Which Credit Card?

[hello12345]

Hi everyone, I recently posted for advice on which credit to get as we were confused of the difference between VISA, Mastercard and AMEX.

I will post the specific links to the two we are choosing out of. We can choose out of these two cards ONLY, no others, as we get either of these two free (no annual fee) connected to our home loan so unfortunately we cannot look at any alternative cards.

Option 1: NAB Flybuys Rewards Card – VISA – Earn 1 point per dollar spent

http://www.nab.com.au/wps/wcm/connect/nab/nab/home/personal_finance/4/56

Option 2: NAB Qantas Gold Card – AMEX & Mastercard.

http://www.nab.com.au/wps/wcm/connect/nab/nab/home/personal_finance/4/30/4


The earning points for this Card is as follows for the first $3000: American Express = 2 points per $2 spent. Mastercard = 2 points per $3 spent.

We wouldn’t spend more than $3000 per month so this is the only point ratio that is relevant to us. How many places is American Express NOT accepted? I have only ever had VISA before so im not sure as to how many places AMEX is not accepted. Can you use AMEX in stores like Coles, Woolworths, Target & other big chain stores without getting charged extra fee? Or is there not many places at all who don’t charge a service fee for paying with AMEX?

Does anyone recommend either Flybuys or the Qantas Frequent Flyer program over the other? Is either program easier to get flights or other rewards quicker? Or is the points needed for flights and other rewards roughly the same in each program?

Thanks in advance for your help

 

[cove]

For personal use we have been happy using the Woolworths Everyday Rewards card as you get 16k free points for $89 and a point a dollar on this MasterCard.
If you can use the American Express part of the National bank card then yes there is some merit in those cards.
With Domestic travel it has to be either of Qantas or Virgin. Qantas has more flights.

 

[MrHyde]

Think about what you want the card for? What things would you like to put on it.

I found that American Express was good for charging Travel expenses like Taxis, hotels, flights, etc. But many of the more regular expenses like bills would not accept American Express - only Visa or Mastercard. So, that could be a determining factor for you.

 

[AVC]

AMEX is pretty much accepted (without surcharge) in most large chains. eg;
Coles, Woolies, Big W, Target, Myer, DJs, Bunnings, Shell, Caltex, McDonalds, and some small businesses. You'll find it's accepted at most other places, but some of them put a surcharge on it. NRMA don't accept it at all, BTW

I'm not sure of the value of FlyBuys points so I can't really comment on how good they are

 

[ChrisFlyer]

I have a Wiki that shows many places in Australia where American Express is accepted - see American Express Acceptance Wiki ... I'm not sure which is your closest capital city, but there is a considerable amount of information on Brisbane and some also for Sydney, as well as a sizeable list of national retailers/chains, airlines, hotels, etc etc.

As to the $3k/month limit for points earning, just be aware that while you may not spend this amount in a standard month, when paying for larger expenses such as international travel (flights, any pre-paid hotels, show/event/sporting tickets, pre-paid transport etc), you can and will easily exceed this limit in such a scenario, so just be mindful of the fact that such expenses may not earn any points at all if you book them too closely together and exceed the cap)... my suggestion is for the Amex & MC combo, but if you have no other cards that earn points at all, try to space out any larger bookings to ensure you can earn points wherever possible As an example, I don't spend too much money when I'm not travelling, but late last year I had to book three long international trips within the space of a few days, which easily resulted in ~$35k of expenses charged to my cards... if I had a monthly expense limit for points earn, I'd have only earned a few thousand points... but as one of my Amex cards has no points cap, and the the effective annual spending limit on the other card for points is ~$333,333, I earned over 50,000 Qantas points in just a few days

 

[Jeffrey O'Neill]

Depends on how much you will spend and whether free travel insurance will come into play.

I have the Citibank Citibusiness Gold card that's $149 a year - can have 4 more sup cards for free - and earns 1.25 points per $ and can transer in blocks of 10K points to QFF as well as a number of other Airline FF programs. It's the only card left that lets you not have to direct earn to QFF - no idea how tey've managed to do it.

I travel twice a year so the $$$ savings on travel insurance alone makes the card worthwhile.

