Newbie at first base

[kinkacruiser]

Hi there,
Just found the site and being at the very beginning of the jouney, need to ask some questions, before taking the next step.
Signed up for the Woolworths/Big W Everyday reward a few weeks back and the Frequnt Flyer was linked to it. Now I learn that you get lots more points if you have an ANZ FF Amex and ANZ FF Visa. These are on offer to new members. I am about to apply to these cards (this can even be done online now). As I haven't had a credit card for at least 15 years, I'm not very savy in their use, however I'm a big fan of online banking.
So my questions:
1. Why are there two cards offered? (the Amex I note gives you 1 for 1, while the other gives you 1 point for every $4 spent)
2. I'm not sure if I need to open an ANZ account. Can funds be transfered from my non-ANZ account to a credit card account or do I have to go to the bank in person?
3. Can you keep credit cards in a credit situation to cover bills?
4. Is the idea to pay all bills,shopping etc with your credit card? So if you spend $30K in a year you'd get 30,000 points (at least)?
5. Is this loyalty program worthwhile? We will be flying to Qantas to Rome in June 2011 and hopefully will have some points up by then to offset the cost.
Thanks for you input.
Kinka

 

[Hvr]

Welcome to AFF and hope you enjoy the ride of being a frequent flyer.

There are other credit cards which allow you to get FF points, e.g. I have an Earth Gold card with an earn of $1:1 point when I use the Amex and 1:0.5 with the MasterCard. Why two cards? Well some places don't accept Amex or have huge surcharges so you can still get something with the alternate card.

Earth is a Westpac product but I only have the credit cards and do my banking elsewhere. I just pay it off on BPay every month and life is good. Another benefit of Earth is that when I purchase my Qantas fares using my Amex I get double points from Earth.

Yes I put everything possible onto the credit card. However you must pay it off in full at the end of every month to get the full benefit. No use paying interest just to get points.

Also there are often sign on bonuses with a heap of points when you get a particular credit card. There is a thread or two here which highlights these offers. It may be worthwhile slightly delaying acceptance of a card if a good offer is in the offing.

Finally, is it worthwhile? Well it depends on how much you will spend and how much you will fly. In the last year I have earned approximately 30,000 points using my credit card. That is worth it in my opinion.

Wishing you safe and happy flying.

 

[albatross710]

5. Is this loyalty program worthwhile? We will be flying to Qantas to Rome in June 2011 and hopefully will have some points up by then to offset the cost.
Thanks for you input.
Kinka

Consider a card with the most sign up bonus points. You'll need to accrue points quickly as you don't have long before you need to book those flights.

Also consider SQ. The Westpac Krisflyer card will give you 10,000 signon points. A return BNE-FCO flight is 80,750 miles booked online plus $550 fuel & taxes. Factoring in the initial 10,000 pts, a new required spend of $48,000 on Krisflyer Amex or $70,750 on Krisflyer Visa.

Qantas redemption is going to be 125,000 points + taxes. This means $100,000 spend on ANZ Amex or $125,000 spend on ANZ Visa.

Long range redemptions have been easier to come by on SQ.

IMO, all flights lead to Rome but the SQ path may get you there quicker.

 

[WWTFC]

A bit like you as a newbie - you will find the folk on here really helpful.

We were in same spot as yourself and decided to take out a credit card with Amex via the qantas site so that everything went to one place and with the Woolies points has grown to 41000+ in just 6 months.
We took out platinum with Amex to get the travel insurance, 1.5 points per dollar on the card and one return domestic trip a year. (friends in Brisbane so a trip from Adelaide is good value for the annual fee)

Kept all our old cards and bank accounts as they were but now use Amex whenever and where-ever we can and shop at Woolies.

Check out - compare the cards available through the Qantas site.

Cheers
Col D

 

[markis10]

We took out platinum with Amex to get the travel insurance, 1.5 points per dollar on the card and one return domestic trip a year. (friends in Brisbane so a trip from Adelaide is good value for the annual fee)

I would be hesitant to get a card based on the included travel insurance benefit, NAB Visa Debit Gold gives you travel insurance, purchase protection as well as free ATM access overseas along with no FX fees, handy for an OS trip and low cost by comparison to the yearly CC fees from credit products. No FF points though, but at a maximum cost of $10 a month its a nice alternative.

