Hi all,
First time posting, hopefully done this right.
Abit of context:
I'm a young fellow with a mid 80k earnings per year, and am currently credit card shopping. I travel to Japan often (usually Jetstar for cheap flights) and will continue to do for the next few years.
Dilemma:
I saw the Amex platinum velocity card and thought it might be suitable but doing some research found that this points scheme isn't the best for flights to Japan. I don't have any interest in upgrading to higher classes on flights.
Doing some googling, I found the Cathay Pacific Credit card that gave Asia Miles. This scheme seems to favour the asia destination flights greatly. Would this credit card suit an Australian who flies to Asia 2-3 times a year? Are there better alternatives I'm missing?
Thanks!
James
With that kind of (what many on here would consider 'high') income, you will easily be able to acquire multiple credit cards. If you can be bothered, my advice is to go for all the cards that offer a ship-load of QFF points, and waive the annual fee for the first year. The best ones I've gotten were from NAB (50,000 points) and ANZ (60,000 points). Just for signing up. Then you simply cancel the card before the annual fee is due the next year, or ring them up and tell them that is your plan; in which case they usually waive it again (at least that is what they did for me).
While it's a bit of a 'grey area', it's widely agreed that the general value of a QFF point is about (or 'almost') 1 cent, provided you use them to book economy flights, well in advance. So just by successfully applying for these two cards, you end up with about 110,000 QFF points, which enables you to book about $1000 worth of flights.
Of course there are certain requirements to get the points (basically, such cards require that you spend a minimum amount on them within a certain time-frame)… but such requirements are generally quite easy to fulfill, particularly if you have immediate family willing to allow you to pay a bill or two (think rates, electricity, etc.) for them in exchange for cash or a bank transfer.
I guess what I'm trying to tell you is that if you're on a rather large income, the way to get a large amount of QFF points rapidly, for free, is to acquire multiple cards with the annual fee waived for the first year, then cancel them before the end of the first year.
The fact is that the amount of QFF points you 'earn' via actually spending on any given card pales into insignificance, in comparison to this method. There used to be an exception which applied if the ATO decided you owed them money, based on your tax return … It used to be that you could pay that 'bill' with a CC (as it was considered a 'bill from the ATO'), and QFF points would be awarded accordingly. Sadly those days are no more.