Commbank Increasing Spend on Travel Costs to $500 to Activate Travel Insurance

bamzero on 21/12/2023 - 18:14
Last edited 21/12/2023 - 20:28 by 1 other user

First they took away the cashback rewards offers by switching to Yello which requires you to also have a transaction account.

Now as of February there will be a minimum $500 spend on the card towards travel costs to activate travel insurance.

They were the two redeeming features of the card. I've had my card with them probably more than 20 years, upgraded over the years and spent plenty on it in that time.

If you want to start losing customers CBA you're definitely going about it the right way because we just love when you take away features and make your product the same (or worse) as all the others. The free travel insurance regardless of how I purchased was a huge plus (ie using a fx fee free card instead).

Here's the changes if you haven't received yet. Current PDS is here.
Changes take effect 7/2/24 but won't apply if insurance is activated before then.

Easier to read summary is here

Financial Commonwealth Bank Credit Card Insurance Travel Insurance

Related Stores

Commonwealth Bank
Commonwealth Bank

Comments

  • Gdsamp on 21/12/2023 - 18:20

    E

  • Drakesy on 21/12/2023 - 18:31

    *its

    • bamzero on 21/12/2023 - 18:33

      Oops :)

  • Jimothy Wongingtons on 21/12/2023 - 18:36

    Unfortunately long term membership means nothing for most of the big companies now

  • capslock on 21/12/2023 - 18:41
    +2

    The $500 has to be spent in one transaction too.

  • Jaduqimon on 21/12/2023 - 18:42
    -4

    Waahhh waahhhh

    • bamzero on 21/12/2023 - 18:46
      +2

      What are these forums for if not to have a whinge?

  • hocus on 21/12/2023 - 18:42
    +1

    Plus they've sneakily increased charges since moving towards monthly fees, all the while reducing benefits.

    This is the nail in the coffin for their CC offering. Just another churn and burn card now.

    • bamzero on 21/12/2023 - 18:42

      Haven't been hit with that one yet

    • jv on 21/12/2023 - 22:21

      My card is still free…

  • djkelly69 on 21/12/2023 - 18:44
    +1

    It is not ideal, but the transaction account is free if you deposit $2k a month I think (i just transfer the funds to that account and then straight out to pay my CBA CC), and $500 is not great either but still way better than some (eg. Amex). Plus if you have the Ultimate or the other one which has no international fees, you will likely be using it to book overseas stuff anyway.

    • bamzero on 21/12/2023 - 19:48
      +1

      Yeh thought about it though I'm kind of over jumping through hoops for banks. I guess what you say makes sense, I normally Bpay it but wouldn't be any extra effort to do via a transaction account. But part of me says then they get what they want, and will just add another hoop :) ING lost me after doing that.

  • Outrageous on 21/12/2023 - 20:06

    Which card is this for? I've got the ultimate awards but haven't heard about this

  • OrderedChaos on 21/12/2023 - 20:16
    +1

    The excess has also jumped

    The excess for Benefit 2: Overseas Emergency Medical and Hospital Expenses; will no longer be reduced to $250 upon activation. This will remain at $500 upon activation. No cover will be provided where you do not activate

  • slknv on 21/12/2023 - 21:53
    +1

    It's a crappy card. Only got it a few months ago for the bonus points, but also planning to activate the travel insurance for a USA trip from Feb 8. So if I activate it via the app PRIOR to Feb, then I should still be covered under the previous rules and not have to spend $500 per person to activate the insurance?

    • bamzero on 21/12/2023 - 22:26
      +1

      Yeh, activate before 7/2 for future travel.

      If travel is already booked you'd have wanted to activate by now anyway

      • slknv on 22/12/2023 - 09:36
        +1

        yep I activated it last night and it says covered for travel insurance, no extra spend required. Was trying to figure out if I needed extra rental car insurance but shouldn't need to.

  • JimmyF on 21/12/2023 - 22:16

    Now as of February there will be a minimum $500 spend on the card towards travel costs to activate travel insurance.

    Ok…… Not much really in the big picture of a holiday!

    • bamzero on 21/12/2023 - 22:33
      +1

      If you're booking on that card anyway it's not. Point is it used to be included whether you did or not. You didn't even have to activate and you still had some coverage. It was a good feature that differentiated the card amongst others.

  • payless69 on 22/12/2023 - 06:46

    They need money to lobby for extra bank fees!

  • KaTst3R on 22/12/2023 - 09:27

    Delete Step one and replace with the following:

    Is this some sort of draft document. I have not seen any external communication document which ask you to "delete" sections.

  • ginormousgiraffe on 22/12/2023 - 10:11

    Honestly it's to be expected that they wouldn't cover the holiday when not purchased on the card.

  • doczoid on 22/12/2023 - 15:40

    That seems extremely reasonable tbh. Assuming this will be an unpopular opinion but stands to reason they would need a significant card spend to cover insurance

    • bamzero on 22/12/2023 - 15:51
      +1

      Maybe so, but when they take away something they've been giving for years those customers might be a little unhappy about it ;)

  • Luigy on 12/03/2024 - 09:38

    I know this thread is a few months old but just checking, is it correct that you need to use an eligible card now to get the insurance?

    Upcoming trip to USA in July and I was not worried about travel insurance because I have had this card for 10 years and always just activated before departure. But now I'm reading you have to have used an eligible card (which I didn't). Never had to previously :(

    If it's the case, I presume they would verify that you made the eligible purchase if/when you go to claim?

    • bamzero on 12/03/2024 - 10:53
      +1

      Yep unfortunately, $500 spend or $500 worth of redemption of awards points "on prepaid travel costs (e.g. the cost of your return overseas travel ticket, prepaid accommodation, cruise, travel or tour)"

      I ran throught the activation and it doesn't ask to verify the eligible purchase prior, just warns that you're not covered if you haven't met the spend so I assume they'd verify it when claiming (then again it's a third party so who knows but guess not a risk you'd want to take)

      • Luigy on 12/03/2024 - 12:34

        That is such crap. I'm tempted to move to another bank over it, honestly. I don't think they ever notified me about it even

        I spoke with my spouse and luckily I was mistaken, we did use the platinum card to buy the flights back in november last year. So should be right for this trip. But still sucks that CBA would make these changes especially when one is a loyal customer.

        • bamzero on 12/03/2024 - 13:24
          +1

          Yeh I'm close to it as well. I know it was sort of something for nothing but like you say, no reward for loyalty anymore.

          I've had my card with them since I was a teenager (quite a while ago now 😄) and it's not like my monthly spend is insignificant.

          Along with the change to Yello, doesn't have anything special going for it any more. I don't normally use it to book travel because there's a good chance I'll get hit with exchange fees. They keep trying to push me on to the Ultimate card too which I noticed used to be $2500 spend to avoid monthly fee and is now $4000.

          It's not like they're struggling to make a profit.

  • Dollar General on 12/03/2024 - 13:30

    Someone gotta pay for the increased divvies to boomers who have held since IPO

  • slknv on 14/03/2024 - 13:31

    Closed it today, was always going to be a churner card. Not worth keeping as there's plenty other cards with better benefits and points earn than this one.

    • bamzero on 19/03/2024 - 13:34

      Good move. Just saw today that from 1/5/24 are also changing the "up to 55 days" interest free period to 44 days for all their cards.. Slowly but surely scalping everything…

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