Is it worth card hopping for Qantas bonus points?

5 replies

Bruiserh89

Member since 13 Jul 2017

Total posts 1

Hi folks. I just got the ANZ frequent flyer black card which cost me nothing with the first year annual fee waived and will collect the 75,000 FF points with the required spend in the first three months. I have every intention of avoiding the normal $425 fee by cancelling the card 11 months from now. 


What I was wondering is does anyone here hop from card to card to take advantage of bonus offers like this? Does it hurt your credit rating? Is it even possible or do exclusions from bonus points for those that have had a card in a period before hand make it not possible?

I was otherwise just going to switch over to a fee free Frequent flyer point card.

Cheers
Bruiser 

Michael Kao

Qantas - Qantas Frequent Flyer

Member since 06 Nov 2014

Total posts 163

Yes it does hurt your credit rating. I did it back in 2013-2014. I thought I had perfect credit scores as I always pay my bill on time, I got a high income permanent full time government job so I thought I was highly qualified for multiple cards. Then I got rejected by Amex when I applied the edge card. Got a credit report and realized my score was poor and I had a "high risk of bankruptcy within 12 months". 


It took forever to recover the score. 

I still do it but do it moderately. Don't apply for a new card within 6 months. Also note many things such as signing up a new phone, internet plan, electricity....etc all have impact on your score. 

Jyrn

Qantas - Qantas Frequent Flyer

Member since 04 Feb 2016

Total posts 8

Like Michael said applying does affect your rating. Over the last few years I have applied for about 2 cards a year on average. I usually apply for these a month or two apart and then use them for 10-11 months. Over this time my rating has dropped about 150 points when checked using the free rating services. The advent of positive reporting is supposed to make it easier to claw back your rating but I have my doubts. I am currently considering cutting back on my credit cards to try and up my rating again. I believe the 'age' of your card helps improve your rating. That is the longer you hold the card the better it is for your rating in the absence of negative items. Therefore churning cards as an adverse impact as it makes your credit look 'younger'.

JTG

Singapore Airlines - The PPS Club

Member since 11 Jul 2014

Total posts 31

From the above answers I am curious to know if you increase your credit limit on your current credit card, will it count in a similar way as applying for a new card, this reducing your credit rating?

mviy

Member since 05 May 2016

Total posts 322

I always apply for the minimal limit allowed to maximise the number of cards I can hold at a time (helps make changing cards a bit easier without needing to do without having one). Yes if you apply for a credit limit increase this request will be added to your file. Regardless of the impact on the credit score banks do take into account the combined monthly limit of your existing cards when you apply for a new one. It's one of the questions they ask.


If you need to spend more than the limit you can load money onto the card in advance. Say you have to spend $8,000 on something, but have a $6,000 monthly limit you can pay it off and load an additional $2,000 on before paying for the thing you need. You just need to be organised.

Some choose to pay to get additional reports from a credit ratings agency. You can also get things like alerts when something is added to your file (so you can know promptly if something incorrect has been added that you want to dispute) and/or get a monthly credit score update to help give you an idea of how you're travelling on a more regular basis. If your score drops too low it's best to wait a while for it to improve. Some will pay for the more regular updates for a while to see how the system works and once they have a grip on it stop paying and use their gut feeling on how they're doing and free reports.


Any defaults can have an impact on your ability to get credit for a long time.

Ultimately the banks each have their own criteria and can accept or reject applications as they see fit. They may/may not use a particular credit score as a factor in making their decision.


You can get free reports from each of the credit rating companies once a year (so you could apply for one in March, from another company in May, from another company in September etc. or apply for one from all of them at the same time) and in some other circumstances e.g. within 90 days of any refusal to provide credit.


Some people successfully go through several credit cards a year. It's important to note any annual fee and any exclusion period. Some banks will only provide a sign up bonus if you haven't had a card with them for e.g. over 12 months. So with your ANZ card for example if you cancel it in September you'd need to wait till after then the following year before you could apply for an ANZ card again and qualify for the sign up bonus. For this reason some will cancel as soon as they can after receiving the points on their QANTAS/Virgin activity statement to minimise the time till they can apply again.

Last editedby mviy at Aug 04, 2017, 03:26 PM.

large

Qantas - Qantas Frequent Flyer

Member since 09 Jun 2017

Total posts 8

Done it 4 times. ANZ, NAB, CBA and Amex QF Discovery card. Amex is $0 annual fee so I've kept it. 5000 bonus sign up points, 12 months later I wanted to cancel it because I wasnt using it and they offered me 15K QF points to keep it. Scored 30k QF bonus points in a refer a friend offer.


CBA offered me 40K sign up for a platinum Amex. I already have one but they said I qualify for the offer so I took it. Cost me $295 but refunded  3 months later as I had made the minimum spend. Got the points and then ditched it.

50k from ANZ and 40K from NAB, all fee free for year 1, kept for 11 months and then ditched - I dont pay fees on credit cards. Not fussed about credit ratings one bit. Have enquired about loans through my bank and a trusted mortgage broker - no credit card skeletons in the closet.

Been a couple of years now - might be time to top up the QFF account again.

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