Commbank Credit Card Changes + potential Discover Card offering

[PrudentTrip2775]

This is not good!

I have the Ultimate Awards card, for the sole purpose of having a points-earning credit card to use overseas without having to pay for a foreign transaction fee. I'm a little confused as to what the new effective earn rate will be.

Using Velocity as an example, the effective earn rate is 1.5 VFF points/$ for any non-AUD purchase (you get 3 Awards points per $ redeemed at 2 Awards points per 1 VFF point).

It looks like from October, this will be 0.8 VFF/$ - that's effectively half (2 Yello points per $ for non-AUD purchases, redemeed at 2.5 Yello points per 1 VFF point)!

Will there be any conversion of existing Awards points into Yello points?
If not, I should transfer them now as I'm got a chunk of them there (if only there were a transfer bonus coming up (I know that CBA don't partake in these as often as other banks)).

Also, if the travel credit has to be used via their travel platform, that's effectively useless for me as I don't use that (I normally book directly with the hotel to obtain my hotel status).

Any unused Awards points balance will sweep across to Yello points on 1st October 2026 at a 1:1 rate. Travel credits will most likely be for use on CBA's Travel Booking platform with Hopper similar to how travel credits with Amex can only be used in Amex travel portal.

I guess the travel credits can be used on flights or car rentals? As you'll still be able to earn SC and airline points/miles through 3rd party bookings. Dining credits is interesting. I think it's going to be for the 'Dine In Deals' platform, their new partnership with Eatclub in the CBA app.

 

[SeaWolf]

I have just noticed something I didn't before. The credits don't have to be used in that particular month. They accumulate for up to 12 months. So (based on my read) you wouldn't have to be making a booking with Hopper every month to take advantage of them, just at least once every twelve months. That does change things a bit. I might have to do a bit more maths and see if switching to the Ultimate will work for me on that basis, keeping in mind that I'm barely using it domestically and mostly just have it so I can earn points on international spend.

Travel and dining credits will accumulate until they expire. Any unused credits remain in your Travel Booking Wallet or Dine In Deals account and can be used before they expire. When redeeming travel credits, the full value of your Travel Booking Wallet will be applied to pay for all or part of a booking in a single transaction. When redeeming dining credits, you can choose how much of your available balance to apply. If the transaction amount is less than the credit amount applied, or less than your total available credit balance, any remaining balance will stay in your account for future use.

Travel and Dining credits expire 12 months from the date they are granted, issued or credited.

 

[Stone]

Being based in a regional area the credits will not be as useful for me. I've held various versions of a CommBank Credit Card for over 20 years continuously, I think the scissors will come for it in late December when the fee exemption based on spend is removed.

 

[kamchatsky]

Looks like Insurances coverage are removed as well, but added cracked screen cover:

Credit Card Updates - CommBank

Upcoming changes to CommBank credit cards

www.commbank.com.au

Ultimate Awards, Smart Awards and Diamond Awards​

Additional insurance added from 29 September 2029
Card	Product	Benefit	Details
Ultimate Awards	Other Complimentary Insurances	Cracked Screen Cover4	Up to $1,000 per claim, 1 claim per year
Smart Awards	Up to $500 per claim, 1 claim per year

Changes to your benefits from 29 September 2026
Card	Product	Benefit	Cardholder	Cardholder + family
Smart & Diamond Awards	Complimentary International Travel Insurance	Trip cancellation costs	$2,500	$5,000
Ultimate, Smart & Diamond Awards	Other Complimentary Insurances	Extended Warranty	No longer included
Purchase Security	No longer included
Guaranteed Pricing	No longer included
Interstate Flight Inconvenience	No longer included

I think I will need to wait the dust settled before making any changes, as every bank is making changes to their program and it is so hard to track all the changes at the moment.

 

[Nate-Dawg]

The proposed launch of the Discover charge card is interesting. I believe the upcoming RBA changes only affect eftpos, Visa and Mastercard. Hence there would seem like an opportunity here. I believe the Discover cards might be affected by the 1% foreign card interchange cap that comes into effect in April. But that's still more than the 0.3% cap for domestic cards.