 

[drron]

Because of all the extra points you can earn on QFF such as woolies and the CCs i think you are better off sticking to QFF rather than go with krisflyer and SQ.another reason is Krisflyer points have a time limit but QFF dont as long as you have activity every 18 months(from 1/7)-but with Wollies that is no problem.
Check out the Westpac offer they were giving 10000 bonus points for joining-I am not sure though if the offer has expired.No problem Bpaying your CC from a different banks account-I have done it for years.
When it comes to redeeming your points though just remember if you are pretty set in your dates it can be hard to get the award on QF.However you can use Oneworld partners and can get to Rome for example using CX via HKG or JAL(presuming it stays in Oneworld) via NRT.If you can only get 1 award your partner can get QFF points on those airlines.

 

[medhead]

I just wanted to chip in with my opinion that the ANZ FF cards are probably just about the worst cards around in terms of earning points. I have the gold cards, it used to be good, but they have recently moved to this 2 card account product with AMEX, and the earning rates have dropped. I would look at an Earth card from Wetpac, as mentioned. I have the platinum and it earns at 1.5 points per dollar on the AMEX.

NAB Gold FF card product also has a AMEX and Visa but the earning rate on the visa card is slightly better than other visas, $1:0.66 points.

The other thing is, do you have a mortgage. If so, then look into the packages that your bank might offer. I get my NAB card included as part of the fee for my mortgage. Must banks offer similar benefits.

Also as others have mentioned look out for the bonus offers. I've got probably about an extra 60000 points from bonus during the last 12 or so months. Again the Qantas website is pretty good for advertising the various offers.

Finally and most important, you must be able to pay off the card every month.

Most of my cards have limits of $10k to $15k, if I carried over this amounts as every month and was paying interest @ 20% then that would be costing me $2k to $3k per year. In that case, I would be much better off keeping the $2k to $3k and getting no points.

 

[albatross710]

Because of all the extra points you can earn on QFF such as woolies and the CCs i think you are better off sticking to QFF rather than go with krisflyer and SQ.another reason is Krisflyer points have a time limit but QFF dont as long as you have activity every 18 months(from 1/7)-but with Wollies that is no problem..

My interpretation is based on wanting to maximise the OPs earnings for travel in July 2011. While KF pts will expire after three years if not used, they do accumulate faster.

kinkacruiser, what level of monthly spend are you likely to put through a card?

 

[PaulC83]

1. Why are there two cards offered? (the Amex I note gives you 1 for 1, while the other gives you 1 point for every $4 spent)
2. I'm not sure if I need to open an ANZ account. Can funds be transfered from my non-ANZ account to a credit card account or do I have to go to the bank in person?
3. Can you keep credit cards in a credit situation to cover bills?
4. Is the idea to pay all bills,shopping etc with your credit card? So if you spend $30K in a year you'd get 30,000 points (at least)?
5. Is this loyalty program worthwhile? We will be flying to Qantas to Rome in June 2011 and hopefully will have some points up by then to offset the cost.
Thanks for you input.
Kinka

Welcome to AFF Kinka,
1) The idea of offering the 2 cards is for maximum exposure to payment options. The problem with the AMEX product is that because of their fees to merchants they do not have a large merchant penetration, and subsequently having a AMEX limits your market (however the AMEX does have good reward options) whereas VISA bases its marketing on the number of outlets available.

2) you would be opening an ANZ account as part of it (but you do not need to have your regular account there). You can pay it off by transfers and BPay etc. there are a lot of options.

3) Yes but I am not sure if the terms and conditions for ANZ have issues with points earned when in positive funds (some cards do, most don't).

4) Yes the more you use the card the more points you'll earn, and the more useful it will become to you. Some people on here are lucky enough to use there cards for business purposes and rack up a lot of points. I pay all my bills/flights/food etc. with mine, and I get circa 20k points a year (which is a one way flight Alice Springs to Adelaide for me with some change). It varies from year to year depending on my spend, but even paying things like speeding fines with the VISA you'll earn points.

