Qantas has this morning announced that it will be launching its own Premium Credit card. The card is to be launched before the end of the financial year, and will be issued in conjunction with Citibank.
Qantas Premium Credit Card
The card will be issued as a Platinum Mastercard, and will feature the ability to earn Qantas Points. In addition, Qantas say they will be offering cardholders special deals on Qantas fares and lounge access. Qantas will also launch what it calls an ‘innovative app to track your money’.
While giving away some details of the card, the announcement has left a lot of questions unanswered. For example, while they have said the card will offer unlimited points earning. While that may be the case, we will have to wait until the launch to find the points earning rate on the card.
Many cards on the market currently describe their points earning potential as unlimited. These often have a low earn rate. There are cards that offer an initial 1 Qantas Point per dollar rate, but this tends to reduce once a monthly limit is reached.
Why?
According to Qantas, 35% of cards in Australia currently earn Qantas Points. Qantas Loyalty sees the potential to grow this even further with its own product.
The issue in growing market share is the forthcoming changes to interchange fees. This has seen a number of banks cut the number of points that they will be awarding on credit cards. Perhaps Qantas think they can offer a more compelling card if is issued under their own name. They may be able to offer themselves a good deal on points.
Of course, there is still a bank involved in all this – Citibank. This may or may not be a good thing. Citibank has clamped down on points from government spend across its own cards, and cards it manages for others.
We will bring update this post with further information on this new credit card as it gets released.
