Bankwest Transaction account [General Discussion]

Double 'hmmm'... just checked the terms and conditions of the BW Qantas transaction account - clause 10 says they will give us at least 30 days' written notice of any changes. And right under that:

You agree that we may give you such notice in writing by publishing notice in a national newspaper, or on the Bankwest Qantas Rewards website located at Bankwest Personal Banking | Accounts, Credit Cards and Loans.​
So they don't have to write to us individually - just put it on their website. Job done :(
 
Looks like it wasn't making great business sense for them. The maximum you can earn after the change is 150 points per day, or 54,750 a year (4,562/month).

The other alternative is this:

Earn 400 Qantas Points* per annum for every $1000 of your balance, credited monthly

Qantas Points Saver
400 Ordinary Qantas Points per annum for each $1,000 of the Average Balance in credit, up to a total Average Balance per Member of $1,000,000.

Ordinary Qantas Points will be calculated on a monthly basis using the following formula:
(Average Balance for relevant account / 1000 ) x (number of Ordinary Qantas Points for relevant product / 12 ) = monthly points

Using the calculator:
$50,000 gives you 20,038 points per year.
$1,000 gives you 33 points per month and 396 points per year.

A BW balance of $1,000 gives you 3 points per day or 1,095 points per year

2.75x difference in earn.
 
I just signup for an account last week! Now I am not really affected, as I didn't plan to have more then 20k on it at anytime.

I intuitively would think that large sums are better placed somewhere else, but I havent done the maths, so Ill ask: was that uncapped account really interesting, compared to placing money in a term deposit, or investing?
 
I just signup for an account last week! Now I am not really affected, as I didn't plan to have more then 20k on it at anytime.

I intuitively would think that large sums are better placed somewhere else, but I havent done the maths, so Ill ask: was that uncapped account really interesting, compared to placing money in a term deposit, or investing?

Against investing in something like super, or a find that can return the same as super, Bankwest didn't come out in front.

Against terms deposits it faired better, although lately I've seen advertisements for La Trobe Financial offering term deposits for 4.5%. That would likely be a winner.

The nice thing about Bankwest was that there was no tax on the points. With fairly low term deposit rates lately converting Bankwest points to a business class airfare made sense. If we take a deposit of $250K in bankwest it would accrue around 270,000 points a year, enough for a return business class to Europe. The value of that depends if you measure against QF/EK paid fares (upto $8k), or against something like a CX/AY or JL/BA fares of $5500. (Prior to the devaluation in earning last year the same $250K on deposit would have returned 360,000 QFFF points, plenty for a oneworld J class award, which could have quite a high value).
 
Double 'hmmm'... just checked the terms and conditions of the BW Qantas transaction account - clause 10 says they will give us at least 30 days' written notice of any changes. And right under that:

You agree that we may give you such notice in writing by publishing notice in a national newspaper, or on the Bankwest Qantas Rewards website located at Bankwest Personal Banking | Accounts, Credit Cards and Loans.​
So they don't have to write to us individually - just put it on their website. Job done :(
FWIW I've just now received an email notification of the change.
 
I looked for that - it seems to be a Term Investment, where you could still lose all your money!

Hmmm again! I didn't even look in to it - I just saw an ad and thought it was a term deposit. You are right though it's an 'investment' and you could lose some or all of your principal. (I didn't even see it came with its own QFFF points, but not worth it for me if the investment can go down.)
 
Not sure how much Qantas charge but surely they don't lose money from buying FF points from Qantas in lieu of investing our parked money in something else? So what is the difference to them if they have 30 accounts with $100,000 parked v 60 accounts with $50,000... Just wondering...
 
Not sure how much Qantas charge but surely they don't lose money from buying FF points from Qantas in lieu of investing our parked money in something else? So what is the difference to them if they have 30 accounts with $100,000 parked v 60 accounts with $50,000... Just wondering...
Never thought of it that way. Neither did they probably; some junior manager just thought "Crikey, this blokes got xx million in this account and we are haemorrhaging points." Conversly, they may just be trying it on, to see how many people stay? I can confidently predict that will not be a single account left after Nov 1 with more than $50,000 in it.
 

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