QF gift vouchers on sale. should i buy them?

[andrewlorien]

I'd like some advice, FFfriends...
I'm a Velocity SG, and i'm happy with that domestically (we work with musicians, and they are very generous to musicians). But i'll be flying to Spain in November, and it's cheaper and quicker to fly QF (or partners) to London than the long way round through Abu Dhabi. Qantas has a special for the next few days, it's free to join their FF program, and "5 Qantas Points for every AU$1 spent on Flight Gift Vouchers"

So, on the assumption that we're cheapskates who just want to get where we're going, is it worth buying $3000 worth of vouchers for my partner and I, and swapping the vouchers and points for flights in a few months when we have the dates locked in? Any tips for a person who's never even read this section of the forum?

 

[Hvr]

The rationale for buying the voucher now is to get the bonus points. So are you going to collect Qantas points in the future? If so then read and understand the T&Cs and purchase a voucher each.

If not then hold off buying. You will still receive the benefit of no fees when you do book the trip by buying a voucher minute prior to purchasing the tickets.

 

[andrewlorien]

I rarely fly Qantas domestic. Maybe every second year we fly QF/partner to Europe. But the points for long-haul flights are pretty minimal, and the 15,000 i'd get for buying the vouchers won't take us far, so maybe it's not worth the interest.

Unless one of you geniuses has a way of multiplying the value, or making the membership worth it. A lounge pass for two is worth money in comfort and horrible Heathrow food...

 

[get me outta here]

Once you have read all the T&Cs and if generally fits what you are about to book, the best thing is the points and the saving of credit card fees.

If you are not on QF often, but you are definitely going QF on the trip you mention, the main advantage is saving the cc booking fee which can be around $30.

So, for you a few QF points and a saving if you buy the minimum gift voucher of $100 toward your booking.

If you are absolutely going QF and you know the fare, why not buy a say a $2K - $3K gift voucher, save the cc fees and use the points for something else. They are 'free'. You can give them to a member of the family too, or get a new toaster. It makes no sense to not get the points, that I can think of.

I rarely fly Qantas domestic. Maybe every second year we fly QF/partner to Europe. But the points for long-haul flights are pretty minimal, and the 15,000 i'd get for buying the vouchers won't take us far, so maybe it's not worth the interest.

Unless one of you geniuses has a way of multiplying the value, or making the membership worth it. A lounge pass for two is worth money in comfort and horrible Heathrow food...

 

[Straubs]

The rationale for buying the voucher now is to get the bonus points. So are you going to collect Qantas points in the future? If so then read and understand the T&Cs and purchase a voucher each.

If not then hold off buying. You will still receive the benefit of no fees when you do book the trip by buying a voucher minute prior to purchasing the tickets.

When you purchase the flights with vouchers, I presume you won't get points but what about SCs?

 

[medhead]

To the OP you can not use points when redeeming a gift voucher, they only work of cash fares.

When you purchase the flights with vouchers, I presume you won't get points but what about SCs?

Flights purchased with gift vouchers earn points and status credits. No idea why one would presume otherwise.

 

[Jack_OC]

i'll be flying to Spain in November, and it's cheaper and quicker to fly QF (or partners) to London than the long way round through Abu Dhabi.

What do you mean "the long way round through Abu Dhabi"? Even if you go with QF, the quickest route is likely to be through the UAE (Dubai). It might depend on where you're starting out from, and indeed where exactly you're going to in Spain, but as an example, Melbourne to Madrid takes between 25 and 27 hours with 1 stop, with Etihad, Emirates or Qantas. Going via London would almost certainly take longer than that, and with QF you'd still probably go through Dubai on the way to London.

 

[Straubs]

To the OP you can not use points when redeeming a gift voucher, they only work of cash fares.



Flights purchased with gift vouchers earn points and status credits. No idea why one would presume otherwise.

Sorry, I'm pretty new to all this. The reason I presumed otherwise relates to the recent 5 points per dollar spent on gift vouchers promotion. It doesn't seem like Qantas to be quite so generous as to give you points at the backend of that transaction too.

 

[kevrosmith]

Make sure you understand how to use the gift vouchers before you buy them.

1 person @ $1000 will allow you to make a booking for one person with a fare value of >= $1000 or <= $1000. If the former, then you pay the balance, if the latter, then you receive the balance of the value as another gift voucher.

