purchasing points at lower than the advertised Qantas rate

[heycam]

Qantas lets you buy top-up points. The rate depends on how many you are buying; it ranges from 5c/point when buying 500 points, to ~2.8c/point when buying 20,000 points.

I think you could do better by setting up an account with a payment provider such as Stripe and making a payment, to yourself, with a points-accruing credit card. Stripe takes 1.75% commission from payments, which means you can get down to 1.75c/point. If you wanted to buy 20,000 points and you have a 1 point/$ credit card, you would put a payment of $20,000 through, gain the 20,000 points on your credit card, and pay the $350 commission.

The cons are that you would need to wait for your monthly credit card points accrual (well, mine is monthly) plus you would be out of pocket for the seven days that Stripe has your $20,000 minus commission. And of course you need a credit card with an appropriate limit.

Now, whether 1.75c/point is good value even still is another matter.

Anything wrong with this plan? Is it against any terms & conditions? I don't need to purchase points; just putting an idea out there.

 

[opusman]

In theory you could buy points for 0.42c/point by overpaying your tax to the ATO, and then claim the over payment back in cheque form