Currently using my commonwealth awards credit card, its ok. But i don't feel im getting that good value…
What is the best points scheme/cash back card out?
I always pay them off before I accumulate any interest.
What is the best daily use credit card? (for points/rewards/cashback/tightness)
m0tyrider on 13/02/2014 - 14:28
Comments
Incorrect. A rewards card works exactly the same as any other credit card - you get a interest free period.
Bankwest More, Citibank Signature, NAB Gold Visa, Various AMEX.. all cards I've had before that were rewards card that all had an interest free period.
But it has an annual fee?
Depending on what card - citibank's rewards card doesnt currently.
Paying an annual fee if you end up in the black isnt a bad thing - I shelled out the $130 for the bankwest more rewards card back in April last year. About to redeem my 5th $100 coles voucher (which I use for groceries, and pocket the cash I would've spent on groceries, so its as good as cash back).
So $500 - $130 = $370 better off through doing nothing but putting all my normal spend on a rewards card. I know vouchers arent the most efficient use of cash - but high "value" redeem items on cards such as flight upgrades and the like aren't "valueable" to me in the same way cold hard cash is. Flying long haul is never an enjoyable experience - but a few extra bucks at the other end is a lot more enjoyable.
My current card has a annual fee + rewards, + interest free for 30 day's of purchase.
What if I keep my credit card topped up to bypass no interest.. lol
I use my 28 degree card for insurance on products and buying oversea's
Cash backs are not good as banks don't like it because a non-taxable income to the customer.
For everyday Rewards, you have to use VISA or Mastercard and the best offer now is Citibank Friend and Family Offer which have ZERO annual fee for life.
You just have to put up with citibank customer service.
Citibank cards are actually pretty average in terms of earn rate and what you can redeem for. And their service is rubbish like you mentioned. There are much better rewards cards out there. The only postive for those Citi cards is the $0 annual fee.
Signature's $1 = 1 QFF point is in line with rest of the market with $50 p/a QANTAS Direct Earn fee (and $0 annual on that offer).
$0 annual fee with a rewards program is still pretty good. Is there a rewards card out there that offers an earn rate/redemption options that outweigh their annual fee?
Re: Citibank service, maybe just lucky, but I've actually had mostly good experiences. Sure the accents are a little difficult to decipher sometimes, but otherwise my requests are dealt with pretty quickly and efficiently.
The Citibank call centres in Philipines are well spoken and usually can do things to help- it's just the red tape and backwards processes/IT infrastructure that's frustrating (e.g. paper forms, no emails but fax is ok, horribly outdated OTP system for website/iPhone, etc). Every now and then though, one person's stuff up has disastrous consequences (in my case- they stuffed up my address which my mortgage is on, which led to a new card being returned to sender, blocking my credit cards, resulting in direct debit fails, etc).
Citibank's call centre isn't that bad at all - I pay $1200 a year for my Amex Platinum chargecard and despite having an onshore call centre, those idiots are freaking useless, condescending and treat customers like an idiot. The Centurion card holders I know don't fare any better even though they fork out $5k a year…
Sure, you might need to call them more than once to sort something out but so far I haven't had to call more than twice to ensure an issue is resolved satisfactorily. Meanwhile with Amex, I have a number of cases opened with the FOS because of them.
Get rid of the CBA card, it's junk. See this thread here for discussion: https://www.ozbargain.com.au/node/131828.
Also for credit cards recommendations, see:
https://www.ozbargain.com.au/node/103802#comment-1398486
There are a few credit card threads flying about which may help you. I was in the same position with my Commonwealth awards card. Paying an annual fee plus additional card holder fee was getting a bit old seeing as there are fee free cards out there now. I'm not into rewards but if it's there, great.
I rang them up to say I was going to leave and they threw 5000 points at me. Then I cancelled the card anyway but they put me on the fee free version now and cashed in my points.
Choose a rewards card that suits you but since I use Coles a lot, I signed up for their fee free rewards card. Worked out to be the same points as commbank with the same point to dollar value. They then upgraded me to the $49 annual fee card for free for the first 12 months. Now I get up to three times as many points as commbank for nothing.
It does have 62 days interest free. Free shoppers protection if you pay the card off before the statement date. Plus free Coles delivery and a $50 Coles voucher on sign up.
I thought about the cards offering travel insurance but they all had excesses around $200 which you couldn't reduce when you claim. I'll stick to 1Cover or TID for that.
guys i have commbank visa credit card which ihave been using for over 5 yrs now.. $59 annula fee and 1 points for every $ spent…
i am thinking thsi coles master card seems to be a better option now as it gives more points for every $…
cash back wise they are the same @ $20 for every 4000 points..But isnt master card less widely acceped as complared to visa?
people who have switched from visa to master card, are you facing any issues?I've had problems with both Visa and Mastercard although you won't find many places that accept one and not the other.
Yeah give Commbank the flick. As I said, choose a card that fits your lifestyle. ING is great but with Coles you get points everywhere you use it and not restricted to paywave or under $100 purchases. Use the rewards calulator on most bank sites.
ING Direct 5% (or 2%) cashback on all paywave purchases. Use this card for purchases under $100 and you are beating any rewards system from any credit card.
For Qantas FF:
2% cashback is equivalent to roughly 2-4 qantas frequent flyer points per $1.
5% cashback is equivalent to roughly 5-8 qantas frequent flyer points per $1.For Coles/Flybuys:
2% cashback is equivalent to 4 flybuys points per $1.
