Best Rewards for $1000 a Month?

[skywalka]

Hi guys.

We're wondering if we would benefit from a card that offers rewards. Our monthly spend would be a little over $1000 per month. Rewards cards tend to have annual fees so thought some gurus here might help.

Thanx for looking.

 

[wxxnxs]

Hi guys.

We're wondering if we would benefit from a card that offers rewards. Our monthly spend would be a little over $1000 per month. Rewards cards tend to have annual fees so thought some gurus here might help.

Thanx for looking.

Myer visa card or everyday rewards card will be the best option.

Annual fee-Myer visa $39
Everyday $49 (1st yr free)

For more rewards details for each card, I suggest you to go to their websites and find out more.

 

[JohnK]

An Amex Gold card with Ascent membership cost $80/year.

If you spend $1,000/month then this equates to 12,000 MR points a year. Redeeming for flights on SQ you would be able to get at least 1c/point value out of the award flights. Take note SQ award SYD-BKK return requires 46,250 MR points + ~$400 in taxes (most times this airfare is well over $1,000) and SYD-ATH return requires 80,750 MR points + ~$600 in taxes (Most times this airfare is well over $2,200).

So by having an Amex Gold card on your spending patterns should net you at least ~$40+ a year if not more. And if you happen to get promotions like the current D!ick Smith promotion the MR points add up quicker.

 

[cove]

If you promise to run zero balances each month I would try the Woolworths everyday credit card for a starting 16,000 points bonus and a point a dollar.
In one year you will be going somewhere for $89 annual fee.

 

[Alanslegal]

Two cards stick in my mind at the moment;
i) Everyday Card and ii) Amex Platinum Edge

The question now is; what's the breakdown of $1k expenditure per month. If it's say 80% at supermarkets + 20% fuel ... then the points earn will vary between the above card.

Everyday Card will give you 1,000 per month whereas Platinum Edge gives (800x3) + (200x2) = 2,800 per month.

Cost of cards is Everyday $89 p.a vs. Edge $149 p.a . Edge counters this with a free DJ return flight per annum.

Based on the above example, Edge appears to be much better than Everyday.

 

[cove]

I was thinking about shire rates,water rates,electricity and gas,IGA stores,pharmac_,butcher,baker and candlestick maker.
A lot of my home supplies don't take Amex because I like supporting my local stores who only take Visa and MasterCard. When your local store closes don't expect it to ever re-open.
If you are just doing Coles,Woolworths and Shell then Alanslegal has the best idea with Amex.

 

[cove]

I left out life insurance and general insurance where it is difficult to use Amex.
With alcohol most take Amex even when there are price wars going on.

 

[Moopere]

Mmm. I'm having a think about this right now myself. With "Points Wars" apparently in full swing, you have to wonder what a 'point' is worth in the various schemes on offer. This is reminding me a lot of the various Australian Telco's and their so-called cap offers. 500$ of free calls a month, no, wait, 5000$ of free calls a month. With reward points, or cap dollars, you are free as the organising company to set any value to your internal loyalty currency. So, yes, $5000 a month of 'free' calls, but each cap dollar only buys you 1 second of time, whereas a real dollar might buy you 10 minutes of time.

Enough of that though. I guess there is only one realistic way to determine the value of a reward point and thats to try and turn it back into money or equivalent. So, for example, 16,000 bonus QFF points as mentioned above. Well, what does that buy? I went along to the QFF site and looked for a 100$ gift card. Seems there are lots of choices but about 13,500 points seems to be average for a 100$ gift card. (Some retailers, like petrol stations, are hedging a bit with variable pricing and require 14,500 for 100$ gift of fuel).

So, 100$ = 13,500 points = 0.74c / point ($0.0074). Not easy to deal with decimals of cents though so perhaps its more useful to think of 1000 points = $7.40

Therefore the 'free' 16,000 QFF points has a real world value of $118.40

Interestingly, until the various providers started going nuts with 2-3-4 or more points per dollar spend, there appears to have been a general average of 1 point = 1 dollar spent. Given the above value at retail all this hand wringing and general calculation and tracking resolves to less than 1% discount on asking price of retail goods.

ie; spend $16000 get 16,000 points and receive a gift card to the value of 118.40 = 0.7% discount

Any phone call or in person chat with a retail sales person any day of the week has surely got to nett a larger discount on full retail for anything you can think of buying ... except perhaps petrol or supermarket supplies.

