Both Qantas and Virgin airlines have rolled out frequent flyer membership cards that double as prepaid debit cards that earn points for what you spend.
Both airlines have sent out these cards to customers who may or may not have requested them, attracting criticism from lawyers and consumer groups who say the mass mailout of cards is potentially “illegal” if consumers have not requested them.
But the media attention that these complaints have attracted may end up working in favour of Qantas and Virgin, with more people now aware of what these cards are and the benefits they can provide.
After all, these two cards are basically the only rewards debit cards available in Australia, giving you a chance to get more benefits and savings back based on how you spend your money. The only other cards offering rewards are credit cards, which usually have high annual fees and potential interest charges based on your account balance.
But will using one or both of these prepaid debit cards to get rewards really be worth it? Here we take a look at how points add up with these cards and the potential costs for both of them.
Qantas Cash Card
This prepaid MasterCard debit card option earns you one Qantas Frequent Flyer point for every $2 spent on the card and one point per Australian dollar or equivalent on international spending. The latter includes purchases made online with international retailers, which makes this card an appealing option for any overseas purchases.
The Qantas Cash card also gives you a way to save money on flights by waiving booking fees for Qantas.com purchases made within seven days of flying.
There are no initial or startup fees, no reload fees for money you put on the card and no card to card transfer fees if you decide to move funds from this card to another.
While there is a currency conversion fee of 3% to keep in mind, as a multi-currency card you can actually avoid this cost if you know what currency you will be using for purchases and preload it onto the card. There is a 1% debit card load fee of the total amount.
If you do regularly use this card, it definitely has potential to earn you more Frequent Flyer points and rewards without any added expenses.
DISCONTINUED: Virgin Velocity Global Wallet
Like the Qantas option, the Virgin Global Wallet gives you points for shopping in-store and online, both locally and overseas at a rate of one point per $2 on Australian spending and one point per $1 on international transactions.
Both BPAY and POLiPay transfers to the Global Wallet are now free, but it is worth noting that if you first got the card in July 2013, there was a $1 loading fee (which has since been removed). In fact, there are only four possible fees you will be charged with this card:
- An inactive fee of $1 after 12 months without use,
- A foreign exchange fee of 3% of the total transaction cost,
- A supplementary card fee of $10; and
- An emergency cash transfer fee of $15.
As another multi-currency prepaid debit card, the foreign exchange fee of 3% is easily avoidable, and both supplementary card requests and emergency cash transfers are unlikely to become a regular part of your card use. That leaves the inactivity fee of $1 if you don’t use the card for more than 12 months.
All of these fees are easily avoidable, so if you did regularly use this card you could earn a lot for Velocity Reward points.
Say, for example, you used the card specifically for clothing purchases. With MoneySmart reporting that the average Australian spends $44 per week on clothing, you could earn between 1144 points (Australian spending) and 2288 points (international spending) in a year. As at 2014. The same calculations apply for the Qantas Cash card, which means you could choose to earn points for whatever rewards program is more appealing to you.
A debit card with rewards might sound like the perfect payment option, but it is important to weigh up the pros and cons before deciding to activate either the Qantas Cash card or the Velocity Global Wallet.
By considering the potential fees and reading the terms and conditions for these two cards, you should be able to make an informed decision about whether or not you want to add them to your wallet.
Kaine
August 5, 2014I strongly recommend that Virgin Australia Velocity Global Wallet service is avoided. This service did not fulfil any of my expectations and continues to disappoint me as a customer. I have matters that remain unresolved after more than one month since reporting fraudulent transactions. I believe that this is totally unacceptable and I hope for the sake of Virgin that my experience does not represent that of other customers.
A timeline of my experience with Virgin Australia’s Velocity Global Wallet:
– 21-05-14: Velocity Global Wallet account opened.
– 22-05-14: initial funds transferred to Velocity Global Wallet account.
– 27-05-14 first purchase made with Velocity Global Wallet Card.
– 22-05-14 to 03-07-14: various funds transferred to Velocity Global Wallet account and purchases made with Velocity Global Wallet Card (a total of 22 transactions in 43 days).
– 03-07-14 16:27 to 03-07-14 20:18: 32 fraudulent purchases made with Velocity Global Wallet Card.
– 04-07-14: 13 minute phone call to Velocity Global Wallet Customer Service to report fraudulent transactions and to request further advice about how to recuperate funds. Informed by Velocity Global Wallet Customer Service that no action could be taken for a period of 10 days until transactions had cleared.
– 04-07-14 to 05-07-14: A further 2 fraudulent purchases made with Velocity Global Wallet Card.
– 07-07-14: 48 minute phone call to Velocity Global Wallet Customer Service to request closure of account and refund of balance on account. Informed by Velocity Global Wallet Customer Service that no action could be taken over the phone and to refund balance on account would cost $15 transfer fee. Eventually instructed to submit Account Closure Form and Dispute Form. Promised by Velocity Global Wallet Customer Service return phone call to provide update on matter within 12 hours.
– 07-07-14: Dispute Form Lodged.
– 08-07-14: Account Closure Form lodged.
– 08-07-14: No return phone call received from Velocity Global Wallet Customer Service.
– 11-07-14 to 28-07-14 away overseas unable to utilise Velocity Global Wallet Card as intended. Subsequently incurring several hundred dollars of international transaction fees as a result.
– 31-07-14: Follow up e-mail sent to Velocity Global Wallet Customer Service requesting update on matter. Return e-mail received from Velocity Global Wallet Customer Service indicating no email correspondence would be able to be made due to privacy reasons.
– 01-08-14: Follow up e-mail expressing disappointment with the service provided by Velocity Global Wallet. Return e-mail received from Velocity Global Wallet Customer Service addressing another Velocity Global Wallet Customer (who will not be named in this post for privacy reasons) indicating that the matter had been escalated to upper management and providing instruction to wait for a further update.
– 01-08-14: 21 minute phone call to Velocity Global Wallet Customer Service requesting update on matter. Promised by Velocity Global Wallet Customer Service that an update would be provided via return phone call within 48 hours.
– 03-08-14: No return phone call received from Velocity Global Wallet Customer Service.
– 03-08-14: Follow up e-mail expressing disappointment with the service provided by Velocity Global Wallet and requesting an explanation as to why Velocity Global Wallet Customer Service had directly lied and misled their customer about return phone calls. No response received from Velocity Global Wallet Customer Service.
– 03-08-14: Follow up e-mail requesting update on the matter within 48 hours. No response received from Velocity Global Wallet Customer Service.
In summary:
– I have over $1000 owed to me by Virgin Australia Velocity Global Wallet Service.
– I have incurred hundreds of dollars of international transactions fees due to my inability to utilise the Velocity Global Wallet Card as advertised.
– I have spent more than an hour throughout multiple phone calls to Velocity Global Wallet Customer Service attempting to amend the matter.
– I have spent hours downloading, filling in, and submitting forms, in addition to formulating and sending the various e-mails attempting to amend the matter.
I strongly recommend that Virgin Australia Velocity Global Wallet service is avoided. This service did not fulfil any of my expectations and continues to disappoint me as a customer. I have matters that remain unresolved after more than one month since reporting fraudulent transactions. I believe that this is totally unacceptable and I hope for the sake of Virgin that my experience does not represent that of other customers.
PLEASE SHARE IF YOU EXPECT MORE FROM VIRGIN.