Best use of points

gbanger

Newbie
Joined
Feb 2, 2023
Posts
3
New to the card game and I have just redeemed my first reward flight with Singapore airlines before the devaluation.

Essentially 2 "business saver" class tickets for april 2024 with retail value of $7,700 for 360,000 Kris Miles / 740,000 Amex points, the majority if which I had to pay a surcharge of 2.2% with Pay.com.au which is around $7235.

Does that seem normal? It seemed to be alot of effort for the $500 in savings.

After the devaluation it would actually be worse off than buying the tickets outright.
 
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You essentially paid around 2c per point which I feel is on par with what they're worth. What's letting you down is that you spent quite a lot of points on a fairly cheap revenue fare.
 
2.2% fee is not low... you want to achieve a higher redemption value. But if the 2.2% fee is tax deductible, then it may be a bit lower.
 
It is all in how you accumulate. There are different ways to do so. The big one is a sign-on bonus.

Other streams are sign-on bonuses for Visa/MC products. Commonly known as churning.
 
melbourne to shanghai, traveling in May 2024. 90k kris miles per person each way.
Figured I redeem it now before the devaluation happens.

yes, with gst and tax deduction it works out slightly better, but again alot of effort.
 
Where you’re going wrong is basically paying a surcharge on your spends, to accumulate points. You’re always going to come out even. Large Sign-on bonuses and refer a friend bonuses is where you used to get free points. Those days are long gone.
 
You have to be quite selective with which surcharges you pay. If the payments you made could have been done on Sniip instead at 1.29% your surcharges would have come to $4242.
 
I do use sniip where possible, but the big spenders are payments to business suppliers and they're bank transfer only.
 
I do use sniip where possible, but the big spenders are payments to business suppliers and they're bank transfer only.
You've just found out why points collection & redemption can be a mug's game for the uninitiated.

For it to be worthwhile, you need to keep your points collection costs as low as possible. You definitely shouldn't be collecting points at 2c/point. No more than 1c/point. My personal aim is 0.3c/point.
 
I just booked Conrad Bora Bora for 5 nights for 480k points. I already had 247k points so it only cost me another US MR 92k points due to Amex having a bonus
 

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