I've been taking up some signon bonuses the last few months (ANZ, Westpac, NAB) and having just hit the last of my qualifying spends my mind has turned to doing it all again once I've closed the cards and hit the obligatory 12 month waiting periods.
The wife goes back to work in April so once she's got an income again she'll be able to take advantage of whatever signon bonuses are current to take us through to 2018 when my 12 months are up.
But in the interim, I'm looking for a "utility" credit card to use for:
a) day-to-day expenses in between meeting spend requirements for card churn
b) long-term, recurring expenses (gym membership, toll roads, etc). This is mainly for the convenience factor to avoid having to change billing details for a bunch of stuff whenever I churn cards. In this context I'm OK changing it every 18-24 months.
My current cards used for this purpose are the AMEX Velocity Platinum and Citi Signature Visa (sweeping to QFF). I'm intending to close the AMEX because now we have babies the free flight per year has much less value (I'm not flying Y with a kid on my lap) to cover the $395 annual fee. I'm 50/50 on keeping the Citi Visa - on the one hand it's a fee-free card that sweeps to QFF, but on the other it's got a minimum $15k limit and I reckon that can hurt approvals for card churn.
The features I'm after are:
A current signon bonus.
Low (<$100 or so) or zero annual fee (as overall spend and consequently points earn on this card will likely be relatively low, there's less opportunity to recover the annual fee cost in value, especially past the signon bonus).
Low minimum credit limit ($2000-$5000) so as to minimally impact overall credit limit & new approvals for card churn.
This card should minimally endanger churn opportunities for QFF or Velocity bonus points through disqualification by being an existing cardholder.
I don't really care about "extras" like travel insurance or extended warranties.
I want to direct majority of points earn for next year or two into Velocity as I've just cleaned out most of my Velocity points flying the family to NZ skiing later this year, and already have 750k+ QFF points (and QFF redemption opportunities/availability are generally not as good).
I am leaning towards ANZ Rewards Platinum or Westpac Altitude. ANZ Rewards Platinum seems to offer a marginally higher points earn and lower annual fee, but Westpac has QFF redemption possibility (though as mentioned that is relatively unimportant at the moment).
It's my understanding that the ANZ FF Black I have wouldn't disqualify me from the 50k signup bonus for an ANZ Rewards Platinum per their T&Cs which only reference previous holding of a Rewards card and not FF cards.
I use a 28 degrees card for spend during overseas trips but their 95c fee for BPAY payments has given me the irrits so I'm probably going to turf it as well and look for a replacement.
Basically, I want a card for non-churn related daily spend that returns some value in terms of point earning but has the smallest impact possible on both my wallet (in terms of annual fee) and opportunities for card churn (in terms of T&C disqualification and overall credit limit).
What do people think (or already use for this purpose) ?
The wife goes back to work in April so once she's got an income again she'll be able to take advantage of whatever signon bonuses are current to take us through to 2018 when my 12 months are up.
But in the interim, I'm looking for a "utility" credit card to use for:
a) day-to-day expenses in between meeting spend requirements for card churn
b) long-term, recurring expenses (gym membership, toll roads, etc). This is mainly for the convenience factor to avoid having to change billing details for a bunch of stuff whenever I churn cards. In this context I'm OK changing it every 18-24 months.
My current cards used for this purpose are the AMEX Velocity Platinum and Citi Signature Visa (sweeping to QFF). I'm intending to close the AMEX because now we have babies the free flight per year has much less value (I'm not flying Y with a kid on my lap) to cover the $395 annual fee. I'm 50/50 on keeping the Citi Visa - on the one hand it's a fee-free card that sweeps to QFF, but on the other it's got a minimum $15k limit and I reckon that can hurt approvals for card churn.
The features I'm after are:
A current signon bonus.
Low (<$100 or so) or zero annual fee (as overall spend and consequently points earn on this card will likely be relatively low, there's less opportunity to recover the annual fee cost in value, especially past the signon bonus).
Low minimum credit limit ($2000-$5000) so as to minimally impact overall credit limit & new approvals for card churn.
This card should minimally endanger churn opportunities for QFF or Velocity bonus points through disqualification by being an existing cardholder.
I don't really care about "extras" like travel insurance or extended warranties.
I want to direct majority of points earn for next year or two into Velocity as I've just cleaned out most of my Velocity points flying the family to NZ skiing later this year, and already have 750k+ QFF points (and QFF redemption opportunities/availability are generally not as good).
I am leaning towards ANZ Rewards Platinum or Westpac Altitude. ANZ Rewards Platinum seems to offer a marginally higher points earn and lower annual fee, but Westpac has QFF redemption possibility (though as mentioned that is relatively unimportant at the moment).
It's my understanding that the ANZ FF Black I have wouldn't disqualify me from the 50k signup bonus for an ANZ Rewards Platinum per their T&Cs which only reference previous holding of a Rewards card and not FF cards.
I use a 28 degrees card for spend during overseas trips but their 95c fee for BPAY payments has given me the irrits so I'm probably going to turf it as well and look for a replacement.
Basically, I want a card for non-churn related daily spend that returns some value in terms of point earning but has the smallest impact possible on both my wallet (in terms of annual fee) and opportunities for card churn (in terms of T&C disqualification and overall credit limit).
What do people think (or already use for this purpose) ?
: is the current signon on bonus for the Coles Mastercard good, bad, or indifferent, historically speaking ?
