ANZ Rewards Program

ANZ Rewards is ANZ’s own in-house loyalty program. Under the program, you collect points in the ANZ Rewards program. Every time you make an eligible purchase on the card, ANZ Rewards points are earned.

For the traveller, the program partners with a range of Frequent Flyer programs, and offers the ability to transfer points out of ANZ Rewards to those programs. It is possible to transfer points to a range of airline frequent flyer programs:

  • Virgin Australia’s Velocity Rewards,
  • Air New Zealand’s AirPoints,
  • Cathay Pacific’s Asia Miles, and
  • Singapore Airlines’ Krisflyer.

If you prefer to collect Qantas Frequent Flyer points, ANZ offer a separate range of cards that directly credit to that program.

The Card Range

There are three levels of cards within the ANZ Rewards range of cards – the ANZ Rewards card, the ANZ Rewards Platinum card and the ANZ Rewards Black card.

ANZ Rewards

The ANZ Rewards account is the entry-level account. It has a total annual fee of $89 per year (made up of $34 card fee, and $55 for the rewards program). While it has a lower annual fee than the other accounts, it also earns at the lowest rate of all the cards. It offers up to 44 days interest free days.

For additional cardholders on ANZ Rewards an Additional Cardholder Fee of $10 and Rewards Program Services Fee of $55 will apply for each additional cardholder on the account.

ANZ Rewards Platinum

One level up from the ANZ Rewards Card is the Platinum account. Compared to some other platinum cards, it has a reasonable total annual fee of $149 (once again, this is split by ANZ into a card fee and a rewards fee).

Being a platinum card, it comes with a range of insurances, such as international travel insurance, purchase security and extended warranty coverage. The full insurance details may be found on the ANZ website.

Additional cardholders may be added to the account, and again there is an Additional Cardholder Fee of $10 and Rewards Program Services Fee of $55 for each additional cardholder on the account.

ANZ Rewards Black

Not long ago, platinum was the top end card. In recent times, a number banks have added a Black card above the platinum level, and ANZ is no exception. The ANZ Rewards Black card is currently the highest level card in the range.

The card has a total annual fee of a $375. In addition to the benefits offered by the platinum card, it adds a few insurances, such as rental excess cover for Australian car rental and interstate flight inconvenience insurance.

For the international traveller, it also adds on lounge access at a number of airports through the Veloce program. The link is for a PDF that contains the terms of the program, and a list of the currently participating lounges worldwide.

Additional cardholders may be added, at the same rate as the other cards –  an Additional Cardholder Fee of $10 and Rewards Program Services Fee of $55 for each additional cardholder on the account.

Earning ANZ Reward Points

Every time you pay with an ANZ Rewards card, you collect ANZ Rewards Points. Points are to earned on most spend on the cards. Unlike other cards, such as the Westpac Altitude cards, there is no additional earning when making purchases in a foreign currency.

Altitude Rewards also has bonus partners that pay bonus points on eligible transactions – this can up to three points per dollar spent at the partner.

Standard Points

As with many award accounts, ANZ provide two cards on the credit account. There is a Visa card, and an American Express card. Generally speaking, the American Express card will earn more points on a transaction, so it is often best to use the American Express card, where possible.

The downside of the American Express card is two fold. Firstly, it has a lower acceptance worldwide than the Visa card, which obviously means that you will need to use the Visa card.

The other issue, particularly in countries that allow it, is with surcharges. Merchants that accept both American Express and Visa may surcharge a greater amount on an American Express transaction than on a Visa transaction. This may be by imposing a surcharge on American Express where there is no surcharge on Visa. Alternatively, the surcharge may be higher on the American Express.

ANZ Rewards Earning Rates
Credit Card Amex Spend Visa Spend
ANZ Rewards Card 2.0 per dollar 1.5 per dollar
ANZ Rewards Platinum Card 3.0 per dollar 1;5 per dollar
ANZ Rewards Black Card 3.0 per dollar 2.0 per dollar

It should be noted that the point earn stated in the table is in the ANZ Rewards currency. The effective frequent flyer earn rate is lower due to the ‘exchange rate’ between the ANZ Rewards program and the affiliated frequent flyer programs (see below).

Bonus Points

There are a number of bonus partners affiliated with the ANZ Rewards program. These partners allow you to earn additional points over the standard earn. Notable partners include:

  • Stamford Hotels and Resorts
  • Prouds the Jewellers
  • ANZ Insurance products
  • Adairs

Using Points

Frequent Flyer programs

As mentioned above, one of the redemption options for ANZ Rewards points is to exchange them for Frequent Flyer points, in one of four programs. The options available and the transfer rates for ANZ Rewards points is shown in the following table.

Frequent Flyer transfer rates
Program Transfer Rate Minimum Transfer Increments
 Velocity  2.25:1  2,250  2,250
 Airports  200:1  3,000  1,500
 Asia Miles  3:1  3,000  1,500
 KrisFlyer  3:1  6,000  3,000

The Transfer rate shows the number of ANZ Rewards points required to ‘buy’ one Frequent Flyer program point.

Other uses

The ANZ Rewards program offers a number of other redemption options, such as purchasing hotel rooms directly with points, or purchasing gift cards. These alternatives implicitly value a point at around 0.5c each.

If you use the points to purchase air fares, the tickets that are purchased are typically normal revenue tickets, so you will recover some of the cost by getting Frequent Flyer points back after you have taken the flight.

Summary

ANZ Rewards is comparable with the Westpac Altitude program, and the best value is gained from transferring the points across to the Frequent Flyer programs. It is also one of the few programs that offer  the ability to transfer across to the likes of Asia Mile.