 

[Moopere]

I will post the specific links to the two we are choosing out of. We can choose out of these two cards ONLY, no others, as we get either of these two free (no annual fee) connected to our home loan so unfortunately we cannot look at any alternative cards.

You can't look at other cards or you wish not to?

I have not seen a general community value put on Flybuys points yet. Before the re-launch FB points to me (at least) had essentially no value at all. I got two FB cards in the mail recently, as did many people but even the glossies enclosed couldn't tempt me to keep reading for more than about a minute. Seems almost completely devoid of value for flying/travelling.

If my only other choice was the NAB Cobranded Amex and companion M/C well, I've seen worse earning cards, this one, for a major bank pair, isn't so bad.

Total spent on eligible purchases per statement cycle (both cards)	American Express	MasterCard
For the first $3000 ($0 - $3,000)	2 points per $2	2 points per $3
For the next $7000 ($3,001 - $10,000)	1 point per $2	1 point per $3
After the first $10,000	No further points	No further points

The earn rate falls away horribly once you hit the $3K milestone though. Youch! My spend patterns are a lot like ChrisCh describes below. A steady spend at reasonably low levels interspersed with significantly higher bursts ... I wouldn't be happy to accept the above figures from this particular card because of that.

However, if your spend is truly very low, then paying large annual fees, or even moderate ones can be bothersome as they will eat away at your points value. $89 for the woolies EDR CC will take $2966 of spend just to break even if you value your QFF points at 3c each and earn at 1:1. If you intend to redeem against economy fares then the value is more likely to be around 0.7c, so the $89 fee would take $12714 of spend to break even.

Its my opinion that you have to fully understand what you intend to do with your points, over what timeframe, and given this knowledge can probably gain a rough rule of thumb value per point for your circumstances. Its then relatively easy to choose a product to suit you.

[Edit: I find Amex acceptance to be excellent these days. Even fast food places like McDonalds and Subway accept Amex usually. Petrol, supermarkets, bills, even many car yards and servicing and whatnot accept Amex if you use even the tiniest bit of care when choosing your providers. Small owner operated restaurants and lunch type shops seem to loom largest on my list of non accepters or surchargers.]

 

[Danger]

Those of you with an uncapped QFF points earning Visa card (the only one I can think of is the Woolworths card) may be interested in a short sale of banknotes from the Reserve Bank.

RBA: Numismatic Arrangements

http://www.rba.gov.au/banknotes/collecting/pdf/numismatic-order-form-2012.pdf

There is a quantity of 2008, 2010 and 2011 polymer notes being sold at face value (plus a $15 courier fee). The credit card surcharge for visa is 0.53% which makes, for example, $16k in notes worth $84.80. Because the notes are face value they can be banked (obviously at face value) as soon as you get them, meaning the only thing you're out of pocket for is the courier fee.

The Amex surcharge is a more hefty 1.62% although still attractive with the right earning rate. If anyone knows of an Amex with, say two QFF per $1 uncapped, please let me know.

Unfortunately the whole deal is not as good as one run by the US Federal Reserve a little while back that I read about on Flyertalk. Something like dollar coins (or maybe notes) being sold by the bundle at face value and I don't think there was a credit card fee. Massive FF earning for some people who got onto it.

(This is how I understand it all but please don't blame me if it goes pear-shaped.)

 

[ChrisFlyer]

I was just having a look at this and it looks like a pretty sweet deal! The only problem is that it can take up to 28 days for delivery, so those (like myself) that have cards with credit limits (as opposed to charge cards) could probably only put one transaction through per card if using the delivery method (unless you were quick and repaid the purchase amount after delivery and immediately purchased another batch). The other hassle is getting a certified copy of an ID document for each order (as you don't seem to be able to use multiple cards per order), unless you live in SYD or CBR and can buy in-person.

I have an un-capped Amex that earns 1.5QFF/$1 (WBC Earth Platinum Plus), so buying, say, $9500 of banknotes in-person would cost $9653.90 with the Amex fee included, and would earn 14480 QFF points at a cost of $153.90 ($0.01062/point)... I also have a capped Amex with the same earn rate (CBA Diamond, though I've never gone near the cap), so this would actually tempt me to fly to Sydney for the day, buy around ~$11.5k worth of notes, deposit those immediately at a CBA branch (as in-person cash deposits are 'available' immediately), transfer the amount onto my card via NetBank (which also immediately increases the available balance), and repeat the process until I get bored... Buying $11.5k would cost $11,686.30, and would earn 17529 QFF points at a cost of $186.30 ($0.01062).

