Need opinions - cards that earn greater than 1 airline point/$

[Moopere]

Hi folks,

Looking for options. In a few days I'll be cancelling my Amex Velocity Plat. Its been a fine card for a year with a good sign on bonus, free flight, etc, but most importantly, 1.5 Velocity points / $ for _everything_. Its going to change in a couple of months to 0.5 Vpoints/$ for the usual suspects, utilities, ATO, etc, so its no longer worth the fee to me.

I've known about this change thanks to posts here for several weeks but am struggling to find a replacement card at better than 1 airline mile/point / $ Note that there are still swags of cards offering >1 point /$ spent for an institutions _own_ points scheme, but once transferred out to airlines the conversion rate is not great.

What I have now:

Amex Edge Plat - 3-2-1-0.5/$. I'll keep this one at its $149 annum fee for the free flight and the petrol/groceries earn. Its a good card overall, but no good for utilities, insurance, ATO, telco's
Woolies EDR CC - 1:1 for everything. Straight to QFF which is fine. I don't mind which airline gets the miles
Velocity Amex Plat - going soon as discussed.

I can't seem to actually find a card which will transfer to airlines at better than 1:1 for standard in-country spend on Telco's, utilities, ATO, blah blah.

The only exception for me is the Diners combo, but with the anecdotal evidence of CitiBank (Diners Australia) being a PITA to deal with, along with a $389 fee per annum with no obvious sign up or ongoing benefits (aside from international lounge access) I'm not super keen.

Income is not sufficient for the Amex Plat, Citi Select or Signature.

The Diners combo offers 3/$ for the Diners and 1.25/$ for the attached mastercard. Transfer rates to all airlines bar Velocity (1:1) are not great, but I'd accept it as a drop in replacement for the Amex Vel Plat and transfer only to Velocity if it comes to that. 3/$ for the Diners sounds great in theory, but Diners acceptance both in and out of Australia is woeful, so I can't base my expected points accrual on that.

With both Amex acceptance and rewards earning becoming a problem I probably more keen to get a visa/MC .. or least a combo, though if I've missed a true Amex thats still got decent earn I'm open to it.

Looking at the offers available overseas it just amazes me that there appears to be so few decent choices here in Australia.

What are folks doing, spend wise, for their ATO/Utilities/Telco/Insurance/Blah?

 

[ChrisFlyer]

The CBA Platinum & Diamond Amex cards both earn 3 CBA Awards points per $1 spent, which equates to 1.5 Velocity points/$1 on all transactions - including those that would only earn 0.5/$1 on an Amex-issued card.

Annual points capping for the cards is 250k Awards points for the Platinum, and 1m Awards points for the Diamond (ie 125,000 Velocity points and 500,000 Velocity points - or points earned on the first $83,333 and $333,333 worth of Amex charges each year, respectively). Annual fees are $280 & $425, though come down by $30/yr if you have a "qualifying CBA account or loan". Diamond is great for the higher points cap, though if you don't need it, the Platinum obviously earns the same number of points per $1.

The earn rates on the MasterCards are poor though - 0.5/$1 for the Platinum, and 0.625/$1 for the Diamond (World MasterCard)... so definitely keep your EDR CC!

Points must be transferred manually to Velocity, with a minimum of 3,600 CBA Awards points redeemed per transfer (ie 1,800 Velocity points).

You can also opt to have CBA sweep the points directly to Qantas Frequent Flyer each month, though this attracts an additional $10/yr fee. Points earn is at the same redemption rate as Velocity, though with a direct sweep there's obviously no minimum transfer.

There are other options too (eg. NAB QF Platinum, Westpac Earth Black (or Altitude Black if you want Velocity points)), but the CBA Amex cards aren't half bad!

 

[Deewhy]

I assume you are after velocity points.

have you had a look at the virgin flyer it high flyer visas? 1 and 1.25? Points per dollar respectively plus the two for one flights.

 

[Moopere]

I'm primarily looking for either velocity or qff points. I'm not all that keen on schemes with expiring points and have to judge other schemes against ease of accumulation here in Australia where most of my spend is done.

If I'm going to look at the higher priced cards, like the CBA plat or diamond or the V high flyer, and I have done, I keep bumping into the Diners combo ... as a similar priced card combo with decent earn (1.25:1 for the MC and 3:1 for Diners) - not many of these higher priced but mid range cards seem to come which much in the way of actual usable benefits and quite often no sign on points either.

I have looked at the V high flyer, but as I do most of my travel solo I'm not convinced that I'd be able to extract benefit from the 2:1 offer.

 

[Plutonus]

I had the same conundrum Moopere, and my calculations showed Diners combo as the best option based on my spending patterns. This was based on transferring to KrisFlyer (via SPG) though so Velocity could be even better value. Keeping in mind the majority of my spend is at merchants that would accept Diners, aka big chains and more 'expensive' restaurants.

1.25 on the MC is good too, considering the Virgin High Flyer CC is 1.25pts/$1 at $289 fee. So only $100 more for Diners combo which has potential for 3pts/$1 on everything where Diners is accepted.

Edit: When did the High Flyer start requiring income of $75,000pa? Guess I haven't looked in a while.

