This question may have been covered before, however a quick search sees threads that may be outdated. Sorry if this is a repeat but I will ask again anyway
I am currently a Qantas FF member (Silver) however my work has just allowed us a choice of airlines for domestic work travel,
I used to be a Velocity member (my wife is a veteran 18 year Virgin employee). Over the past several years pre and post covid, we have successfully managed to find international business class travel using Velocity points, following the excellent tips and teachings of this site and the community. Recently we were able to fly BC with Singapore for my family of 3 (me, my wife and 16 year old son) from Adelaide to Singapore to Perth. Excellent trip!
So my query lies around this - which is better value? Qantas FF or Virgin Velocity? It seems Qantasā reward seats are harder to find, partnerships are suffering (Emirates charging more taxes for reward seats) and earn rates with credit card deals seem to be lower with increased difficult gates on Qantas. My lived experience with my Velocity points in the past has shown that I have successfully found reward seats, I have easily and successfully converted to Kris Flyer miles for Singapore Airlines rewards seats if need be and by and large I have managed to find the departure and arrival dates I have wanted.
So what are peopleās considered opinions? Qantas FF or Virgin Velocity and why?
When I was travelling a lot, I could earn enough for Qantas Gold and it was good to have those benefits as I could more easily enjoy them as part of the OneWorld alliance when travelling internationally than with the fragmented partnerships of Virgin Australia the confusing lounge access/benefits rule. However, post-pandemic, I have been scaling back my travel and refocused my status earning on Virgin (bar a few status matches here and there) as they allow family pooling so when my other family members fly, they earn status credits for me, letting me earn Gold even though I was travelling a lot less than before. Otherwise, I definitely wouldnāt have maintained Gold with Qantas. So I guess Virgin was more a compromise to maintain some form of useful status. I still recommend people go for status with Qantas especially when you arenāt the one footing the bill as the benefits still exceeds Virgin. That goes only for Gold and above though. I honestly find limited benefits for Silver status on either airline.
For points, I donāt recommend anyone go for just one airline. If you think about it, you are really just limiting your options and boxing yourselves in. Unlike status, there isnāt any reason (except for Qantas Points Club) for you to exclusively earn with one airline. I put by far my biggest spend on AMEX cards earning flexible points so they can transferred to the program I want, when they have award space.
Thanks djtech for your quick and constructive response. I recall you also answering one of my questions yonks ago. So I (now) understand the benefits of using AMEX MR points and flexible rewards programmes. How do you get around the fact that AMEX only allow one bite of the cherry so to speak? That is, once you sign up to one AMEX product you cannot get another card until you serve your 18 months ārestā time. I know you can get another card for a separate person. Are there other cards you use associated with flexible rewards programmes that get you enough points quicklyā¦.?
From my experience of churning cards, there is a difference between a Primary AMEX branded card (ie. issued direct from AMEX) vs a Partner branded AMEX card (ie. issued by Westpac or Qantas etcā¦). That gives you some flexibility that can help alleviate the impact of the 18month blackout periods.
Also be aware of which banks are members of the same banking group - as this can also make you ineligible for the bonus points award within their respective āblackoutā periods. eg: Bank of SA, St George, Bank of Melbourne & Westpac - all belong to the same banking group!
Yes AMEX cards are a lot less churnable than some others so I actually havenāt churned an AMEX card in years! I got a great offer on the AMEX platinum from ages ago and then Iāve just been using AMEX cards for points spend ever since. You can as @jenart suggested churn other AMEX cards issued by Westpac and the like even if you hold an AMEX issued AMEX. There are a few flexible currencies out there that are quite churnableā¦ Westpac Altitude, Citi rewards and ANZ are the ones that come to mind for me. But overall, unless you like to switch between your spouse and you being the primary cardholder, it is hard to churn AMEX. Their offers are really good at keeping you a card member as well so I donāt think Iāll cancel my card in the meantime. Definitely a keeper, the AMEX.
Itās been great to have @jenart contribute to the community; the contributions have been knowledgeable and always helpful. However, two small corrections to their latest post:
First, thereās now no such thing as a āPartner branded AMEX cardā. Westpac was the last bank to offer this but they pulled out in 2020. So only AmEx now offers AmEx cards.
Second, Westpac does own St George, Bank of Melbourne and BankSA, but for point hacking purposes Westpac is not part of āthe same banking groupā as the others. Westpacās reward programme offers Altitude points, whereas BankSA, BoM and St George use Amplify points. The points ecosystems are totally different and the āblackoutā periods for Westpac donāt apply for the Amplify cards, and vice versa.
Thanks for the corrections @sixtyeight. I wasnāt aware Westpac had dropped the AMEX offering. Also good to know the differences in regards to Westpac vs the other banks it owns and their points programs.
Thank you all. You are all examples of why these community forums are sooooo valuable. Thanks once again. I have improved my understanding now and my new learnings have taken me on a different path. I donāt do enough flying domestically to attain gold. I have just managed to maintain my silver status with Qantas. I will stay with them for now and look to get AMEX MR points going. My son finishes school end of next year (hopefully ) and we are planning our next OS trip end of 2024/start of 2025. Hopefully we can get enough points quickly enough to allow enough time for booking ahead and finding those reward seats. Cheers
