Hi all, given the inbound changes with Amex’s points. I wonder what everyone’s thoughts are between these two cards?
400 travel credit, vs 450 in qantas flight voucher with a better earn rate.
Unfortunately, the decision isn’t as clear cut, as the insurances on the explorer card (like mobile screen protection, buyers advantage, loss damage waiver [car rental excess]), aren’t on the qantas card.
I currently collect velocity and qantas as they are connected to other visa/mastercards.
Keen to hear what others think.
I am tempted by the Qantas card but I am given pause by a couple of factors. I find Qantas is a more expensive airline compared to say, SQ, in terms of redemption cost and fees.
For example, return economy redemption SYD<->LHR with SQ is 106,000 KF points, but with Qantas it’s a minimum of 120,000 and availability for a low tier frequent flyer can be a pain in the ***. Qantas is not my main airline so I dont have status with them. As a result I often have to select flights with oneworld partners instead, which typically increases the points cost further to 138,000.
The explorer card is obviously far more flexible in terms of both point partners and the travel credit, and of course, as you point out, there’s the complimentary insurance policies. After much deliberation I have chosen to stay with the explorer card for now.
The Explorer had a 100K bonus before which now I think is not longer available.
In addition, from mid April the points will be 2:1 so 100K = 50K in most airlines.
I personally would either wait for a good flexible point card from Amex, or go for a Velocity Amex card.
I chose KrisFlyer / Velocity because it is really easy to funnel points to them locally on top of the credit card points.
Translated to KrisFlyer miles, my current earning miles excluding credit card points are around 33% which I think is awesome.