5% cashback is equivalent to 10 flybuys points per $1.The best part is it comes back in cash, the next business day.
Feel free to use a second card for all non-paywave purchases.
+1 to ING Paywave. Nothing beats it.
The only "problem" is that it's a Debit card, not a credit card…
One would suspect most, if not all people on Ozbargain would be paying off their entire credit card bill every month. Others who see paying 20% interest as somehow being a good deal are probably not bargain seekers in the true sense of the word :-)
For me the transition from credit to ING debit card has been easy. I was getting 0.5% cash back with my NAB Visa card, but it also had $40 in annual fees that pretty much negated all the benefit. ING is fantastic. Cash back to use within days. No more waiting months or years to use gathered points.
You make it sound like the 5% lasts forever. This is a 6month promotional period if I recall correctly.
yes, it drops to 2% when after the promotion period. but they also have referral programs. i'm on my 2nd 5% period.
The best ones around at the moment would be the Citibank Platinum or Westpac Platinum (currently annual fee-free for life).
As soon as you have to pay an annual fee for a rewards card, you are getting screwed. I used to have a ~$99 annual fee on a Commbank Gold Visa Awards card, and would rarely get more than $100 back in 'rewards' every year with my spend level.
So I changed to the Bankwest Zero Platinum, don't get slugged with an annual fee, dont get any rewards either but I get travel insurance, purchase protection and no overseas currency conversion fees so I think I am well ahead.
Have had CBA credit cards for quite some time, last year I upgraded to the Platinum card as was told by the bank it offered better rewards. 2.5 for using Amex and 1 for using Mastercard. I was also told that the card had a large annual fee $250 per annum. BUT the bank also told me I could change my credit card at anytime and revert back to the cheaper rewards card and not pay the large annual fee. I just recently did that, so am keeping a check on my account for when the annual fee comes out this month and will ring them and complain if I get charged the $250
Put your average monthly spend in here http://rewardscompared.com/cards and see what your expected returns are.
Try to bargain with the bank you have your homeloan with ( if you have any!) . I have my mortgage with cba and they offered me platinum cc with no annual fee and 60 days interest free. I got 2.5 points for $1 ( amex) and 1:1 for master. I use this for my everyday bills and every month we will always able to get 50 bucks giftcard
I currently have a Citibank signature visa which I don't pay any annual fee on that I got through the friends and family offer mentioned above.
I've banked with Citibank for a few years and have mainly good experiences with customer services contrary to what a lot of people have said.
I don't use the frequently flying program as most of our holidays we usually find the best deals at the time on various airlines. but what I did do in the past (when I was with QFF) was use buy a discounted fare and use the points to upgrade to business class. we use the points to redeem a prepaid visa or mastercard to purchase anything we want including putting towards the holiday and we redeem about $750 annually which isn't a lot but is great during Christmas time.
We use Ignite ( used to be Virgin) which is through NAB. No annual fees but no rewards either. Never had a problem & their customer service is good. However it would seem from you all that there are still better deals out there to look at. We do pay it off every month so no fees are involved. Any more suggestions to the best available will be greatly appreciated.
Probably a dumb question and varies from company to company, but can you pay rent with a credit card? I know they do bpay but if you spend $1500+ on rent (example) with a card it may be good?
I'm not renting at the moment, just thinking about future plans
I very seriously doubt it.
One reason I can think just off the top of my head, it would cost money to have the ability to take a credit card. That is as a business you pay a small fee to your bank 1-2% (more for Amex which is often why you get better rewards). So to have a real estate agent or a landlord who has this ability would be strange I would say.Don't go down that road - what do you expect it to give you, apart from another 60 days,by which time the next rents are due. You'll end up in debt & trying to find a way out as your bank account WILL show money & therefore you will spend it, leaving nothing to pay the rent with & an eviction notice.
I've never seen anyone take rental payments via CC- the most likely ones would be where landlord gets the bills for third party goods and services (e.g. replacement of something) and can pay them via credit card themself. Some banks do let you use your credit card for Bpay but not every Bpay biller (i.e. the company you're paying) accepts credit cards via Bpay.
In my experience the biggest payments I've made with my CC have been deposits on cars. Merc and Mitsu both let me pay $10k on the credit card.
Best deal is cash with $100 bills, not some junk credit card. The rewards are a lie, all the while they build profiles of the worthless junk you buy.
Call CBA up and see if you're part of the upgrade promo that they're running at the moment. They've just upgraded my pleb card to Diamond. I also know of other pleb cardholders upgraded to gold or plat depending on their credit limit/burn rate.
Better points earning potential than before and factor in $50 needed for Citibank Plat/Signature to go QFF direct…this is slightly better if you're eligible for a Platinum or Diamond upgrade.
Thinking about signing up for the citi signature credit card with 80k qantas points sign up reward. Annual Fee is $299+49. (1 point = $0.43).
The previously posted citi signature deal for $0+49 pa seems to be still available as well (no signup rewards)
With an overseas trip coming up in the 2nd half of this year it looks better to pay annual fee, get the 80k points and cancel next year. Any thoughts?
Was much happier paying Macqaurie $99 for 40,000 points with two Qantas Club passes (which I sold for $90 - so my net cost $9), but $299 for 80,000 points is OK.
Still, would be a shame to miss out on the fee free for life Signature. :)
ESEMCE on 13/02/2014 - 14:33 Comment score below threshold.