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    Qantas Club Meals

    Not sure what you mean. It's absolutely worth paying hundreds of dollars per year for a membership or tens of thousands of dollars chasing lifetime gold to get access to the hallowed toastie machine. Those toastie machines must be Qantas' highest performing asset. Never have so many people paid...
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    Major SYD expansion

    Does this mean JQ pax will be able to easily access the SYD lounges again? If so, QF better be planning some expansions for those lounges!
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    Caption by Hyatt opens in Sydney next month.

    Great news. Category 3 as well, so dirt cheap points prices.
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    NAB Changes Sign-Up Bonus Exclusion Period to 24 Months

    Two and a half years after it changed the exclusion period from 12 to 18 months, it has now been changed to 24 months. Qantas and Rewards products still appear to be treated separately.
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    Long term Amex user, next move?

    Keep in mind that no one knows what the credit card landscape is going to look like in 18 months. If the RBA's proposed interchange caps are implemented, the credit card points game in Australia will be, by today's standards, dead. We're talking sign-up bonuses of under 50K points & earn rates...
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    Where's all the UA J (Polaris) TPAC availability gone?

    For anyone with a Chase credit card or United status, United has dumped a huge amount of IN inventory between Australia and North America for next year — up to 9 seats in business class. Can view the dates at https://seats.aero/pnpz and select IN
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    Qantas Travel Insurance - so uncompetitive

    What you'll find with all these products is you are buying points at a minimum of 0.5-1c/pt. For example, the home insurance product is just a white label product from Auto & General. Put in the identical details with another of their brands, such as Budget Direct, and you'll get the exact same...
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    2025 Amex Membership Rewards Devaluation

    Avios for access to the full suite of redemption partners on BA/QR/IB/etc. In particular, 90K Australia-Europe in QSuites. Cathay for expanded access to reward seats on their own flights.
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    Now the dragon has been slain, where are all the spenders looking?

    I don't think anyone is going to be able to offer any good options because points earning is only heading in one direction, and it's steeply down. Amex Plat devaluing soon. Enjoy what you can while it lasts. If the interchange rate caps come in, you'll be earning next to nothing on that spend.
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    Strategy to obtain US Amex

    Impossible to say, but given it is such a niche feature that only a small percentage of people would be using, I'd say it's unlikely to be on their radar. Of course, if they did see a big uptick in usage, I could see it being nerfed.
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    2025 Amex Membership Rewards Devaluation

    It'll be interesting to see. I think the UK is instructive because their interchange cap is identical to what the RBA is proposing. It is hard to see how Amex AU could afford to be 50+% more generous than Amex UK if the caps come into force. On the loss of customers, the question becomes: where...
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    2025 Amex Membership Rewards Devaluation

    I think there will be a further devaluation once the interchange caps hit. The regular banks will go first, and Amex will follow suit to remain competitive (they'll have to lower their merchant rates to ensure merchants continue to accept Amex). Take the UK as an example. UK Amex Plat earns...
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    2025 Amex Membership Rewards Devaluation

    Some Centurion card holders have already been informed.
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    2025 Amex Membership Rewards Devaluation

    Loss of Avios and Cathay 2:1 is going to hurt.
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    2025 Amex Membership Rewards Devaluation

    Yep, sounds brutal from the rumours. Anyone with a lot of MR should be making plans to offload them before this deval.
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    Qantas Classic Plus devaluation

    If true, it makes sense. Qantas devalued classic rewards, so it had to devalue classic plus in order to maintain some separation between them. As I've said on many posts (and other valuations agree), Qantas points following the devaluation are only worth about 1.5-2c on international long-haul J...
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    Are Frequent Flyer Programs still worth the effort?

    Not sure what the relevance of your response is, but my point is a fairly simple one. You're no longer getting award tickets for 'next to nothing' in the major Australian programs — you're getting a discount on a cash ticket where the value of your points is, realistically, about 1.5-2c/pt...
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    Travel Pointers Podcast Discussion

    I think the episode might have benefited from a bit of an overview of the hotel loyalty space to set the scene. For example, most of the major programs (Hilton, Marriott, Hyatt) are American programs developed first and foremost for the American market. As a result, the reason why Australians...
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    Are Frequent Flyer Programs still worth the effort?

    Not sure you pay 'next to nothing' for Qantas or Velocity long-haul flights in J/F given that award ticket carrier surcharges now run into the many hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars one way. Still true for some programs (eg SQ, AA, AS), of course. Though there aren't many AFFers acquiring...
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    Woolworths gift card thread

    Importantly, it shows you don't need to tamper with a gift card to hack it. You simply need to take a photo of the back and write a bit of code to get the PIN from the website. Absolutely crazy.
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