Qantas is running a promotion offering two Qantas lounge passes to customers who load AU$5000+ in foreign currency onto their Qantas Travel Money card. To qualify, you will need to make sure the funds are loaded by 12 June 2019.
If $5,000 is a bit of a stretch, there is also a bonus of 2,000 Qantas Points on offer. This is available if you load from $3,000 to $4,999 onto you Qantas Travel Money card by 12 June.
The offer of lounge passes makes a bit of a change in tack for Qantas. For the most part, they have offered members bonus Qantas Points for loading up their card with foreign currency.
The passes are valid for use at domestic Qantas Club lounges or Qantas operated International Business Lounge (excluding Los Angeles Tom Bradley Terminal International Business Lounge). At present, they are unable to be used in Singapore, due to space constraints at the lounge.
What is Qantas Travel Money?
Qantas Travel Money (previously Qantas Cash) is the debit Mastercard facility available on to Qantas Frequent Flyers. The card is built-in to your Qantas Frequent Flyer card, and is available for eligible members.
It allows you to load up to 10 foreign currencies, and use them overseas as you would any other Mastercard.
When you use the card on overseas spend, you earn 1.5 Qantas Points on each Australian Dollar equivalent.
Is this worthwhile?
Now to the crux of the matter. Is putting $5,000 on the card a good way of getting two lounge passes. The answer, as always with many of these things, is that it depends. Let’s look at how much it will cost you, and how much the lounge passes are worth.
If we were heading off to the US, we could put 5,000 AUD onto the card. That will give us (as I write this), $3336.50 US Dollars. By way of comparison, if I went shopping with a card that doesn’t levy a foreign transaction fee on overseas spend, I would be able to spend more like $US3,480. So, the load is costing up $140 or so.
So, in a way, the two passes are costing $70 a piece. Worthwhile? Well, that is an individual decision.