Commonwealth Diamond

[Stephen65]

I've been waiting for this card with interest as the current Cth Plat MC product has a very poor MC conversion rate and the Amex half of the Plat MC/Amex combo has a ridiculously low $40,000 effective cap.

However, conversion at 0.625QFF per $1 is not at all attractive to me* I can get 1.25QFF per dollar on a Citibusiness Gold Visa and 1QFF per dollar on a Woolworths plat card!

Sometimes I really wonder who is advising the Cth or whether its a deliberate policy of theirs to have the least attractive platinum credit card possible. You really have to wonder what is going on when a supermarket has a much better platinum credit card than one of Australia's largest banks.


* - I'm assuming the Cth maintain their current sneaky dodge where Cth points are only worth half a QFF point each

 

[Deleted member 18152]

The $18,000 minimum makes it obvious it's a Visa Signature card. When CBA introduced the Amex cards a Platinum brochure said they are looking into allowing BPAY payments off the Amex account. Did they end up introducing this?

 

[Diesellife]

The $18,000 minimum makes it obvious it's a Visa Signature card.

I think it's gonna be World Mastercard rather than a VISA Signature as CBA does not issue VISA anymore.

 

[Deleted member 18152]

Woops. See I have the legacy Plat Visa / Amex... hence the confusion...

 

[Diesellife]

Woops. See I have the legacy Plat Visa / Amex... hence the confusion...

I know, i lost my visa when it changes over to the new platinum :evil: Damn CBA!

 

[MAX_1]

Went to my CBA Branch to see if I could get a sneak preview of the new "Diamond" card that was due for release next Monday, 28th March.

WHAT A JOKE..........the release has been delayed till next month. This delay would indicate that they have had negative feedback on their offer and a possible review.

 

[iqis60]

The card is up on the site- Diamond Credit Card

As expected its 3 CBA award points per dollar spent on Amex, which translates to 1.5 QFF points.
1.25 CBA award points per dollar spent on Mastercard, which translates to 0.625 QFF points.
Points cap is 1 million points, which equals 500,000 QFF points. So annual spend of $333K on amex will hit the cap.

Annual fee is $425 ($395 for qualifying customers).

I'm dissapointed they didn't do anything decent with the Mastercard points rate, I would have paid an annual fee to have everything in the one place if they had done so.

 

[trippin_the_rift]

Just another card. Nothing special...

 

[Diesellife]

im not interested too

 

[MAX_1]

NAB Qantas Platinum card at $295 per annum , uncapped ( so would earn more than 1m points if needed ) yields 1.5 qff / $1 spemd on Amex and 0.66 qff / $1 spend on Visa.

CBA Diamond, dearer and not as productive than NAB Qantas Plat. card.

No big deal.

 

[samillionaire]

hey guys
the link is up for the diamond card on the cba website, would post the link but i have not enough posts. should be easy enough to find tho.


so experience aff members recomendation is not to sign up?

I have a CBA plat and i cant see any diff between this and the diamond except the 1m cap not worth the fee increase IMO

 

[straitman]

hey guys
the link is up for the diamond card on the cba website, would post the link but i have not enough posts. should be easy enough to find tho.

so experience aff members recomendation is not to sign up?

I have a CBA plat and i cant see any diff between this and the diamond except the 1m cap not worth the fee increase IMO

I personally cannot see the value in it.

Here is the link:

CBA Diamond Awards Credit Card.

 

[samillionaire]

Ta Bill,

I cant see a diff between this and plat cept the 1m bonus. I doubt I'd be able to get as much as 1mil points anyway.

btw can anyone advise whats the benefits of having a MC World? Looks like this is the CBA master thats coming with it. does it have any airport lounge access if it does i may consider not sure what the CBA plat has to offer in terms of lounges

 

[New Chump]

For those on CBA's Wealth Package, I understand (unconfirmed) that CBA will be including the Diamond card as part of its offering, and existing Gold Cards (fee free on the package) can be migrated across to Diamond.

I think the only one real advantage of this card is for those customers - they can access an AMEX earning 1.5QFF/$1 spent for no annual fee.

