extra charge so all good.

FWIW, Prior to this I had the Citibank Platinum card and there was an extra charge on it to be able to transfer points to Qantas. They also would not transfer any points accrued prior to my election to take the Qantas option. Perhaps she was getting confused with this card?

Anyway, should all be good for Citibusiness transfers to Qantas but you could write them an email to get it confirmed in writing if you wanted to be sure...

 

[Deewhy]

No fee, just149$ annual and move it In multiples of 10k at a time. Showed up for me overnight, but they warn you it could take up to 28 days.

 

[ramboflyer]

The Citi back office can give you three different answers if you ask the same question 3 times.
I find that a bit unusual and I hope it improves because their deals are very good.

Never truer words said. I rang again today and the guy said yes to the $49 fee for transferring qantas FF points from the Citibusiness Gold card then when I quoted their own website and responses I had from cardholders on this forum he went away for 10 minutes and came back and said no fee!! It seems that you can either opt in to transfer the points regularly or choose to it yourself when you have at least 10,000. Its a no brainer to do it yourself and save $49.

BTW the 2 Citibank cso's were both friendly - just didnt know their product well enough. For the number of times I contact credit card call centres I can get by with that. Thanks guys, I'll go back and complete the application.

 

[Deewhy]

That's good, just make sure you hunt for the 40k points sign on bonus webpage!

 

[Daggs01]

American Express Qantas Ultimate Card, 1.5 pts per Dollar.

 

[ramboflyer]

That's good, just make sure you hunt for the 40k points sign on bonus webpage!

Yes, Have made sure about the 40,000 bonus points. Thought it would be quicker so I completed the application tonight with another friendly cso. Took about 40 minutes with a voice recording taking 5 minutes to do the privacy thing.

Tried to talk her into also giving me a Blackberry Curve! If you go to the web site, open up the application page and shut it again (allow pop ups) an offer comes up for a free Blackberry Curve on your first $3000 spend. It turns out to prob be an old promotion.

As an aside I am thinking about opening 2-3 other credit cards just to get the points. There is an Amex card with $0 annual fee and 10,000 bonus points (some limited conditions apply). Also Westpac have 2 Earth cards. One gets you 16,000 points for $75 a/f and the other 33,000 points for $250 a/f. If 8000 points is valued around $100 it looks like a reasonable thing to do. Has anyone else done this and are there any traps?

 

[JOC469]

Over the last 12 months I've applied for a few cards :

Woolworths Everyday Rewards MasterCard - 16,000 QFF @ $89
AMEX Platinum Charge Card - 75,000 MR Points @ $900
AMEX Platinum Reserve Credit Card - (included)
AMEX BMW Gold Credit Card - 10,000 @ $0
AMEX Platinum Charge Card - 75,000 MR Points @ $900 (yes, a second card as I'd reached my bonus points limit)
ANZ Frequent Flyer - 21,000 QFF @ $
ANZ Frequent Flyer Platinum - 32,000 QFF @ $
Westpac Earth - 16,000 QFF @ $75
Citibank Platinum - 50,000 QFF @ $299
Citibank CitiBusiness Gold - 40,000 QFF @ $150
28 degrees MasterCard - Fee free for international transactions

All courtesy of AFF!