I recently discovered point hack and after reading a lot of useful info here I would like to create some sort of long term strategy how to be able to travel to Europe 1-2 times a year.
Before Covid I traveled once a year with Qatar or Etihad and in economy. As I am getting older I cant do trips like before when I travelled 24 hours and was even able to rent car in Europe and drive for 3-4 hours to my final destination:)
My plan (based on what I read so far) is to fly Sydney to either Manila/ Singapore/ Kuala Lumpur or Bangkok. At least tickets from these cities I found most affordable for my trip. I can handle this distance in economy but from Asia to Europe I need business class as I am not able to fall asleep in economy and then it takes me a long time to recover. Destinations are ideally Vienna or Budapest but anything in Europe is fine if for reasonable price.
I signed up for Qantas frequent flyer program and Woollies Everyday Rewards. Regarding credit card I am still searching , probably will end up with American Express with 60k bonus points. That is my newbie plan.
Can I please ask a few questions:
1 - When I manage to accumulate enough points how realistic is it to find and also successfully book business class flight with my points? When reading about this on different forums many travellers pointing to having very difficult times or even unable to do so. Specially if you are on lower tier program.
2 - Is it advisable to have 2-3 cards from different banks at the same time? Would that not damage credit score?
3 - What are considered as " eligible spending" with Amex for example? Groceries, petrol etc?
4 - Qantas points expire after 18 month after last activity. Does that mean if I add points every week or month that it will not expire?
It depends how many passengers you are redeeming seats for. It will increase in difficulties as you go from 1->2->3+ . One great thing with your plan is your willingness to get to Asia first. The major bottleneck for Aussie pointhackers is the flight in and out of Australia. Once you are outside of Australia, the number of options should open up.
Out of the common airline programs accessible in Australia, only Qantas has preferential for their higher status members to access award seats at an earlier date for Qantas metal flights. Since there is only a handful of Qantas flights to the EU, it shouldn’t be too much of a problem if you don’t focus just on Qantas flights. e.g. the middle eastern carriers are ok for low status Qantas members
At the current state of things, don’t worry too much about credit score. Unlike in the US, credit scores are an imaginary metric. If you are not abusing it too badly, it should be fine if you can get approved. 2-3 per year sounds reasonable. Just make sure you consider your own financial circumstances and pay the bills in full.
Eligible spend is probably 95%+ of all spending you could pay with cash. Some cards don’t earn points with government spend (e.g. paying ATO directly, some council fees, some Auspost charges). You don’t earn points when depositing funds into betting websites or withdrawing cash with credit card - these are both considered cash advance and you will have to pay interest and fees on this.
Pretty much most shopping you can do will earn points (e.g. fuel, supermarket, meals, insurance, coffee, toll, flights, furniture, white goods, etc).
Yes, for example if you have a Qantas earning card or set your Everyday reward to earn Qantas points, you will have ongoing activity on your Qantas acct so you points will not expire.