This would cause me to ditch my AMEX Plat Charge Card and its $900 annual fee and start using CBA's Diamond AMEX. (I rarely use any of the other AMEX Plat Charge Card benefits and really just have it for the 1.5QFF/$1 earn, up to $200k spend per year. If I have missed something in my logic to ditch the AMEX Plat Charge Card and start using the Diamond AMEX please let me know!)

Otherwise I agree CBA could have done better with the benefits attaching to their "premium" card.


NC

 

[Stephen65]

I'm one of those CBA customers and if they offer to swop my existing Plat Amex/MC combo for the Diamond I will take it and use it for non-business/tax payment Amex spend (see below).

However, I am underwhelmed by the uncompetitive 0.625 QFF pts per MC $ spend. It should be at least 1:1.

I also note that the T&C for the Diamond card include the standard CBA terms excluding business spend and spend on "government charges" from earning points. While I have never heard of this being enforced I am nervous about putting a large tax payment or significant business expenses through this card.

So I doubt this will cause me to give up my Amex plat charge. The $900 is cheap but since I use it almost exclusively for business purposes it is at least tax deductible and the Amex customer service is vastly superior. The MC conversion is also too low to drag me away from Citibank for MC spend.

PS: the Amex plat limit is really $300K because you can get another $100K at 1.5:1 via taking up the free Amex plat credit card that comes with the charge card

 

[samillionaire]

Spoke to a CBA cc specialist as the annual charge for my existing card has came through in September, they offered to upgrade to migrate my existing card over to the new Diamond as per a few post above as long as your current limit is over 18k the migration can happen, and the annual fee would not get charged till your annual existing cycle expires effectively a couple of months pseudo "free". Hope this info helps.

My concern is that i've made previous bookings on a couple of airlines/hotels for travels coming up in the coming months as the new card number will be diff from my booking number could the more experience members provide some insight of any possibility of difficulty i may face when going to the reception at airline for both full service/budget or even hotel bookings where my cc' does not match? Also do you reckon the existing travel insurance T&C will cover as the clause say the holder of the current card i.e old card.

thx

 

[pshepvic]

For those on CBA's Wealth Package, I understand (unconfirmed) that CBA will be including the Diamond card as part of its offering, and existing Gold Cards (fee free on the package) can be migrated across to Diamond.

Will be interesting to see if they do this. When I took out a Wealth Package about 5 years ago with CBA, you were able to get either the Gold or Platinum Mastercard for free. Back then you also earned 1 FF point per $1. With all the changes, and introduction of Amex cards, CBA removed the availability of the Platinum card with the package (although if you already had one you could keep it).

So currently you can only get a free Standard or Gold Card with the Wealth package.

If they change that to the Diamond card then that's a good thing, although the QF points earn on the Mastercard is still rubbish, when I can pay $89 for my Woolworths EDR card and get 1point:$1.

 

[pshepvic]

My concern is that i've made previous bookings on a couple of airlines/hotels for travels coming up in the coming months as the new card number will be diff from my booking number could the more experience members provide some insight of any possibility of difficulty i may face when going to the reception at airline for both full service/budget or even hotel bookings where my cc' does not match? Also do you reckon the existing travel insurance T&C will cover as the clause say the holder of the current card i.e old card.

Travel insurance should still apply if it is just a product transfer - call CBA to confirm.

Airline check in won't be an issue - you don't need the c/card to check in. It would normally be passport/photo ID/FF card to check in (depending if international or domestic, and the airline). The only time you might have an issue would be if you use a kiosk to check in and try to use the credit card to access the booking.

Hotels shouldn't be an issue either - I regularly use one card to confirm a booking, but then a different card on check in.

 

[straitman]

Hotels shouldn't be an issue either - I regularly use one card to confirm a booking, but then a different card on check in.

I agree that non of these should be an issue.

With the hotel I would go as far as to say that I have used a third card to pay on occassions and it really is not an issue.

 

[georgie23]

Well I phoned this morning and the CC Specialist would not upgrade me. I have a Platinum as part of my Wealth Package but she stated over the phone they cannot waive the annual fee. I would have to get my broker to try and see if he can arrange this. (Not going to involve him for a rather ordinary CC anyway)

Anyone else had luck?

For those on CBA's Wealth Package, I understand (unconfirmed) that CBA will be including the Diamond card as part of its offering, and existing Gold Cards (fee free on the package) can be migrated across to Diamond.

NC