If you buy a 2 person voucher @ $1000 per person (total value is $2000), then you always have to book for two people: you cannot make a booking for one person for a $2000 fare and hope to use this "$2000 voucher". If there is leftover value from a flight purchase, the remaining value will also be reissued in a new gift voucher for two people still.

 

[RichardMEL]

Sorry, I'm pretty new to all this. The reason I presumed otherwise relates to the recent 5 points per dollar spent on gift vouchers promotion. It doesn't seem like Qantas to be quite so generous as to give you points at the backend of that transaction too.

That's OK. welcome aboard to the wacky world of the Flying Kanga

Actually QF were far more generous in the past with the Christmas (end of year) promo where they gave *10* points per $ spent. nice little earner that.. but I digress.

QF flight gift vouchers basically can be used like cash (because they are, except you've paid that to QF and you can only spend that value on QF flight product). the beautiful thing, apart from the bonus points, is zero CC charges which adds up for those of us that travel a lot

Anyway the bonus points are in addition to whatever you put the voucher towards. So you book flights with the voucher and those flights are treated as (because they are) full revenue tickets and will earn whatever QFF or SC's you would normally earn.

maybe think of it as like one of those prepaid credit cards with a value attached. It has an expiry date and you must use it by then but you can use it for anything you like (well QF flights anyway).

hope this helps rather than confuses more.

 

[get me outta here]

For the OP, just a small example here's what I have done so far for a bit of local flying:

Bought 6 x $100 QF gift vouchers on the AMEX Velocity, and I got 200 VA points per $100. That's nice of AMEX seeing as it's not a QF card.

I'll get 500 points x 6 from QF. So, 6 x 500 = 3000 QF points. Plus, 1200 VA points = 4200 points and will not pay cc fees at all.

 

[RichardMEL]

For the OP, just a small example here's what I have done so far for a bit of local flying:

Bought 6 x $100 QF gift vouchers on the AMEX Velocity, and I got 200 VA points per $100. That's nice of AMEX seeing as it's not a QF card.

I'll get 500 points x 6 from QF. So, 6 x 500 = 3000 QF points. Plus, 1200 VA points = 4200 points and will not pay cc fees at all.

And those 6 $100 vouchers can go towards flights over the next year (say 3 r/t or 6 one way) and none of those bookings will thus have any CC fees, even if they are over $100 (useful for those cheap sale fares).

I am not a VA peep but I like the idea of double dipping

Here's what I did recently.

$1000 voucher on my QF earning CC = 2000 points plus 5000 points (the bonus). put it to a domestic return trip later this week which will earn me whatever it will earn, I think around 3200 points plus SC. With the triple points promo on, that should then be earning another 9600 plus a bit of residual on the voucher

so that $1000 spend gets me CC fee free around 19800 points

Oh I almost forgot I did that one on the amex, with the $100 rebate deal they had, so the $100 voucher only "cost" $900.

#winning

Anyway I have bought prob $5k vouchers to cover me over the next year in planned trips. the bonus points will go towards upgrades (specially international) or the like so there is value.

As to the OP with very infrequent (no pun intended) QF spend the value of the promo is not so much there, though if one flies every other year it should keep the account open so points accural can still be useful for an upgrade or something down the track. As long as one is careful to keep it active that is. Certainly getting the extra points can't hurt

My only thought is that the OP mentions the trip to Spain as being later in 2016. Unless you've got dates locked in and want to purchase in the next little while (OK next week lol) then there's no point doing the promo now. If the dates are set to be before say Dec 1 and you know you WILL go and WILL book QF thn it may be worth just getting the voucher(s) now to take advantage but remember there are no refunds and they do expire. You can buy the voucher and book in Jan/Feb/April whatever that's fine but I would only do it if the plan was certain. I mean if in Feb a deal comes along via say Iberia and MH or something and you decide it's so much cheaper to do that, then the voucher could be wasted, oir you may feel it needs to be used for a domestic trip you perhaps don't want to do just to use that value.

So in summary - if the QF plan is 90% locked in and you feel comfy with that, and your dates are in the range before Dec next year (at least to depart) then go for it. If not, it may be worth holding off till next year when plans are more settled - the bonus is nice but probably not a major benefit to you given your flying pattern.

my 2 cents.

 

[get me outta here]

If all else fails, as the booking can be made in anyone's name, the gift voucher can be passed on / sold to someone else. A small loss of say 5% may make it attractive.