 

[Moopere]

I have a horrible feeling in the back of my mind that I'm going to regret it later ... not ever had a great experience with my brushings with Citi, but right at the minute, I can't find a better earner with as much flexibility as the Diners combo. I'll manage to get some value out of lounge entries .. though in chasing the points game a fair proportion of travel ends up being business class .. but not all, so perhaps 4-6 entries at nominal $30-50 entry I suppose is $120-300 of possible value there. Diners acceptance is horrible, I've been looking out for it specifically for about 6 months or so as I've vacillated on a decision on this card ... advertised acceptance in stores or online is really pretty bad, so I don't feel I can try and balance my calculations of value against that ... has to be the 1.25:1 MC.

The trouble there is that is circles me right back to comparing the diners MC with the Woolies EDR card that I already have. The EDR card gives me the heebies though as it keep letting me down on international spend, getting blocked by 'suspicious' activity thats simply no more than me booking airline tickets on O/S airline websites.

Ahhhh

I guess ultimately here I'm just screaming at the wind. The game has changed in the last 12 months or so and is still changing now. I really miss good Amex cards ... mostly they have gone down the toilet in the last 18 months, at least in my price range and spend pattern. I pretty much missed points season this year - nothing leaped out to grab my attention.

 

[Plutonus]

Citi is terrible no doubt. My strategy is to avoid talking to them at all costs. Although Diners call centre is India based, rather than Philippines for their banking and other credit cards. Not sure if better or worse.

For online, I believe PayPal accept Diners through the Discovery network so that may help depending on where you shop. I don't know what acceptance Diners has in physical stores overseas though... is it like AMEX in that they seem to welcome it more openly in some countries? Maybe in the US anywhere that takes Discovery cards takes Diners?

Where's most of your spend?

 

[Moopere]

Ahh. That might have pushed me over the edge. I had forgotten that the "discover" network accepts Diners. For overseas work/pleasure this might make acceptance significantly better.

A big chunk of my spend is airlines, hotels, telco's/insurances and tax. Many of the biggest full service airlines seem to accept Amex, a few less accept Diners, but even Amex isn't a given. RJ for example, despite being full service and long established, only take VISA/MC online ... bizarre. They are not alone in that either. Many Hiltons accept Diners so maybe its viable.

 

[Plutonus]

Moopere, Diners transfer rate to Velocity has changed to 3:2 in case you hadn't seen the other threads.

Why is it so hard to find a Visa/MC that returns equivalent 1:1 to the majority of airlines (that isn't locked into one program).

 

[Moopere]

Moopere, Diners transfer rate to Velocity has changed to 3:2 in case you hadn't seen the other threads.

Yikes! I must have missed that. I could have sworn I checked the Diners site earlier this week and it was 1:1 still ... perhaps I wasn't paying attention. Oh well, that changes things significantly.

 

[Plutonus]

Still 1.5 points per dollar I guess.

 

[Beta4Me]

Still 1.5 points per dollar I guess.

2 points per dollar, no?

 

[ChrisFlyer]

for example, despite being full service and long established, only take VISA/MC online ... bizarre. They are not alone in that either.

Which currency were you trying? I've been looking at a few trips on RJ, so just made a dummy booking to have a look, and the payment page gives the option of Visa, MC, Amex, and Paypal (for $HKD at least).

 

[Moopere]

Which currency were you trying? I've been looking at a few trips on RJ, so just made a dummy booking to have a look, and the payment page gives the option of Visa, MC, Amex, and Paypal (for $HKD at least).

Oh, ok. How interesting. I was trying AUD$. Ended up blocking my EDR mastercard, rang RJ, got told it would cost me US$50 to do a manual booking and finally did the thing via Zuji for no fee + amex accepted.

 

[Moopere]

Still 1.5 points per dollar I guess.

With the new conversion from Diners to Velocity at 1.5 Diners->1 VFF the diners card combo looks like this:

Diners purchases = 3:1$ @ 1.5 diners : 1 vff = 2:1$
MC purchases = 1.25:1$ @ 1.5 diners : 1 vff = 0.83:1$

As I anticipate Diners being quite hard to use, acceptance wise, its hard for me to do much a decent forecast on the diners spend. Obviously one would use it as much as possible without surcharge, but I reckon the major spend would end up being with the MC sibling.

Looks like the virgin flyer card might be the only one in the market offering 1:1$ for _all_ spend now (???)

I'm inclined to look at the Amex escape as its also 1:1, but have a bad feeling it will be dropping to 0.5:1 for utilities and whatnot along with the rest of the family. Still, its free, so I can use it up while the sun shines. Seems that the EDR CC is the shining star in MC/Visa land. Woolies must be laughing themselves stupid with the business they must have stolen from other card issuers (who are points hunters).

 

[Plutonus]

Yes sorry about my poor mathematics - wasn't thinking straight obviously.

The Virgin Flyer Card doesn't award for ATO - don't know if they're extending that to all 'government charges' or not.

The EDR CC is good indeed, shame I don't care for QFF points...

 

[ShaneN]

ANZ QFF Platinum _ Amex and Visa on one account. 1.5 QFF points for Amex, 0.5 (I think) for Visa.