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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...

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.

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.

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.

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...

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...

Some Centurion card holders have already been informed.

Loss of Avios and Cathay 2:1 is going to hurt.

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

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...

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...

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...

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...

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.

My guess is #2. Qantas has never been worried about doing things that prompt outcry among its frequent flyers. It's only when it starts to reflect in the bottom line do the apologies/reversals begin.

Whoops! These companies need to get more creative with their names!

What do they say in response? My guess would be that, if they were being brutally honest, they'd say they don't need to be generous to lifelong customers. They maintain more control over the program (number of members, engagement of members, etc) by running more DSC/free SC/status extension...

Good for the first year: 80/100K SUB, 2x $300 hotel credit, 2x $200 AA/BestBuy credit, some other benefits for $595. Basically, they pay you for 80-100K ThankYou Points.

It already happens (see what Qantas did during COVID-19 in the US market). And not quite. Large influxes of points drive airlines to devalue their entire chart, which affects Australians. It also overlooks the points broker market (hint: US customers don't buy points in this market, they sell...

Never going to happen. The international (read US) points market is too lucrative for Qantas to give up, especially when times get tough. I predict precisely the opposite — they will lean more into it as the domestic points market becomes less lucrative if/when the interchange caps are...