Best credit card for FF points?

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R

Roma

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I'm a bit disappointed with my bog standard Commonweath Bank VISA as today I asked why CBA I wasn't getting any more points and was informed I'd hit the limit and they offered me the Gold as a replacement. However the Gold isn't too good - only 1 point for every $1.50 spent. So I started looking at CitiBank, AMEX, ANZ, Westpac Altitude and started incurring a huge amount of information overload :shock:

Basically I'm after a card that allows points for at least $100K per year and has a very good FF to $ spent ratio. I don't care about much else.

Can anyone recommend one? There are differences with annual fees, FF to $ spent ratio and so on but has anyone waded through the information and settled on a good, reliable card? Perhaps this info. will be useful for other FF newbies out there like myself.

Ta,

RR
 
I reckon Amex Platinum + Citibank Gold is a pretty good combo.

Amex gives 1.5 points per dollar which can be transferred to QF, DJ and others. Having more than just QF as a partner is a big plus for me. The annual fee is pretty steep at $395 (or $295 for members of some professional organisations) but if you can make good use of the free domestic flight then it isn't too bad. Not sure if the points earning is capped on this card.

Citibank Gold is fee free for life, earns 1 point per dollar and is the backup card for when Amex isn't accepted. It's capped at 60k points per year. You can only transfer to QF, and only in 10k point blocks, but as a backup card I don't find this is a problem. The major downside is having to deal with Citibank, but with no annual fee I can put up with that.

Steve
 
If places you go to take AmEx, then Rewards Maximizer with no point cap, $1 = 1.5 point to QF and $1 = 1.5 mile on VS is the best on the market.

If you can't use AmEx, or if you need back up, the free Citibank gold card no free for rest of your life is the best. No annual fee until Citibank goes broke or when you die, and no fee for additional cards, seperate listing for additional cards on statement, $1 = 1 QF point, there is nothing else on the market which comes remotely close. The only problems with Citibank are, completely non existance of customer service as mentioned by StevePER, and you are tied to QF. Citibank also charges 3.3% commission on foreign currency on Visa or 3.4% on MasterCard, which are the highest in Australia (maybe the world too?).

If you travel overseas a lot, then Earth+ from Westpac at only 1% commission is good value. Tired to QF.

If you fly *A, then the only card I can think of is Westpac Attitute.
 
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The 10 extra bonus point promotion for Dec I think is a pretty clear indication that they still want people to find the Maximiser an attractive card.

After scoring almost an extra 100K bonus points for Dec I certainly found it...well a great card to have.;)
 
But it was not just the Maximizer - seems any registered Oz AX card with Membership Rewards was eligible.
 
And I forgot to add:

StevePER said:
Citibank Gold is fee free for life, earns 1 point per dollar and is the backup card for when Amex isn't accepted. It's capped at 60k points per year.
Click to expand...

Citibank MAY cap you. This is what their T&C claims. MAY. This is the key word.

Some people with bad luck got capped. Many others e.g. me are not capped. We are earning astronomical amount of points.
 
I'm with CBA - Platinum card. Costs around $200 in annual fee, but for that I also get pretty good international travel insurance and 1pt per $.

When I buy travel through CBA's Travel Plus I get 4 pts per $ as well as the points on the flights. So when we do our DONE4 (at roughly $30k for 2) we get an additional 120K pts.
 
Chicken said:
If you can't use AmEx, or if you need back up, the free Citibank gold card no free for rest of your life is the best. No annual fee until Citibank goes broke or when you die
Click to expand...
With the news out of America overnight then scenario A is not out of the question.
 
serfty said:
The "Rewards Maximizer" may no longer be available - it is not being promoted on the AX.au web site:
Click to expand...

It's also on the comparison page here: American Express Australia - Compare Our Cards but yeah, they don't seem to be promoting it at the moment.

Amex are weird like that!

BTW - I've seen ads recently for a Gold credit card which looks like the Plat Credit Card Amex design, but in Gold rather than silver/platinum colour. Yet when I'm now looking for more information about it, I can't find anything. Anyone know what card that is? Have they redesigned the Gold Credit card, or is this a totally new card?
 
Mal said:
BTW - I've seen ads recently for a Gold credit card which looks like the Plat Credit Card Amex design, but in Gold rather than silver/platinum colour.
Click to expand...

Found the details. It isn't really a card for FF points at all. Basically a very cut down Gold Credit card called "Gold Choices"
American Express

Because it only credits to Choices, then you can't transfer to FF schemes. You can use TravelKey though. The card is only $49/year...
 
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