Repeating this say, 5 times, would earn 87645 QFF points, and would cost $931.50. Add to that the WBC purchase (where I'd only be able to do one transaction as CC payments don't clear until the next day), and the total earn would be 102,125 points at a cost of $1085.40. Cost per point: $0.0162. Yield: 109.634 QFF points earned per actual dollar spent

Using my CBA Diamond MasterCard, the same $11.5k purchase would cost $11560.95, and would earn 7225 points at a cost of $60.95 (earn rate is 0.625QFF/$1), with a cost per point of $0.00843. Yield: 118.539 QFF points earned per actual dollar spent! ... This would all just depend on if I had the patience and the time to keep walking back and forward between the RBA and CBA!

Now, before I get too excited, does anyone know if the RBA processes such a charge as a cash advance, or is it submitted as a normal 'purchase' transaction? If it's a cash advance, then for me, the points earn would be 0, as well as incurring cash advance fees for each transaction from my banks.

Also, I'd obviously have to let the CBA know that I was intending to authorise a number of high-value transactions all on the same day - I'm positive that charging to the card in a day what you would usually charge in a year would set the fraud alarms into meltdown, even if there were payments applied to the account between each charge. In such a case, how would one best describe the planned transactions to the bank (without necessarily being deceptive)? They would probably be a little suspicious if you said "I'm buying banknotes with my card (ie. cash), then depositing them straight away, then repeating the process" (even though there's nothing technically 'wrong' with that, as you're dealing with the government and this isn't money laundering). I would lean towards calling ahead of time to say that you had a 'large payment to make on (Monday) to the Reserve Bank', but will be splitting it across multiple transactions in order to stay within the credit limit, and will be making payments to the card account after each transaction to ensure that the card never goes overlimit - though I'm happy to hear suggestions from other members on this, particularly those who may have done a similar thing before.

This could be fun!

 

[Sprucegoose]

.. my suggestion is for the Amex & MC combo, but if you have no other cards that earn points at all, try to space out any larger bookings to ensure you can earn points wherever possible As an example, I don't spend too much money when I'm not travelling, but late last year I had to book three long international trips within the space of a few days, which easily resulted in ~$35k of expenses charged to my cards... if I had a monthly expense limit for points earn, I'd have only earned a few thousand points... but as one of

my Amex cards has no points cap, and the the effective annual spending limit on the other card for points is ~$333,333,

I earned over 50,000 Qantas points in just a few days

Chris,

I would be interested to learn what are these cards are called as I am in a similar position to yourself.

 

[burmans]

I was just having a look at this and it looks like a pretty sweet deal! The only problem is that it can take up to 28 days for delivery, so those (like myself) that have cards with credit limits (as opposed to charge cards) could probably only put one transaction through per card if using the delivery method (unless you were quick and repaid the purchase amount after delivery and immediately purchased another batch). The other hassle is getting a certified copy of an ID document for each order (as you don't seem to be able to use multiple cards per order), unless you live in SYD or CBR and can buy in-person.

I have an un-capped Amex that earns 1.5QFF/$1 (WBC Earth Platinum Plus), so buying, say, $9500 of banknotes in-person would cost $9653.90 with the Amex fee included, and would earn 14480 QFF points at a cost of $153.90 ($0.01062/point)... I also have a capped Amex with the same earn rate (CBA Diamond, though I've never gone near the cap), so this would actually tempt me to fly to Sydney for the day, buy around ~$11.5k worth of notes, deposit those immediately at a CBA branch (as in-person cash deposits are 'available' immediately), transfer the amount onto my card via NetBank (which also immediately increases the available balance), and repeat the process until I get bored... Buying $11.5k would cost $11,686.30, and would earn 17529 QFF points at a cost of $186.30 ($0.01062).

