For years, the Bankwest Qantas Transaction account has been popular with Australians as a debit card that lets you earn Qantas Points.
With this bank account, you earn points on both transactions and the account balance (in lieu of a high interest rate). Since July 2022, this card also came with no foreign transaction or overseas ATM withdrawal fees – making it a popular debit card for overseas travel.
Unfortunately, the Bankwest Qantas Transaction account’s days are now numbered. According to an update on its website, Bankwest will withdraw this product from sale “from approximately 15 May 2025”.
Existing account holders are also affected. Bankwest says it “will commence migrating existing customers to the Easy Transaction Account from approximately 1 September 2025”.
The Easy Transaction account does not have any international transaction fees or monthly fees. However, it also doesn’t earn any Qantas Points.
A history of changes to the Bankwest Qantas Transaction account
AFF members have been tracking the changes to the Bankwest Qantas Transaction account over many years, including in this thread with around 200 pages worth of posts.
It originally came with 5 Qantas points per transaction, regardless of the transaction amount, with no limit to the number of transactions you could make.
However, some people got a bit carried away and set up bots to put through large amounts of one-cent transactions. Bankwest ultimately closed the accounts of people who did this. It also later added a limit of 50 transactions per day, and reduced the earn rate from 5 to 3 Qantas points per transaction.
It’s unusual for a debit card to offer a fixed amount of points on each transaction. Very few other debit cards award points at all – and the few exceptions award points per dollar spent.
Other changes that Bankwest has made to this product over the years include:
- Limiting the earning of Qantas points on the account balance to the first $50,000 in any account in 2021
- Reducing the amount of points earned on the balance from 0.4 to 0.3 Qantas points per day for each $100 in the account in 2020
Alternative bank account options
As an alternative to the Bankwest Qantas Transaction account, there are several other Australian bank accounts that award Qantas points on the balance:
- The Qudos Bank Qantas Points Saver account gives 400 Qantas points per $1,000 in the account per year (in addition to regular interest)
- The BOQ Specialist Everyday Plus account, only available to people working in certain industries, gives 1 Qantas or Velocity point per $20 in the account each month (in lieu of any interest)
- The new AMP Bank Everyday Account awards 1 Qantas point per $10 in the account each month (in lieu of any interest).
The AMP Bank Everyday Account is particularly interesting because it also has no account fees, ATM fees or international transaction fees. As a result, some people are considering this as an alternative to the Bankwest Qantas Transaction account.
You can read a full analysis of debit cards that award points in Course 2 of our Frequent Flyer Training. This course is free for all AFF members – you just need to be logged into your AFF account.
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