And those 6 $100 vouchers can go towards flights over the next year (say 3 r/t or 6 one way) and none of those bookings will thus have any CC fees, even if they are over $100 (useful for those cheap sale fares).

I am not a VA peep but I like the idea of double dipping

Here's what I did recently.

$1000 voucher on my QF earning CC = 2000 points plus 5000 points (the bonus). put it to a domestic return trip later this week which will earn me whatever it will earn, I think around 3200 points plus SC. With the triple points promo on, that should then be earning another 9600 plus a bit of residual on the voucher

so that $1000 spend gets me CC fee free around 19800 points

Oh I almost forgot I did that one on the amex, with the $100 rebate deal they had, so the $100 voucher only "cost" $900.

#winning

Anyway I have bought prob $5k vouchers to cover me over the next year in planned trips. the bonus points will go towards upgrades (specially international) or the like so there is value.

As to the OP with very infrequent (no pun intended) QF spend the value of the promo is not so much there, though if one flies every other year it should keep the account open so points accural can still be useful for an upgrade or something down the track. As long as one is careful to keep it active that is. Certainly getting the extra points can't hurt

My only thought is that the OP mentions the trip to Spain as being later in 2016. Unless you've got dates locked in and want to purchase in the next little while (OK next week lol) then there's no point doing the promo now. If the dates are set to be before say Dec 1 and you know you WILL go and WILL book QF thn it may be worth just getting the voucher(s) now to take advantage but remember there are no refunds and they do expire. You can buy the voucher and book in Jan/Feb/April whatever that's fine but I would only do it if the plan was certain. I mean if in Feb a deal comes along via say Iberia and MH or something and you decide it's so much cheaper to do that, then the voucher could be wasted, oir you may feel it needs to be used for a domestic trip you perhaps don't want to do just to use that value.

So in summary - if the QF plan is 90% locked in and you feel comfy with that, and your dates are in the range before Dec next year (at least to depart) then go for it. If not, it may be worth holding off till next year when plans are more settled - the bonus is nice but probably not a major benefit to you given your flying pattern.

my 2 cents.

 

[cji003]

Can I just ask how long it usually takes for us to receive the bonus points?

 

[JohnK]

Can I just ask how long it usually takes for us to receive the bonus points?

Usually up to 8 weeks. Last year they were good. The year before not so good where some had to chase bonus points for months.

 

[RichardMEL]

I imagine they will run a huge sweep shortly after 1 Jan and credit in the first week of Jan, then pick up any oddities later on.

 

[cji003]

Let's wait and see, I bought 4 x $1000.

 

[medhead]

For my $2250 gift voucher purchases I'm expecting 11250 QFF bonus points, 750 Amex MR points and 3750 QFF card points.

Sorry, I'm pretty new to all this. The reason I presumed otherwise relates to the recent 5 points per dollar spent on gift vouchers promotion. It doesn't seem like Qantas to be quite so generous as to give you points at the backend of that transaction too.

It's just a short term promo to make you, and I, give money to qantas. The bonus points are to encourage you to give them money. In my case, I used the last remaining value from my 2014 voucher purchases in October or November. That's a long time for Qantas to have and use my cash, and for me to not have that cash earning me 5%. Anyway, gift vouchers are just a payment method, the flights you buy are treated as if you purchased using "cash". Also excellent advice to read and understand the terms and conditions. All sorts of good things can be achieved with gift vouchers, within those conditions.

 

[andrewlorien]

Thanks everyone.
In the end i didn't do it (spent the week at a music festival and forgot all about the CC / point market).
But I think, for me, the smart money would have been to buy a few hundred dollars worth - enough to get a few points in my account, save the credit card fee, but not so many that if i find another way to Spain i couldn't still use them for a domestic flight.

How often do Qantas do these kinds of promos? Is it just christmas, or could i expect another one in the next six months?

 

[astrosly]

How often do Qantas do these kinds of promos? Is it just christmas, or could i expect another one in the next six months?

I've been buying vouchers for the last three years and I've only seen the points promo being offered at the end of the year, starting in Nov or early Dec.

I ended up buying only half the value that I did last year, with the same thoughts as you in that if I don't or can't use them for o/s travel then I can use them on domestic flights as I will have to go to Sydney a few times in this year.