5) You'll see the term YMMV (Your Mileage May Vary) a lot on this forum. Basically the only person who can answer that question is you, and it is based on a variety of factors. The QFF program is not bad as points do not expire as long as you keep up a small level of activity (which for most people isn't hard). But points are only useful if you intend to use them. QF doesn't fly directly to Rome anymore, so you'll probably get a codeshare on CX I think if you are intending to go with the red kangaroo. This may not be a bad thing as I think CX reward availabilities isn't too bad. Just doing a quick search (without anything special done) on my FF login return SYD->FCO is 128,000 points return. There aren't really many ways that points can "offset" costs without maybe buying one way and award back or things of the like.

 

[kinkacruiser]

Thanks everyone for you advice so far. I see there's a lot more to this than meets the eye. We don't fly a lot....usually to join a cruise once a year or I take a trip to Brisbane (from Rockhampton) once a year. If the points get me a flight to Brissie once a year I'd be happy.
The bonus points are 5000 with the current offer...not a lot compared to what you say and I see why you get 2 cards. (My service station already told me they don't accept Amex and no doubt there will be a lot of other businesses that don't).
I'll hopefully be able to put 15K though per annum. We don't have a mortgage and would always be able to pay the monthy bills, groceries etc as I have a sound budget in place.
This will be a trail for me...if I see it's too much hassle with little rewards, I'll give it a miss. A lot hinges whether I can pay the monthy Visa statement by Bpay, which many of you do.
Just a few more questions:
1. Do you get a statement by mail or email?
2. Also you mention a "use by date" , so do I lose the all points if I don't book a flight in 18mths?
3. Apart from booking flights, can I do anything else with the points?

I'll hold off filling in my online application until I hear from you. I do feel a little nervous about this. There is not a lot of info available to you initially, so I'm so happy to have found this site.
Thanks again
Kinka

 

[Hvr]

Just a few more questions:
1. Do you get a statement by mail or email?
2. Also you mention a "use by date" , so do I lose the all points if I don't book a flight in 18mths?
3. Apart from booking flights, can I do anything else with the points?

Thanks again
Kinka

1) email

2) NO. Your points will expire if there is no activity for 18 months. Continually adding points via credit card spending is an activity which prevents expiry. Read more here:

3) Other ways to use points here: Some people do not consider that this is the best way to use points but ultimately it is all up to you and what you value.

 

[drewbles]

1) email

2) NO. Your points will expire if there is no activity for 18 months. Continually adding points via credit card spending is an activity which prevents expiry. Read more here:

3) Other ways to use points here: Some people do not consider that this is the best way to use points but ultimately it is all up to you and what you value.

Of course 2) only applies to QF. SQ does have regular 'use or lose' points expiry.

I'd suggest that the OP may want to stick with QFF, shop at woolies, and find a servo that does take amex (ie not Caltex who try and slug people with large surcharges). I don't know many petrol stations that don't take it (certainly BP/Shell all do with no surcharge).

IMHO, the Krisflyer WBC card would only be useful if the OP was going to supplement their CC spend with actual flights (as SQ domestic redemptions are non existent).

 

[medhead]

I get my statements by post. That is probably the default option for most cards. There are a number of payment options including by BPay for most big bank issued cards.

 

[albatross710]

or I take a trip to Brisbane (from Rockhampton) once a year. If the points get me a flight to Brissie once a year I'd be happy.
The bonus points are 5000 with the current offer...not a lot compared to

Qantas is going to be to be the best scheme for you. Consider the Westpac Earth card with 10,000 pts sign on. A return redemption ROK-BNE-ROK is 16,000 pts.

Combine the initial 10k with your woolies spend and you'll be checking your bags at the airport pretty soon.

And now for the Devil's advocate

Without wanting to dampen the enthusiasm, a return ROK/BNE ticket can probably be scored for <$100 on Jetstar. By the time you pay any card fees and tally up all of your groceries, possibly forgoing some savings by only shopping at Woolies...is it going to be worth it?