Bankwest Qantas Transaction account [being withdrawn in 2025]

[Tense]

Which document is it?
I looked at all the links under "small print" and nothing was found about being ineligible for a new account within 30 days.

There is the 30 day requirement for the now expired promotion, ending 29 Feb 2016:
http://www.bankwest.com.au/library/pdf/PDS_20120824-143838.pdf

Maybe that was it... oops. We received our letters today also, two accounts, two cards each... 5 sept close date, been playing the game for 2 months only

 

[dodgeyhack]

2 cards and received the letter today too =( Think I'll keep putting Telstra payments through until the account closes and cross my fingers for one more points haul.

 

[burmans]

Don't give them enough rope. So far as far as I can see everything has been within the T&Cs (to the letter at least, the spirit is arguable). You don't want to change that.

I agree in this instance, and won't be applying for another card, just noting that relying on T&Cs is a very fraught process. In this case it's taken over 2 years to apply them and there are probably more instances of T&Cs not being followed that examples where there are on this forum.

In this case, yes they probably will but there is IMO a big gap between probably and definitely. And some may want to at least try to exploit that, though personally I think waiting for the noise to die down would be advisable.

 

[xzion]

Judging by the length of this thread and the fact that BW effectively buy the points, its definitely BW loosing out here (maybe costing them $25-$50 a card per month), I don't think Telstra would care too much.

Actually Telstra (and the other companies receiving the 1c transactions) are probably the ones being hit hardest by this. Most credit card processing merchants will charge a percentage of the transaction value PLUS a small, static fee, which is usually about 30c. That means each card sending them transactions is probably costing them ~$450/month in fees. They just wouldn't notice it because it's in the noise, their bill from the merchant is probably hundreds of thousands.

Yes BW is probably buying the points, but I don't think it'd be more than $25/card/month (~0.3c/point). But still it's probably more easily noticeable for them that their points spend for these non-credit card accounts is so high (thanks to us).


Haven't got a letter yet myself, but a buddy who's only had his (1 card) going for 2 months now got one today.

 

[burmans]

Actually Telstra (and the other companies receiving the 1c transactions) are probably the ones being hit hardest by this. Most credit card processing merchants will charge a percentage of the transaction value PLUS a small, static fee, which is usually about 30c. That means each card sending them transactions is probably costing them ~$450/month in fees. They just wouldn't notice it because it's in the noise, their bill from the merchant is probably hundreds of thousands.

Yes BW is probably buying the points, but I don't think it'd be more than $25/card/month (~0.3c/point). But still it's probably more easily noticeable for them that their points spend for these non-credit card accounts is so high (thanks to us).


Haven't got a letter yet myself, but a buddy who's only had his (1 card) going for 2 months now got one today.

Agree with this, my suspicion is Telstra finally kicked up a real stink, they did some data mining and this is the result.

 

[nlagalle]

Actually Telstra (and the other companies receiving the 1c transactions) are probably the ones being hit hardest by this. Most credit card processing merchants will charge a percentage of the transaction value PLUS a small, static fee, which is usually about 30c. That means each card sending them transactions is probably costing them ~$450/month in fees. They just wouldn't notice it because it's in the noise, their bill from the merchant is probably hundreds of thousands.

Most big companies only pay a merchant fee only. Heck even small companies do too. They'll pay a monthly sub then a % on the card type for credit card. Eftpos is usually 20c or less per transaction. So it wouldn't cost them $450 in fees.

 

[jas]

Don't remember where it was but I remember seeing a list of general Mastercard interchange rates. Micropayments had a small fixed amount, and it was higher than 1c. So yes Telstra were losing on this.

Do you think it was Telstra kicking up a stink though? Why not just put a minimum $1 payment on the Web form? Fixed.

 

[N860CR]

Telstra have so many layers of incompetency that I really don't think it was them. It would have been easier to just fix their online payment interface (like Citylink, Optus etc did)

 

[jas]

Exactly.



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[dfcatch]

The issue wasn't Telstra - they could fix it if they wished.

Bankwest was most likely paying between 1.0-1.5 cents per QFF point - that's a min. of $75/month per card..... adds up pretty quick.

 

[bam71]

Received letter.... one account each with one card each.... sent 22 Aug, closing account 5 Sep

 

[Skyring]

Do you think it was Telstra kicking up a stink though? Why not just put a minimum $1 payment on the Web form? Fixed.

If they did that, there would be the most enormous outcry. They have millions of custommers, and there must be quite a few who, for one reason or another, get sub-dollar bills.

 

[burnt]

The issue wasn't Telstra - they could fix it if they wished.

