Got this amex Westpac altitude platinum card from this deal which is coming up to its first yearly fee. The first year was fee free.
I usually cancel these cards before I pay the yearly fee and jump on another amex deal later on.
But this card is only $49 and I'm trying to decide whether to keep it (for the amex offers) or cancel and wait for something similar with a first year free plus bonus points.
Thoughts? Anyone been in a similar position?
Cheers. Isn't that 60k points though?
There is a bonus 20k points if you sign up through here apparently
https://www.qantas.com/au/en/frequent-flyer/earning-points/c…
Would you have the link for the St George card you mention?
Thanks
The Amex essentials card is free and should still get similar offers.
Same boat as you. The Amazon Prime offer came on that card today and it is not on my other cards. My Westpac Amex expires early August but my Prime membership renews mid December. So I am mulling over now maybe to keep it. I might see if Amex would waive the fee but doubt it.
I have ditched the Visa, not much use to me.
Yes just signed up to that offer. I've decided to keep the card with the lack of a better offer.
I've been unsuccessful of having annual fees waived of late. I think I've lost the touch. But maybe because you can nowdays simply cancel the card online or in other cases they can revert you to a fee free card option. In any case, with a try.
am in this same situation now, one advantage I see is the Qantas FF points are 1:1 for every dollar spent on the card, while The Qantas American Express Discovery Card has a $0 annual fee but only give 0.75 QFF points per $1 spent….
When international travel was a thing I would potentially value QFF points at around 1c per point. If the annual fee on the platinum is $49 then that would equate to around 4900 points in my book.
The card earns 0.25 points more per $ spent than the Discovery card with $0 fee. Therefore to just recoup the cost of the $49 fee (compared to just using a Discovery card) I looked at it as me having to spend at least $(4900/0.25)= $19600 on the card each year.
I previously had the $199 black version of the westpac Amex and was considering downgrading to the platinum $49 version but I ended up cancelling entirely as I got a VISA that earned 1 point per $ spent anyway
Now I value QFF points at around 0.55c per point (based on the rate at which I can exchange them for WISH gift cards from the Qantas store) so it is even poorer value in my view. Nevertheless everyone's situation is different
Thanks…that ($4,900/0.25=$19k) is a very enlightening calculation, I would never be able to recoup that in 1 year, I always struggle to understand all these points systems no matter how many times I try to read up on it… I will call amex and cancel this Westpac issued one and just apply for the free Discovery one, which I assume also gets access to the Shop Small offers anyway.
No problem. I now have the Discovery card on the side and it also gets the same AmEx offers as my previous Westpac AmEx would get (including shop small this year). Do note that some deals are targeted these days so not everyone will get the same AmEx offers (also it may take time before offers appear on your new AmEx card - you may also miss out on offers that are currently running and have to wait for the next 'batch' of them)
@AussieDeals: I think the only thing I remember using last year was the shop small $5 x 10 stores = $50, so even if I maxed out all the shops, I would only break even. :-)
I'm cancelling my Westpac Visa but keeping the Amex. For $49 it's been great value. Easily saved that much in Amex offers. And I have a trip booked on it and similar travel insurance would set me back $650 so it's a no brainer.
I will cancel the Westpac Visa and go with the St George card with 80,000 qantas points for $49.