Qantas Cash - bonus 10,000 points

[Bindibuys]

T&C
To be eligible to receive the bonus Qantas Points, register by entering your Qantas Frequent Flyer membership details at qantascash.com/points or by clicking on the registration button within the email promoting the offer. You must then load a minimum of AU$1,000 equivalent directly in foreign currency in one transaction by 30 June 2015 to receive 2,000 bonus Qantas Points, or AU$2,500 to receive 5,000 bonus Qantas Points, or AU$5,000 to receive 10,000 bonus Qantas Points. The bonus points will be credited to your account 6 to 8 weeks after the offer has closed. This bonus points offer is limited to one offer per person. Not to be used in conjunction with any other promotion. Offer may be extended.

So, I just purchased an airline ticket for a friend (yes with points earning cc) and have 50 days left before interest accrues on this card. Payment is enroute to my savings account as I type.

My question - I intend to load this money on to the the Qantas card to earn the 10,000 points, I don't see anywhere in the T&C how long this money has to sit on the Cashcard to ensure I get the 10,000 points

Your thoughts how long I should leave it on Cashcard before withdrawing to clear the credit card.? (yes I know I will be exposed to the prevailing rates converting it back to AU $)

 

[DeKa]

Not sure on timing.

Make sure that you take the lesson from an earlier promo and make sure you log into the site and order foreign cash to an amount of greater than AUD$5k (or whichever amount you choose). Don't just load the AUD amount without placing the order or you won't get the points.

 

[Bindibuys]

I loaded AED last time for the bonus points, (actually money still sitting there....) Half the reason for the quesiton. Thought I would go US$ this time.

 

[Colin 2905]

My question - I intend to load this money on to the the Qantas card to earn the 10,000 points

I wouldn't. You'll lose a lot on the conversions, making those 10,000 points rather expensive. More here....

https://www.ozbargain.com.au/node/194000

 

[There'sOnlyOneJimmy]

OK, maybe I should have more to do with my Saturday afternoon...But Bindibuys question got me thinking (no mean feat by itself): "how *does* the arithmetic work on this".

According to the T&Cs, the max reward (and we *always* go for the max...) is 10000 points for an AUD5000 equivalent Foreign Currency buy & load.
From the quoted T&Cs, it seems that there's no restriction as to how long you'd need to wait before the funds can then be 'converted out' back to AUD, even immediately, but I make no representations in that regard (refer to full T&Cs, and consult a lawyer if pain persists...).

I made a couple of assumptions for the exercise:
1) Prevailing XE.com rate for USD/AUD is 80c at BOTH the time of the original USD buy, AND the subsequent conversion back to AUD; and
2) The cash card currency conversion margin (let's call that the 'CCCCM' ;-) is consistently 3%.

I know that both the CCCCM and the FX rates both fluctuate, but in the interests of simplicity & fairness, and my own sanity, there needs to be some sort of starting point...

Given the assumptions, the original buy of USD5000 would cost AUD6443, and the subsequent conversion transaction would turn USD5000 back into AUD6068 (amounts rounded), an all up cost of $375, or 3.75c per point for the 10000 points.

So that's the cost if nothing happens to the USD/AUD FX rate between the 2 transactions, but we know that in real life the FX rates do tend to wiggle about a bit from time to time...
The movement could be either way of course, but it looks like for every 1c move in the FX rate, the cost of the points moves about AUD75 - where a downward movement in the AUD (say from 80c to 79c) is advantageous, and an upward movement is detrimental.

So I guess the moral of the story is that if 3.75c per point seems like good value to you (and It doesn't to me, but we're all different), then go right ahead, BUT beware the currency Gods for they can be fickle, and cash out your position (i.e. convert back to AUD) as quick as you can, unless you want to be a de facto currency gambler...

 

[Colin 2905]

And there's probably other things that I should be doing right now too, but here's what I came up with......

Today's QC rate for USD is 0.7688. The way I read the offer, you "only" have to stump up $5000 AUD (not USD), so that would get you $3844 USD. As I type this, xe.com is saying 0.80405, so $5000 AUD gets you $4020 greenbacks and a single quarter. So you're already down $176.25 USD, or $219.20 AUD. The 10,000 points have now cost you 2.192¢ (AUD) each, but that's only if you use the $3844 USD you now have on the card for USD purchases. What I haven't been able to figure out is the full cost of converting it back to AUD. The fine print below QC's rates says....

Other foreign exchange transactions will have different rates. You will be advised of these rates at the time of the transaction. These transactions include moving funds between currencies; moving funds to a different currency on another person's facility; or when cashing out funds.

.... and since I don't have a balance on my card, I can't do a dummy transaction to see what it says. Since Bindibuys still has AED on their card, perhaps they can tell us?

 

[There'sOnlyOneJimmy]

You're right Colin, my mistake (!@#$%).
Your real world numbers suggest a CCCCM of about 4.5% (even worse than I'd imagined).
Reworking the numbers on that basis gives a theoretical cost per point (after conversion back to AUD) of about 4.3c...

 

[Colin 2905]

The PDS mentions a figure of 3% for converting between currencies, but I suspect that's in addition to the p*ss poor USD to AUD exchange rate, whatever that exchange rate might be. They only list AUD to x, from what I can see.

Even if it is only the 3%, it's still a bad deal in my eyes. Sorry Bindibuys.

