Got this in the mail.
Double awards points for Diamond Awards members during November and December.
May be targeted. May also apply for other Awards like platinum.
2.5 points per dollar up from 1.25 points per dollar. I convert to Velocity hence equals to 1.25 velocity points per dollar (higher if we are ever invited to bonus points promo again…)
Maybe this is a small bonus for removing our Amex cards.
Received a similar letter for the commbank platinum mastercard, nearly identical text except it is $1 spend to earn 2 points (compared to 1.25 and 2.5 for diamond) for Nov and Dec
Pretty sure it's just bribery to stop the abuse for cutting their Amex rewards.
Going from 3 points on 90% of things, to 3 points on 30% of things, to 1.25 on everything is not great.
Previously you could get a $50 gift card for about ~6k spend. Now it's around 15k spend.
Imagine it's to stop people moving to other banks. Cutting the Amex is going to cause lots of revaluation. If they weren't giving me the Diamond card for the cost of the basic one, I'd have been gone already as it's not worth half the full annual fee. It's already dropped to the point where even the smallest surcharges are not worth it over debit.
I'm voting with my feet and cancelling the cards next week.
Too little too late
Not to mention the no international transaction fees on the AMEX. Now I need to find a rewards card with no international fees.
Commonwealth Bank has stopped their Commbank AMEX cards completely but customers have to pay same annual fee for what they initially got in the offer. Also, as lysp said, the worth of points is rubbish comparing to what it was before. So, basically Commonwealth Bank Credit Cards have got nothing exciting and you pay the premium annual fee. Time to shop around.
I think their department are probably seeing a lot customers leaving this product.. cant expect most customers happy to pay the same for less
looks like its targetted?
Most are probably just paying $59 annual fee for Diamond.
How do you get that deal ?
Yeah mine $59 but I use my points to pay it off anyway
How’s you get that? I’m paying $114 I believe for the card due to them removing the Gold cards and doing an upgrade to Platinum. $114 being the older Gold rate from about 10 years back that was grandfathered in when the card rose to around $140. I did confirm a few weeks back that my current rates locked in for future renewals so I’m not too upset. Have an Amex issued Amex anyway which made the CBA one redundant as the Amex rewards were better.
I'm on $59 annual fee as well. I received a letter a long time ago to join the diamond credit card with $59 annual fee.
Nice. So it wasn't because they had ceased a lower rate card or anything, just a sign up promotion? Would have lucked that but I'm not unhappy with my current rate either. That said, maybe at some point I should contact support and see if I can negotiate it down, can't hurt to try.
Going to drop my CBA card in the next month. My flight center $100 credit has already come through so part from using up a few weeks of interest free goodness, not much else is going to stop me leaving and asking for pro rata cash back for yearly fee
Funnily enough my annual fee of $249 just hit my account on 1 Nov so I have 90 days the cancel it to be able to get it all back. I think they will also sneak in a $30 Qantas charge as well from memory.
Woohoo! I missed this email because it went to my misses inbox, not mine. This means I earn 1.25 velocity points per dollar (Diamond scarf) until the end of the year. My Velocity Escape is going in the drawer until the end of the year! (I will use the Amex via Apple Pay for shop small and statement offers only.)
Hopefully this just gives CommBank time to review their credit card offerings. As others have said, this could result in a mass exodus. As someone with almost all my banking, home loan and cards with CBA, having a crap credit card offering will definitely make me move elsewhere, and get a better home loan rate as well.
Applies to Platinum holders as well.
Weirdly enough I did. It see any such email and so I’m just going to pay off my account and close it off.
The official line is apra caused the lowering of what banks could reward amex customers they have to be aligned. Amex wouldn't lower their fees so most banks chopped them
Definitely looking to refinance next year when fixed rate is finished. Unless they can pull some magic with this card…
I have the Diamond Card for free with my home loan package.. and even at free, it's a crap package, so I've taken my credit card usage elsewhere. Very tempted to move my home loan elsewhere too.. this, and the lack of Apple Pay, must be causing some haemorrhaging of customers.
I also had the credit card for free as part of the home loan package.
That's why it didn't bother me too much about the drop of AMEX. But we are getting less points for sure. So I try to shop around and see what's best on offer.
Tried HSBC. But not sure how I feel about it at the moment. Having two credit card is kinda of troublesome as well. Too much admin work.
I'm going to miss the fee free foreign currency transactions from the CBA amex as I also have mine fee free.
Is the credit card wiki up to date? What are the best points earning credit cards with good forex in the market at the moment?
I switched over to ING for the fee free replacement for overseas purchases that the old CBA AMEX used to provide me. The additional benefit was that I can also withdrawal from overseas ATMs without fees and reasonable rates.
Yep, like others I'll probably cancel my card the month before they charge the annual fee and trade in my points for a gift card. Very disappointing that they cancelled Amex. That was a great way of making the bank pay and not me. Cash back from lots of places including BP, Harvey Norman etc. Added to which the bonus points on expenditure. With the free travel insurance I'm up over $1000 alone with my overseas holidays. Though I'm sure that has been carried over with my other card.
People should be aware that CBA credit cards has BPAY exclusion for points.
Been in place for years now
I hope this applies to mine - thanks for the heads up.