Repeating this say, 5 times, would earn 87645 QFF points, and would cost $931.50. Add to that the WBC purchase (where I'd only be able to do one transaction as CC payments don't clear until the next day), and the total earn would be 102,125 points at a cost of $1085.40. Cost per point: $0.0162. Yield: 109.634 QFF points earned per actual dollar spent

Using my CBA Diamond MasterCard, the same $11.5k purchase would cost $11560.95, and would earn 7225 points at a cost of $60.95 (earn rate is 0.625QFF/$1), with a cost per point of $0.00843. Yield: 118.539 QFF points earned per actual dollar spent! ... This would all just depend on if I had the patience and the time to keep walking back and forward between the RBA and CBA!

Now, before I get too excited, does anyone know if the RBA processes such a charge as a cash advance, or is it submitted as a normal 'purchase' transaction? If it's a cash advance, then for me, the points earn would be 0, as well as incurring cash advance fees for each transaction from my banks.

Also, I'd obviously have to let the CBA know that I was intending to authorise a number of high-value transactions all on the same day - I'm positive that charging to the card in a day what you would usually charge in a year would set the fraud alarms into meltdown, even if there were payments applied to the account between each charge. In such a case, how would one best describe the planned transactions to the bank (without necessarily being deceptive)? They would probably be a little suspicious if you said "I'm buying banknotes with my card (ie. cash), then depositing them straight away, then repeating the process" (even though there's nothing technically 'wrong' with that, as you're dealing with the government and this isn't money laundering). I would lean towards calling ahead of time to say that you had a 'large payment to make on (Monday) to the Reserve Bank', but will be splitting it across multiple transactions in order to stay within the credit limit, and will be making payments to the card account after each transaction to ensure that the card never goes overlimit - though I'm happy to hear suggestions from other members on this, particularly those who may have done a similar thing before.

This could be fun!

So has anyone actually done this?

 

[anchew]

OMG! I just saw this. I work just down the road from the RBA in CBR so will give it a go on Monday. Will report on the outcome

 

[burmans]

OMG! I just saw this. I work just down the road from the RBA in CBR so will give it a go on Monday. Will report on the outcome

Yes, surprised this hasn't received greater attention!

 

[anchew]

So, being the first Monday of August, it's Bank Holiday today and alas, the RBA was closed. And one would have been mistaken to have thought that the Bank Holiday only applied to retail banks in NSW. Now we know that it also applies to the Central Bank in the ACT

Will try again tomorrow.

 

[anchew]

Mission failed! The RBA in CBR didn't have CC facilities :shock:

 

[ChrisFlyer]

Mission failed! The RBA in CBR didn't have CC facilities :shock:

Ouch! I'm guessing they wouldn't call Sydney to process it?

I might have to give SYD a call and check before planning a 'points run' from BNE... if there's no CC acceptance then there won't be any points haha!

 

[Formal Hall]

If anyone tries this, avoid most Amex cards, they have recently changed to earning only 0.5 points per dollar spent on 'utilities, insurance, telecommunication providers and government bodies in Australia'. The RBA is fairly clearly a government body.

 

[ChrisFlyer]

If anyone tries this, avoid most Amex cards, they have recently changed to earning only 0.5 points per dollar spent on 'utilities, insurance, telecommunication providers and government bodies in Australia'. The RBA is fairly clearly a government body.

True, though this doesn't apply to the QFF Amex cards, or to Amex cards not issued by American Express

 

[greenfrog86]

If anyone tries this, avoid most Amex cards, they have recently changed to earning only 0.5 points per dollar spent on 'utilities, insurance, telecommunication providers and government bodies in Australia'. The RBA is fairly clearly a government body.

This happens from October 1 for most cardholders with Reserve or Platinum Charge so you should be right at the moment...

 

[asg29e]

This thread has been a bit quiet lately; I wonder if it is because no one has bothered to do the RBA banknote thing, or rather that they are doing it and waiting to see how it all turns out.

Well, I bit the bullet and did it, and it all worked nicely.

$40k of notes ordered on my 1 QFF point/$ Visa on 24 August. A nice parcel of "documents" arrived yesterday, now safely in the bank. Courier and credit card fees totalled $233.56.

But it gets even better. The the credit card bill will not become due until 17 October. Meanwhile the 40k is sitting in my mortgage offset account, which at 6.5% will save me $277 during that period.

So, in the end 40000 QFF points and a profit of about $43.

Pretty sweet deal, the only downside being slight anxiety wondering if it is all going to go pear shaped.