I am looking into reward credit cards at the moment and am wondering which card to go for.
I am happy to pay $150 annual fee and want to get a card where I am getting maximum value points for $ spent.
After looking into Qantas and Velocity I have found the Westpac Altitude program and it looks interesting to me as on their platinum card they are offering two points for AMEX and 1 pint for VISA for every dollar spent and 1/0.5 if you pick Qantas points.
When comparing rewards in both stores (Qantas and Altitude) I found the following very interesting.
A JB-HiFi gift card for $100 in the Qantas store requires 16.6k points and in the Altitude rewards store it is 19k for the same card.
So if I choose Altitude as my reward program for the Westpac card, I basically get more point-value for my $ spent (as I would earn 2/1 rather than 1/0.5 points), is this correct or am I looking at this in the wrong way?
From my understanding, 2 altitude point converts to 1 velocity points. So each $ earns you the same amount of QFF or Velocity points.
Check out this handy calculator:
Might be worth checking out whether Velocity estore offers JB Hifi cards for redemption, if gift cards are what you are going for.
As it is widely known on this site, you get more bang for your ‘points/miles’ by redeeming premium flight seats or upgrades. However, each to their own :).
As w-hiew has mentioned, you will always get more value out of flights over gift cards, so I would avoid using gift cards as your only measure of comparing programs if you can.
Point Hacks is a big fan of flexible points programs, which Altitude most definitely is (it’s one of the better ones too now!). This means that you can transfer points to different frequent-flyer programs depending on availability, point costs, taxes/surcharges, and all sorts of other variables. That in itself is valuable!
One important point, though, is that Altitude does not transfer to Qantas, so if you picked up that card, you would be saying goodbye to earning QFF points and redeeming on Qantas (but you would be saying hello to Virgin, Singapore, Cathay, Malaysian and all their partners). If you love Qantas, then it may not be the best move. But the other airlines mentioned are pretty amazing, so it’s a good move IMHO.
I would also suggest that if income allows, go for the Black card (instead of Platinum). This is because it will earn points much faster as it’s earn rate is higher. It does have a higher fee which may or may not be affordable; usually these fees are offset very quickly through savvy use of the card and all its perks.
There are lots of other cards out there as well which are worth looking into - keep an eye on the Credit Cards section of this site for some good reviews.