Evening Team - I recently signed up for the Amex Platinum Charge Card and I am thinking of using it to transfer the points to accrue Asia Miles. Can anyone recommend the highest earning visa/mastercard equivalent for Asia Miles so I can pair it with the AMEX? The link on this website is a bit dated now.
Or if anyone can suggest a better option than Asia Miles? I used to be with Qantas but I have noticed that Qantas points don’t generally get you as good a bang for buck as asia miles. Keen to hear any and all suggestions!
Yes, Asia Miles is an excellent Frequent Flyer programme. One particular “sweet spot” is long-haul flights to Europe, which can be had in Business class for as few as 85,000 points on Cathay Pacific, or 90,000 points on other Oneworld airlines. So Asia Miles points are definitely worth accumulating.
Yes, there are plenty of Visa/Mastercard points programmes that can transfer to Asia Miles. The problem is that the transfer rate is pretty ordinary. NAB Rewards, ANZ Rewards, Altitude Rewards, CBA Awards, you name it – they all transfer to Asia Miles at a 3:1 rate. So if you transfer to Asia Miles from these programmes, whatever you gain from the good Asia Miles redemption rate, you’re losing from the lousy transfer rate.
My practice is to only transfer to Asia Miles from AmEx Membership Rewards, which has a 2:1 transfer rate. I generally transfer points earned from my Visa and Mastercard spending to another Frequent Flyer programme such as Velocity or KrisFlyer which I can get 2:1 transfer rates for.
Of course, if you’re after a large number of Asia Miles points as quickly as possible, you could consider signing up for a Visa or Mastercard attached to one of the above programmes with a good sign-up bonus, and you could then transfer the points at the 3:1 rate. But as a general rule, a 3:1 transfer rate isn’t great value.
We have a significant amount of Qantas points at the moment so we would probably like a visa / mastercard to earn more Qantas points. In addition to Asia miles which we will earn from the amex.
Is there a particular credit card you’d recommend to earn Qantas points that is visa / mastercard?
The community members are not allowed to recommend a credit card. I am just posting a few of the current offers and you will have to either decide on a card yourself or take advise from a financial adviser.
PointHacks has an excellent offer on ANZ Frequent Flyer Platinum card.
‘Amplify Platinum-Qantas’ and ‘Altitude Platnum-Qantas’ are good cards for churning (since they offer a fair amount of bonus points with a very minimum annual fees).