Bankwest was most likely paying between 1.0-1.5 cents per QFF point - that's a min. of $75/month per card..... adds up pretty quick.

I am away from home at present and my mail is being re-directed, I was running 10 cards (family members) paying Telstra 50 x $0.03 per transaction each card per day.
Do you think I will have letters coming via re direction or is there a chance they are only cancelling the $0.01 payers?
probably got near to a million so far

 

[dfcatch]

I am away from home at present and my mail is being re-directed, I was running 10 cards (family members) paying Telstra 50 x $0.03 per transaction each card per day.
Do you think I will have letters coming via re direction or is there a chance they are only cancelling the $0.01 payers?
probably got near to a million so far

Dunno - but yours would be an interesting data point which would reveal the nature of query they ran......

- Did they select all those making 1c payments?
- Did they select all those making 50 micro-payments per day (and what do they define as a micro-payment)
- Did they simply select those who were being credited a number of QFF points per month over a threshold, and then excusing the ones that held high balances....

 

[gizzard]

- Did they simply select those who were being credited a number of QFF points per month over a threshold, and then excusing the ones that held high balances....

3 family members were running the macro with 50 x 1c payments every day. 2 have received the letter. The other hasn't but has a very high account balance, much higher than the other two. They were the first of the 3 to open the account.

 

[netgrom]

The issue wasn't Telstra - they could fix it if they wished.

Bankwest was most likely paying between 1.0-1.5 cents per QFF point - that's a min. of $75/month per card..... adds up pretty quick.

I wasn't aware of a overhead of microtransactions if anyone has any links I would be interested to see this. I think my mate is correct in saying a accountant going through the FY16/FY15 has noticed a large discrepancy. No one really knows how much BW would be buying points off Qantas Loyalty but general feel is between .5c and 1c. It is probably a blimp in the scheme of bankwest but was interested to see if any numbers stand out in the results.
Guestimates:
.8c / point Cost of Qantas Points
7600 points per card per month x CPP .8c = $60 / card
$60 / card x 675 people like this thread x average 3 cards per person x 12 months = $1.45m extra in operating costs

 

[MicoPico]

Dunno - but yours would be an interesting data point which would reveal the nature of query they ran......

- Did they select all those making 1c payments?
- Did they select all those making 50 micro-payments per day (and what do they define as a micro-payment)
- Did they simply select those who were being credited a number of QFF points per month over a threshold, and then excusing the ones that held high balances....

i think BW is fairly thorough in this round of culling because for the 2 accounts we have:
account 1 has 2 cards, one card doing 1c x50 per day. The other card doing 2c x 50.
Account 2 only has 1 card, doing 3c x 50 per day.

both accounts opened around late June. Both received letters on Friday with closure date of 5th Sept.

interesting that letters are hand signed and envelopes are manually sealed with sticky tape.

 

[dfcatch]

I wasn't aware of a overhead of microtransactions if anyone has any links I would be interested to see this. I think my mate is correct in saying a accountant going through the FY16/FY15 has noticed a large discrepancy. No one really knows how much BW would be buying points off Qantas Loyalty but general feel is between .5c and 1c. It is probably a blimp in the scheme of bankwest but was interested to see if any numbers stand out in the results.
Guestimates:
.8c / point Cost of Qantas Points
7600 points per card per month x CPP .8c = $60 / card
$60 / card x 675 people like this thread x average 3 cards per person x 12 months = $1.45m extra in operating costs

Your guess is way too low - it is highly unlikely that BW is paying less than 1c/point - and I think that is even pretty low.

 

[xzion]

Your guess is way too low - it is highly unlikely that BW is paying less than 1c/point - and I think that is even pretty low.

Really? I would have expected lower. Interchange rates are locked at around 0.5% by the RBA, which means banks gets somewhere around 0.5c to the dollar on card transactions. Why would they offer a rewards program with 1point/dollar if it's costing them twice as much as they make on the transaction to pay for the points?

 

[illumination]

Really? I would have expected lower. Interchange rates are locked at around 0.5% by the RBA, which means banks gets somewhere around 0.5c to the dollar on card transactions. Why would they offer a rewards program with 1point/dollar if it's costing them twice as much as they make on the transaction to pay for the points?

I don't think they expected such volume of $0.01 transactions.. that's why?
It was never part of the design.

As has been mentioned a handful of times in this thread, this product wasn't really thought out that well, and it's just amazing that it's been active for 2.5 years. One of the simplest ways it could've been made better for BW was by implementing a minimum transaction value of $1 to earn points.