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Qantas has expanded its ever-growing frequent flyer empire into the competitive credit card market with the launch of the airline’s own credit card.
The Qantas Premier card, which is underwritten by Citibank, offers a reasonably competitive earn rate and various other perks, including airport lounge passes. But not everyone is convinced it’s worth the $299 annual fee.
For years, frequent flyers have been able to earn Qantas points by using bank-issued credit cards. But this is the first time that Qantas has issued its own card.
The Qantas Premier card earns 1 Qantas point per dollar spent within Australia, up to 10,000 points per month. After spending $10,000 in a month, the earn rate halves to 0.5 points per dollar. An extra point is earned for every dollar spent with Qantas and 1.5 points per dollar are earned for international purchases – although there is a 3% currency conversion fee.
Despite the earning cap, an earn rate of 1 point per dollar for domestic MasterCard transactions is competitive against what most banks will be offering from 1 July… but it’s not market-leading.
Other perks include international travel insurance and two annual Qantas lounge passes. These lounge passes can be used at domestic Qantas Club lounges and Qantas-operated international Business lounges. Qantas is also offering cardholders 10-20% off domestic flight bookings once per year. But the discount only applies when booking flights for 2 or more passengers, and the discount excludes taxes.
While the card does come with some worthwhile benefits, many members have criticised it for being uncompetitive and relatively boring in terms of perks offered.
I certainly hope the QF team are reading this thread so that they can get an idea of how disappointing this product is:
– No SC sign-on bonus
– No Apple Pay
– No earn on government spend
– No fee-free first year
– No special perks compared to other products on market
– Average QFF sign-on bonus
– Average QFF earn rate
Despite the criticism, some members have applied for the card. One member’s experience was seamless…
Applied last night, received phone call stating approved this morning and no further documents needed – quite a painless application process so far. received the minimum credit limit as requested.
But another member’s application process was not…
I’ve had a much more painful experience – I applied online last night, then this morning received a phone call wanting to know lots more info – all my residential addresses for the last 35 years, how much is my mortgage (which was in the application), how much I spend on electricity permonth, what street I live in now (which of course was in the application) ………………. a 12 minute phone call that achieved not very much they didn’t already know. Now it goes to the “approval team”.
Qantas is currently offering 60,000 bonus Qantas points to new cardholders that apply for the card by 31 August and spend at least $3,000 in the first three months.
60K pts for $149 or $0 if can get Ann Fee refunded when cancelling aint to be sneezed at – tks Qantas I’ll have me a slice of that please.
Join the discussion HERE.