 

[Nate-Dawg]

Looks like the PointHacks article is back online with a few changes. From memory, the biggest changes seem to be:

• Velocity transfer now has a $99 annual fee
• No initial 20% bonus offer for Velocity transfers
• The section pointing out that the $149 QFF transfer fee can be avoided by transferring from CBA to Everyday Rewards to QFF has been removed

 

[Scr77]

How can Qatar and Virgin transfer rates be the same, but Qatar have no annual fee?

 

[Nate-Dawg]

Looks like the PointHacks article is back online with a few changes. From memory, the biggest changes seem to be:

• Velocity transfer now has a $99 annual fee
• No initial 20% bonus offer for Velocity transfers
• The section pointing out that the $149 QFF transfer fee can be avoided by transferring from CBA to Everyday Rewards to QFF has been removed

Yet another update, 20% bonus offer is back, and now also seems to apply to Avios.

An effective 0.96 Avios per dollar on international spend for the first 6 months (regardless of Yello tier) with no FX fee.

 

[GSP]

Each time I read or dig more it gets less and less attractive to retain (I've got the Ultimate).

In addition to what has already been commented on above, I note that even to be eligible for Commbank Yello, you must hold a CBA transaction account which has it's own issues, such as a $4.00 per month fee unless you deposit $2k per month.

As mentioned above, the earn rates are devalued, for Ultimate it is currently 3 points per $1 for International transactions (now 2 points), 2 points (per $) for Supermarket, large store spend and 1 point for everything else. Now the earn rate appears to be tied to the tier you are on which unfortunately isn't explained in the Points Hack article, but to be a Diamond tier you need a loan of $1m+ or savings of $250k. Gold would be home loan less than $1m or savings of $50k+.

I don't have a home loan and invest my money elsewhere, so with just a credit card (and a transaction account that I'd have to open), I'd suspect I may end up on the base tier which has a putrid earn rate relative to what the credit card presently has (not to mention the new Velocity fee and lower conversion rate).

 

[jasrulz63]

Sigh. Time to find a keeper MC/Visa replacement for our Smart Awards card.

 

[MG1]

Any unused Awards points balance will sweep across to Yello points on 1st October 2026 at a 1:1 rate. Travel credits will most likely be for use on CBA's Travel Booking platform with Hopper similar to how travel credits with Amex can only be used in Amex travel portal.

I guess the travel credits can be used on flights or car rentals? As you'll still be able to earn SC and airline points/miles through 3rd party bookings. Dining credits is interesting. I think it's going to be for the 'Dine In Deals' platform, their new partnership with Eatclub in the CBA app.

@PrudentTrip2775; I'll keep the car rentals in mind.

I have just noticed something I didn't before. The credits don't have to be used in that particular month. They accumulate for up to 12 months. So (based on my read) you wouldn't have to be making a booking with Hopper every month to take advantage of them, just at least once every twelve months. That does change things a bit. I might have to do a bit more maths and see if switching to the Ultimate will work for me on that basis, keeping in mind that I'm barely using it domestically and mostly just have it so I can earn points on international spend.

@SeaWolf; This is good to note.

The proposed launch of the Discover charge card is interesting. I believe the upcoming RBA changes only affect eftpos, Visa and Mastercard. Hence there would seem like an opportunity here. I believe the Discover cards might be affected by the 1% foreign card interchange cap that comes into effect in April. But that's still more than the 0.3% cap for domestic cards.

@Nate-Dawg; This will be an interesting one to watch.

Looks like the PointHacks article is back online with a few changes. From memory, the biggest changes seem to be:

• Velocity transfer now has a $99 annual fee
• No initial 20% bonus offer for Velocity transfers
• The section pointing out that the $149 QFF transfer fee can be avoided by transferring from CBA to Everyday Rewards to QFF has been removed

@Nate-Dawg; Thank you for the link.
Does the $99 Velocity fee apply to make it direct earn or if we ever want to transfer to Velocity points, including manual transfers?

 

[MG1]

Yet another update, 20% bonus offer is back, and now also seems to apply to Avios.

An effective 0.96 Avios per dollar on international spend for the first 6 months (regardless of Yello tier) with no FX fee.

@Nate-Dawg; Where are you seeing this as I cannot see it in the PH article?

 

[Nate-Dawg]

@Nate-Dawg; Where are you seeing this as I cannot see it in the PH article?

It looks like the Point Hacks article has been updated yet again, and now any mention of the 20% bonus has been removed.