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One of the best ways to earn frequent flyer points is by picking up a credit card that offers bonus sign-up points and a solid earn rate (check out our round-up of current offers). That's well-known, but there's a less-obvious trick involving prepaid gift credit cards that can also boost your points total.
Both Coles' Flybuys and Woolworths' Everyday Rewards regularly offer bonus point bundles when you buy Mastercard, Visa or eftpos gift cards. A typical deal offers 1,000 or 2,000 bonus points with a gift card purchase.
2,000 Everyday Rewards points convert to 1,000 Qantas Frequent Flyer points, while 2,000 Flybuys points convert to 870 Velocity points. By buying prepaid gift cards when bonus offers emerge, you can score extra points. And unlike other gift cards (like those for Netflix or Uber, for instance), you can spend the card's value on whatever you like. Indeed, you could use the card to pay for other products that themselves earn points (such as flights).
One key thing to remember is that you'll usually have to pay a service fee to buy a gift credit card. Fees vary, but $5.95 for a $100 gift card is typical. While that means you'll be paying almost $106 in order to spend $100, you'll also score far more points than usual. To earn 2,000 supermarket reward points you'd usually have to spend $2,000, so even with the service fee, you're generally ahead as long as you convert your supermarket points to airline points and then spend them wisely.
You might also be thinking: "If I spend money with a gift credit card rather than my regular credit card, I'll miss out on the points I get when I spend on my regular credit card." However, you won't usually earn this many points spending with a regular credit card.
Here's an example. On the American Express Velocity Platinum Card, you can earn 2.5 points per $1 spent if you use the card to buy Virgin Australia tickets. For a $100 spend, that's 250 points simply for using the card. Use a $100 gift card and you'll potentially earn 870 points. (In both cases, you'll also earn points once you actually take the flight.)
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Make sure you don't lose out on points when using prepaid gift credit cards by following these tips:
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