Boost your points balance with bonus reward points, cash back on local purchases and tricks to move up the frequent flyer tiers in this week’s Rewards Roundup.
This week’s Rewards Roundup is jam packed with ways to pick up more points with Velocity, HSBC and Singapore Airline’s KrisFlyer, opportunities to receive cash back on everyday purchases with American Express and some tips to fast track your way to Gold status with Qantas frequent flyer.
Get up to $100 cash back with American Express in November
While American Express’ Shop Small promotion usually only runs over a weekend, this time you’ll have the chance to earn up to $100 cash back for the entire month of November. With the latest promo, you can earn a $10 credit when you use your American Express credit card to spend $20 or more in one transaction at a participating store between 31 October and 30 November 2016. As you can take advantage of this offer up to 10 times with 10 different retailers, you could rack up a total of $100 in cash back.
As reported earlier this week, the Shop Small promotion is designed to support small businesses and debunk the myth that you can’t use your AMEX on everyday transactions. As such, you’ll be able to use your American Express and pick up cash back at local cafes, restaurants, bars and retailers. You can use the map on the American Express website to search the name or an address to see which of your local spots are participating.
Earn 15% bonus Velocity Points when you transfer your credit card points to frequent flyer rewards
Velocity is enticing its frequent flyers to move their credit card rewards to their Velocity frequent flyer accounts with the promise of bonus points this month. If you transfer your credit card rewards to frequent flyer points by 30 November, you’ll receive 15% bonus Velocity Points.
The included credit card programs and bank transfer partners that are eligible for the bonus points include:
American Express Membership Rewards (including David Jones Membership Rewards)
ANZ Rewards
Bank of Queensland
CommBank Awards
Citi Rewards including Card Services
Diners Club
Flybuys
HSBC
Suncorp
Westpac Altitude Rewards
You can redeem your rewards and see the exchange rates between your credit card rewards and Velocity Points on the Velocity website. See our guide on how to transfer credit card rewards to Velocity Points for more tips.
Transfer your ANZ Rewards to your Velocity account to earn double bonus frequent flyer points in November.
On top of the 15% bonus offer that is available to most Velocity-partnered banks in November, ANZ is now offering extra bonus points when you use auto-redemption to move ANZ Rewards to your Velocity account. When you redeem 67,5000 ANZ Rewards points for 30,000 Velocity Points between 1 November and 30 November 2016, you’ll earn up to 50% bonus points as well.
ANZ describes how the extra bonus points work in the diagram below.
If you opt into auto-redemption to pick up the extra points, remember that all future points earned with your ANZ Rewards credit card will be automatically debited to your Velocity account from there forward. It could take 28 days for the rewards to appear in your account, but after this time you can always opt out of auto-redemption if you’d prefer to have greater flexibility with your rewards.
Get a 30% discount when you redeem your KrisFlyer Miles for Singapore Airlines flights
There’s no better time to redeem your KrisFlyer Miles than the present. Until 16 November 2016, you’ll enjoy a 30% discount when you redeem your KrisFlyer miles online for flights with Singapore Airlines or SilkAir. Available for economy and premium economy flights, travel dates must be booked between 6 February and 31 May 2017.
If you want to save on how many points you need to redeem for your next flight reward, follow these steps:
Log into your KrisFlyer account with your KrisFlyer membership number and PIN
Select ‘Book a Flight’ on your dashboard
Click ‘Redeem flights’ and select your travel details.
Please note that taxes, fuel surcharges and fees are applicable are not covered by your points when making a booking.
Pick up an extra 25% bonus points on all purchases with your HSBC credit card
Get bonus value from paying on plastic with HSBC until the end of the year. Both new and existing HSBC credit cardholders can earn 25% extra Qantas or Rewards Points on all eligible purchases until 31 December 2016. The bonus is capped at 10,000 points, so you’d need to spend more than $40,000 to max out the offer. With Christmas coming up, this could be an easy way to get some extra value from any holiday spending on your HSBC credit card. This extra 25% bonus points isn’t applicable to any bonus points offers, though, which is important to remember for any new cardholders.
Get to Qantas Gold Class faster
Qantas Frequent Flyers now have more ways to climb up the loyalty tiers with the loyalty program’s latest announcement. When you fly with Qantas and pick up status credits of 500, 1,000, 1,500 or 2,000, you’re usually rewarded with 8,000 Qantas Points. However, Silver, Gold, Platinum and Platinum tier members have the option to trade their 8,000 points for 50 status credits.
Status Credits, of course, are the qualifiers you need to move up the Qantas Frequent Flyer tiers to access exclusive perks like access to the Qantas Club, priority check-in and extra bonus points. For example, you need 700 Status Credits to reach Gold status and 600 every year thereafter to maintain it. So if you’d already picked up 500 or 1,000 Status Credits on some flights, the reward of 50 bonus credits could help push you into the luxury of the Gold tier and beyond.
Learn more about how the Qantas Frequent Flyer tiers work and the benefits you can look forward to with our guide.
Earn Delta SkyMiles on Airbnb bookings
Delta Air Lines has followed in Qantas' footsteps and formed an alliance with Airbnb. This means that Delta SkyMiles frequent flyers can now also pick up 1 SkyMile per $1 spent on all Airbnb bookings. Airbnb offers accommodation in 2.5 million homes in 191 countries, giving frequent flyers plenty of options to choose from when picking up points on their next holiday stay. To celebrate, SkyMiles members can also enjoy $25 off their first Airbnb stay plus a bonus 1,000 miles when they book accommodation within 60 days of signing up. As we reported earlier this week, Airbnb hosts can also earn up to 15,000 bonus SkyMiles when they reach hosting fee milestones.
finder Rewards Roundup highlights and compares the latest credit card, airline and frequent flyer rewards offers. Check back every Friday for the latest rewards deals and to find out how you can get more out of your points this week.
Pictures: Shutterstock and ANZ.
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