Is the Qantas <Amex$450 free travel worth it

[Clefys]

I recently joined the Ultimate QF/AMEX card there are outfalls to watch out for

The card offers $450 off air fares but only on Qantas, If you book you do not receive the higher point value for booking through QANTAS and only get points for travel


When booking through AMEX they only offered baggage allowance on certain parts of the flight negating the discount eg I travel QANTAS for the allowance but with an Amex booking CBR to Clevland Ohio I was not able to have the allowance on connecting flights within the USA. I am a musician and the allowance lets me carry my instrument at no extra charge when all the way when I book with QANTAS



The fare booked through QANTAS is cheaper than AMEX

I thought booking through AMEX would allow me to preserve my points however if f I book Qantas without points the fare is more expensive than Amex with the discount than Qantas with cash and points.

It is getting to be not worthwhile and of course the more I have delayed this purchase the pricice has risen for the fare by $300 dollars in 4 weeks

Just an observation. I do not know if you have commercial arrangements with QF but be aware of the trap for users

 

[Pushka]

I recently joined the Ultimate QF/AMEX card there are outfalls to watch out for

The card offers $450 off air fares but only on Qantas, If you book you do not receive the higher point value for booking through QANTAS and only get points for travel


When booking through AMEX they only offered baggage allowance on certain parts of the flight negating the discount eg I travel QANTAS for the allowance but with an Amex booking CBR to Clevland Ohio I was not able to have the allowance on connecting flights within the USA. I am a musician and the allowance lets me carry my instrument at no extra charge when all the way when I book with QANTAS



The fare booked through QANTAS is cheaper than AMEX

I thought booking through AMEX would allow me to preserve my points however if f I book Qantas without points the fare is more expensive than Amex with the discount than Qantas with cash and points.

It is getting to be not worthwhile and of course the more I have delayed this purchase the pricice has risen for the fare by $300 dollars in 4 weeks

Just an observation. I do not know if you have commercial arrangements with QF but be aware of the trap for users

I tend to just use the travel credit for a domestic flight that I always need to take each year. Interesting about the issues re baggage overseas, it’s something I just don’t even think about having not travelled to the US in years but about to next month. Our status gets us free baggage on some flights but hadn’t realised we have to pay on Alaska.

And I think this is your very informative first post? If so, welcome and keep on contributing and learning.

 

[amaroo]

We’re all different. I’ve had the Ult card since its inception (~20 years?) and have used the credit / free flight once... which was this year.

Since Aug last year I’ve added another 3 Amex cards all with credits ..... doubt I use all of them.

 

[33kft]

As an offset against the fee it's pretty good. It doesn't allow you to book every fare, there are some sale fares that I do not see on the Amex travel site. If you are booking those fares internationally however they are not upgradeable, so I wouldn't normally book them anyway. It does not mean you're paying more for the ticket because the fare conditions are different, it just means you can't always book a heavily discounted fare.

The rest of the points raised are fair, but hardly a showstopper when you can almost equalize your card fee down to zero just by booking $450 of QF fares on the card. There are other $0 fee cards out there (not many), but none of them give you 1.25ppd on spend with no limit, so it's not terrible by any means.