 

[Bindibuys]

WOW...
1. I spent my Saturday with a chain-saw & trailer, doing clean up of tree branches that had simply been moved after the storms and now needed to be cut up and moved into piles for burning off. Along with fishing debris out of the dams.
2. I was only thinking - hey I have $5000.00 that is not needed for the next month, lets get some QF points......
3. in a nut-shell, if I don't want to loose money on this transaction, I need to buy US $ and hope like hell our $ goes down like 5 cents in the next month.
4. If our $ continues to climb, I am even more out of pocket.

Not sure what you were trying to see within my account, I can do screen captures if that is needed.

 

[Bindibuys]

Do you want me to start the process of moving one of the currencies to AU?

 

[There'sOnlyOneJimmy]

The PDS mentions a figure of 3% for converting between currencies...

IIRC that 3% is an *extra* charge that comes into play if you use the QCash Card for a transaction in a currency that you don't currently hold on the card. So, Yes, in addition to the CCCCM...

 

[Colin 2905]

Not sure what you were trying to see within my account, I can do screen captures if that is needed.

I was just trying to work out how badly QC rips you off when converting back to AUD. The AUD to x rates are obviously there to see when you login, but I can't find any mention of their x to AUD rates, just some fine print which essentially says you'll only find out when you do it.

Do you want me to start the process of moving one of the currencies to AU?

I think it'd be in your own interests to do so. The ripoff percentage varies by currency, so since you don't have USD, try all three that you do have, would be my suggestion.

I was only thinking - hey I have $5000.00 that is not needed for the next month, lets get some QF points......

$5000 in a Bankwest Qantas transaction account would only get you 600 points in a month, but at least you'd still have your full $5000.

 

[Bindibuys]

So, to complete our education on Qantas Cash, hope these three images will allow you to work out exchange rate.

 

[There'sOnlyOneJimmy]

Can you tell me when (date/time) you did these transactions, Bindibuys?
I need that info to be able to figure out what the (approx) market rate was at that time. Then we can figure out what the 'CCCCM' was for those transactions.

 

[Bindibuys]

approx 7:45am this morning.

 

[Colin 2905]

I'll approach it from a different angle, and assume that any AUD > x > AUD conversion is all done on the same day....

AUD > AED > AUD = 14.1% loss

AUD > EUR > AUD = 11.5% loss

AUD > GBP > AUD = 11.1% loss

Without knowing what QC's USD > AUD rate is I can only take an educated guess, but I think their USD rate is the least bad of the rotten lot. If we were to say a 10% loss, for example, that puts the cost at 5¢ per point. So unless you see the AUD tanking in a big way real soon, I'd stay well clear of it.

 

[Colin 2905]

Just out of interest, I knocked up the following......


[TABLE="width: 655"]
[TR]
[TD="align: center"]x
[/TD]
[TD="align: center"]Qantas Cash[/TD]
[TD="align: center"]xe.com (~ 6pm)[/TD]
[TD="align: center"]AUD > x loss %[/TD]
[TD="align: center"]AUD > x > AUD loss %[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]USD[/TD]
[TD="align: right"]0.7671[/TD]
[TD="align: right"]0.799567[/TD]
[TD="align: center"]4.1[/TD]
[TD="align: center"][/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]HKD[/TD]
[TD="align: right"]5.9075[/TD]
[TD="align: right"]6.19761[/TD]
[TD="align: center"]4.7[/TD]
[TD="align: center"][/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]NZD[/TD]
[TD="align: right"]1.0271[/TD]
[TD="align: right"]1.07845[/TD]
[TD="align: center"]4.8[/TD]
[TD="align: center"][/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]SGD[/TD]
[TD="align: right"]1.0042[/TD]
[TD="align: right"]1.05791[/TD]
[TD="align: center"]5.1[/TD]
[TD="align: center"][/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]GBP[/TD]
[TD="align: right"]0.4829[/TD]
[TD="align: right"]0.509806[/TD]
[TD="align: center"]5.3[/TD]
[TD="align: center"]11.1[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]CAD[/TD]
[TD="align: right"]0.9119[/TD]
[TD="align: right"]0.962962[/TD]
[TD="align: center"]5.3[/TD]
[TD="align: center"][/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]EUR[/TD]
[TD="align: right"]0.6642[/TD]
[TD="align: right"]0.701884[/TD]
[TD="align: center"]5.4[/TD]
[TD="align: center"]11.5[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]JPY[/TD]
[TD="align: right"]90.2248[/TD]
[TD="align: right"]95.7111[/TD]
[TD="align: center"]5.7[/TD]
[TD="align: center"][/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]THB[/TD]
[TD="align: right"]25.0749[/TD]
[TD="align: right"]26.705[/TD]
[TD="align: center"]6.1[/TD]
[TD="align: center"][/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]AED[/TD]
[TD="align: right"]2.7433[/TD]
[TD="align: right"]2.93734[/TD]
[TD="align: center"]6.6[/TD]
[TD="align: center"]14.1[/TD]
[/TR]
[/TABLE]


Extrapolating from the known percentages, I might've been a bit harsh suggesting that the AUD > USD > AUD loss would be 10%. I'm now guessing it's somewhere around 8.7%. (Still sucks, IMO.)

 

[Bindibuys]

Well, the only good things to come out of this exercise is that I will leave my AED where it is, as I will be there next year. I will pay off the credit card early.
My US cash will stay in the safe, and I will have to start shopping on Amazon UK. (instead of US)

Thank you both for your input, one of the fabulous things about this forum, you never know what skills lurk behind their avitar.