Hi all,
Always been a cc awards redeemer but over the years I've been focusing on building my property portfolio so I didn't want to risk churning cards whilst applying for loans. Now that I'm taking a break and letting the equity do it's thing (at this rate, it's stagnant or slow growth), I've applied and cancelled a few cards. I'm big on the AMEX rewards (Platinum Edge) and I also have Altitude Platinum & Diamond Awards through loan packages. The last few years have been redeeming the points for gift cards as they were a convenient way to get cash back or simple christmas gifts. I'm aware that's not the ideal redemption but it was a quick way to organise gifts as we were also building a family and the stress of shopping around whilst having a baby was a challenge.
Now that the little one is growing up my focus has shifted from gift cards (groceries) to using the points to upgrade our trips from economy to business. We hope to travel to Asia regularly (perhaps Japan) and want to accumulate Asia Miles. Platinum Edge did well and Altitude was our fallback but learning on this forum about purchasing Visa 1 cards via Amex/CashRewards/Woolworths is a strategy I'm planning to implement. Not a straight conversion as Woolies staff won't allow it but slip in a few cards whilst doing normal groceries seem okay. With Asia Miles changing their whole redemption table, I'm interested to see whether it's still as competitive or I should hold my points on the cc until something that fits my award goal shows up. Hoping to learn more from this site.
Always looking for a good bargain and I consider myself a hardcore budgeter but not at the expense of redeeming points (I still pay by card only if there are no surcharges). I don't spend or travel enough to justify the accumulation of points, for me it's a nice bonus to have but not a primary goal for class upgrades.
Always been a cc awards redeemer but over the years I've been focusing on building my property portfolio so I didn't want to risk churning cards whilst applying for loans. Now that I'm taking a break and letting the equity do it's thing (at this rate, it's stagnant or slow growth), I've applied and cancelled a few cards. I'm big on the AMEX rewards (Platinum Edge) and I also have Altitude Platinum & Diamond Awards through loan packages. The last few years have been redeeming the points for gift cards as they were a convenient way to get cash back or simple christmas gifts. I'm aware that's not the ideal redemption but it was a quick way to organise gifts as we were also building a family and the stress of shopping around whilst having a baby was a challenge.
Now that the little one is growing up my focus has shifted from gift cards (groceries) to using the points to upgrade our trips from economy to business. We hope to travel to Asia regularly (perhaps Japan) and want to accumulate Asia Miles. Platinum Edge did well and Altitude was our fallback but learning on this forum about purchasing Visa 1 cards via Amex/CashRewards/Woolworths is a strategy I'm planning to implement. Not a straight conversion as Woolies staff won't allow it but slip in a few cards whilst doing normal groceries seem okay. With Asia Miles changing their whole redemption table, I'm interested to see whether it's still as competitive or I should hold my points on the cc until something that fits my award goal shows up. Hoping to learn more from this site.
Always looking for a good bargain and I consider myself a hardcore budgeter but not at the expense of redeeming points (I still pay by card only if there are no surcharges). I don't spend or travel enough to justify the accumulation of points, for me it's a nice bonus to have but not a primary goal for class upgrades.
