Unless you've been living under a rock, you've probably heard about this card and rightly so, as with a lot of things - people rave about them for a reason. With this card, it's all about the
80k Velocity points currently on offer when applying via a referral link. Whilst this has been revised down from the previous 100k it still represents pretty amazing value, given the $349 annual fee! I only recently signed up for this card and for me it was all about the large number of bonus Velocity points being offered.
So why would you want to apply for this card? And it would it be good for you? It's certainly very popular:
- Want to cash in on the sign-on bonus of 80,000 Velocity points - I value Velocity points at 2.0c+/pt - so this alone, to me, is worth $1600! For an annual fee of $349, how can you go wrong! Totally awesome! If you were going to buy a Virgin, Singapore Airlines or Etihad Business class or First class ticket and you were to use these bonus point instead, you could easily double their value. $3800+ value for a $349 outlay! Now you're talking!
- Virgin / Velocity flyers who want a good value premium card with some quality perks!
Apart from the massive sign-on bonus, the best points (bad pun intended!) of this card are:
- The free return VA flight each year - that alone easily pays for the annual fee - destinations list here - value $400+to me
- Two VA lounge passes each year - value to me around $65+ (some may value them more, others less)
- Two entries to the very nice SYD AMEX lounge (I certainly recommend it!) - value to me around $80+ (some would value this much more highly for sure!)
- Domestic and international travel insurance - I wouldn't want to put a value on this - it depends so much on your travel patterns and if you consider the AMEX insurance offering as meeting your needs
- A traveller friendly points earning profile (ie up to 3 pts / $ on travel spend)
The points earn structure of this card is really well suited to those that fly Virgin, enjoy eating out or want to earn a good dose of points on their foreign currency spend. The points earn structure on this card is a follows:
- 3 points per $1 spent at restaurants in Australia and on Virgin Australia spend
- 2 points per $1 spent on airlines, accommodation, other travel and foreign currency spend
- 0.5 points per $1 on govt charges, utilities and telcoms etc - the AMEX usual - you often use Post BillPay (and / or PayPal) to boost this to a much more exciting 1pt/$1
- 1 point per $1 on everything else
In summary, this is a great deal the
80,000k Velocity points on offer for the $349 annual fee is hard to turn down. When you take into account the free return flight on offer it is really 80,000k VA points for nothing (or better). Don't forget to qualify for 100k bonus points you need to spend $2000 on the card within the first three months. AMEX is offering referrers (me in this case) 20k points for each referral - even without that I'd still recommend the card - it's all about the 80k bonus points!
Not throw wet blanked on the party, but I want to stress that whilst applying for great credit card offers, like this, can be great value (and even addictive in its own way) - it isn't for everyone - please only apply for credit you can afford! No sign-on bonus, however lucrative, is worth a lifetime of debt!!
For anyone kind enough to use my
Referral Link - my heart felt appreciation - I'll certainly be putting any referrals to good use![/B]