Qantas Premier Everyday Credit Card

Credit cards earning Qantas Points tend to have high annual fees, especially if you want to earn more than 0.5 Qantas Points per dollar spent. So it’s not too surprising that Qantas — keen to promote its own frequent flyer program — should position its entry-level card close to the bottom of the market in terms of annual fee cost. But there’s nothing budget-level about the sign up bonus, the competitive Qantas Points earning rate and the complimentary benefits.

Low annual fee

The $49 annual fee is very low for a Qantas Points card with complimentary benefits.

Additional cardholder fee is annoying

Many cards allow you to have at least one additional cardholder on your account without paying an extra fee. This card is not one of them. You’ll pay $25 for each additional cardholder, an annual total of $74 if you want a card for your partner to help you earn Qantas Points.

Uncapped Qantas Points earning is remarkable for a Mastercard, with an annual fee this low

This is an ideal card for anyone seeking to earn Qantas Points without facing additional merchant fees or even outright refusal with an American Express card. You would normally have to pay a much higher annual fee to get this rate on a Mastercard or Visa, and for anyone who expects to spend large amounts in foreign currencies (while travelling, or online) the rate is particularly attractive. This is how the earning rates work:

• 1 Qantas Point per dollar spent on purchases made in foreign currency (including online, and there’s no cap or threshold)
• 0.75 Qantas Points per dollar spent on domestic purchases, up to $3,000 per month and 0.4 Qantas Points for every dollar on domestic purchases over $3,000 per month
• Additional 1 Qantas Point per dollar spent on Qantas flights, upgrades and memberships (and once again, there’s no cap or threshold)

The threshold on AUD spending may occasionally turn out to be an annoyance. AmEx cards have no points cap or threshold, but many other cards have a similarly low threshold or even an absolute monthly cap on points.

Note that Qantas Points will not be earned on spending with government bodies (such as the ATO) and BPAY payments.

Up to 8,000 bonus Qantas Points will take you a long way

Spend at least $3,000 using the card in the first 90 days after approval, and you will earn 8,000 bonus Qantas Points.

Best ways to spend your bonus and earned Qantas Points

You’ll extract maximum value from your Qantas Points by using them for flights and upgrades with Qantas, Jetstar, and other Qantas partner airlines. Generally, the longer the flight and the higher your seat grade, the greater the return you’ll get from your points. It should normally be possible to get a return of at least 0.9 cents per point on domestic economy flights, and 1.5 cents per point on long-haul economy flights.

However, if you don’t want to redeem your Qantas Points on flights and are willing to accept a lower return rate, you can also exchange them for:

• Merchandise from an online catalogue
• Retail gift cards
• Hotel accommodation and car hire
• Entertainment experiences
• Movie tickets
• Charity donations
• Qantas Club joining and annual fees

Complimentary travel insurance wherever you fly

Use your card to pay your airfares, and those of your accompanying immediate family members, and you’ll all be automatically covered by comprehensive travel insurance, including:

• Emergency medical expenses overseas
• Travel cancellation and delay overseas
• Baggage, money and documents cover overseas
• Transport accident cover worldwide
• For travel within Australia, flight delay, luggage delay, cancellation
• Hire car insurance excess waiver, worldwide
• Golf clubs cover, against theft or damage

Qantas Premier Concierge

The kind of regular traveller who will derive the most benefit from this card may well be able to make good use of the dedicated Qantas Premier Concierge, giving worldwide assistance with travel, restaurant and entertainment recommendations and bookings, just a phone call away.

Nine months interest-free on selected Qantas purchases

Not surprisingly, Qantas wants you to spend money on flights as well as earning Qantas Points with your card. So they’ll grant you nine months’ interest-free credit on your first purchase of Qantas flights, or Qantas Club membership fees or Qantas gift vouchers, or Qantas epiQure items, once only, made within the first nine months of holding the card.

Qantas Money app

Download the Qantas Money app on your eligible Apple or Android smartphone, and get instant access to your card information wherever you are: fingerprint log-in, a temporary lock on your misplaced card, your card expenditure analysed into amounts by expense type, closing balance, available credit, payment due date and more.

0% p.a. for 12 months on balance transfers

It’s not the longest interest-free balance transfer currently on offer, but if the card’s other features attract you, it could make your decision easier. You could switch to this card now and save a little money by temporarily putting the cash you had earmarked into your mortgage offset account for repayment of your existing balance. The offer could be worth taking up if you’re prepared to forfeit your sign up bonus and wait for nine months before you earn any Qantas Points or enjoy any of the other complimentary benefits of this card.

Why will you forfeit the bonus and other benefits? Because the presence on your account of a balance transfer means that you’ll lose the standard 55 days interest-free on purchases until it is repaid. So you’ll be unlikely to use your card for the qualifying purchases required to activate the bonus, regular earn rate, and complimentary benefits.

Unattractive interest rates

This is not a card for anyone contemplating long-term debt (other than the zero-interest balance transfer offer). The purchase interest rate is 19.99% p.a. The cash advance rate (and balance transfer revert rate) is 21.99% p.a.

In general, rewards cards and their interest rates are designed for cardholders who expect to pay off their purchase balance in full every month and avoid cash advances. This card is no exception.

A traveller’s card, without a doubt

Qantas is all about travel, so it’s not too surprising that when it ventures into the credit card market it designs a card that encourages and rewards travel first and foremost. There’s no messing about with shopper’s insurance – purchase protection, extended warranty, price protection and refund protection – that you may never use, but still pay for with many cards.

Regular travellers will be able to derive maximum benefit from the travel insurance and the interest-free period on their first Qantas purchase. If that travel extends to overseas trips, they’ll reap extra rewards from the high and uncapped earn rate for foreign currency purchases. And this all comes for one of the lowest available annual fees for a Qantas Points-earning card.