Last time any of us bought a car, fridge, stereo, walkman, pair of shoes ... whatever, theres a good chance that a constructive chat with salesperson of the day got you 5-10% off the price without even trying hard .. am I right???

I've been trying to nut out the system for most of this year - which card is best and why. I've struggled in the end to see much real value difference between them, extremely poor performance cards aside that is.

I think maybe its all a bit of a con. The various cartels are buying your loyalty for less than 1% in real terms. So far as I can see there is little to no opportunity to bargain a price for goods/services then pay with points, so its full retail at the points spending end.

You will notice that most of the schemes state somewhere in the fine print that they forbid business spending. So, pushing your business cashflow through a points accrual scheme will probably get you banned/booted. No wonder either, even modest small businesses will exchange millions per year (not talking profit) which would give any points recipient at the end a nice little freebie ($5M = $35,000+ in gift cards.. probably an FBT liability in there though)

Anyway, enough of the negativity and doom talk from me. I'm just airing my mind really. Theres a certain hobby value to this stuff and along with the feeling that one is working the system its all a bit of fun really.

I'm going to be looking at the T's and C's of both Everyday and Edge cards mentioned above for sure

 

[medhead]

ie; spend $16000 get 16,000 points and receive a gift card to the value of 118.40 = 0.7% discount

You've made a comparison based on the worst value way of redeeming points. The real value is achieved by redeeming premium flight awards. Many people on here achieve 4+ cents per point value. I'm not in that league, but I can easily get 2 cents per point using a simple comparison to the cost of purchasing the same fare with cash.

 

[Moopere]

You've made a comparison based on the worst value way of redeeming points. The real value is achieved by redeeming premium flight awards. Many people on here achieve 4+ cents per point value. I'm not in that league, but I can easily get 2 cents per point using a simple comparison to the cost of purchasing the same fare with cash.

Yes, thats a fair cop actually. I thought the same moments after pressing send.

Its a heads-up I suppose, to a FF newbie (me!) that 'shopping' in online rewards shops is really not the way to go.

In the case of redeeming points against flights, yes, I can see how the value can be higher. The airline owns the product (the flight) and can discount a few percent against retail for the 'loyalty' of their customers. They effectively get paid by other retailers (or card companies really) who are generating and transferring the points liability to them as well which is nice.

Still, aside from generating huge spreadsheets filled with myriad possibilities, whats the sane way to work out a points actual value? Why would I choose QFF over Velocity to use a very simple example?

Seems on the surface that one needs to think about which air alliance one wants to use (OneWorld or Skyward or whatever) then choose products that will benefit you in using that alliance ... makes sense I guess in loyalty terms. For relatively small spenders like myself, hedging my bets and getting involved in more than one FF program doesn't seem to be the way to go at all.

 

[Moopere]

Mind you, as I try to find a way to escape CBA's Gold Awards, my 100K points there are trapped in no value hell.

Since losing QFF as a redemption, they allow transfer to Velocity at 2:1 (yuck!) or booking direct with Flightcentre at a rate which is even worse than I was talking about in my long post above .... 0.579c / point. I am better off converting my points to gift cards!

So theres my lesson. As things are constantly changing, I need to pay more attention and transfer my points before things turn too pear shaped in the future.

 

[cove]

I think Virgin will have a better product offering inside 6 months plus they may become a *Alliance member which would be great.
I have 150k of points waiting for these changes that probably fit into the Maybe Class.
Be patient little Noddy Big Ears said to his friend.

 

[Moopere]

Hmm. Still trying to be inventive on how to extract my 100K CBA points.

Cashback is an option but only yields 0.5c/point. Transferring to Velocity is a 2:1 deal -and- I'd need to join the Velocity program (which appears to be free??). Pricing is mega cheap right now for PER-MEL which is my likely and most often used route. But 250 each way including some baggage and inc all taxes seems about right for 'any day' bookings. So, 500$ value of flight = 39,600 points (according to the velocity site). This translates into 1.26c/point which is a -lot- better.

I'll hold on to these points I think and, like Noddy, try to be patient. Lets see what Virgin gets up to this coming year.

 

[cove]

Yes if you hold those points just wait for a bonus to transfer post and get some extra points as an opener.
I had 100k and it grew to 150k by timing the transfer.
Now I am waiting for the product to improve and again our members will tell us that.