Megan Singleton: BloggerAtLarge.com writer on how to make the most of your spending to earn Airpoints

One of the perks of using credit cards is the Airpoints rewards - but there's benefits and pitfalls involved.

A Platinum AMEX, for instance, will give you points for every $70 spent - but it comes with a higher annual fee than the Airpoints Low Fee Visa card.

You can also earn Airpoints through New World's rewards programme, but it takes a bit of spending to make a significant impact.

BloggerAtLarge.com writer Megan Singleton explains further.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:06):
You're listening to the Sunday Session podcast with Francesca Rudkin
from News Talks EDB Travel with Windy Woo Tours Where
the world is Yours for now.

Speaker 2 (00:18):
Megan Singleton's with us to talk travel.

Speaker 1 (00:20):
Good morning, Good morning.

Speaker 2 (00:22):
I like today's topic. It's a very sensible one.

Speaker 3 (00:27):
Or you told me to do it.

Speaker 2 (00:29):
Yes, that's why I like it. Well, I think maybe
the reason I told you to do this was because
you'd been talking about wise cards and great ways of
paying for your travel when you're traveling, and then you
mentioned airpoints and for me, I have just never been
able to find a way to gather enough airpoints to
make it sort of it's a meaningful impact on my travel.

Speaker 3 (00:51):
Yeah, I think you've got to go all in on
one program I used to years.

Speaker 2 (00:55):
Ago, decades ago. You could kind of get enough to
get yourself around the country and things quite easily.

Speaker 3 (01:01):
You know, Come on, you must fail to either you
don't have critics cards or you're not using them smartly. No,
here's the thing. Okay, all right, so firstly, let's just
say don't get a credit card unless you're going to
pay it off every month. Okay, just that, just clarifies
us for all the financial things I'm about to say
to people now. But so, I actually switched my credit

(01:25):
card provider when Air New Zealand and B and Z
parted ways years ago, and so I moved all my
accounts over to the Westpac and started up a business
credit card there and a personal credit card there. At
the time, I think I might have had AMEX, but
I've dropped MX. But they are also an Air New
Zealand airpoints collector, and you can collect on A and

(01:46):
Z and New World now, so I just quickly run
through them. I know we don't have long but there's
various levels of earning depending on what type of card
you've got, and obviously what type of card you've got
depends on what annual fees you pay, so you do
need to factor that in. Like the AMEX card Platinum
is going to be more expensive to run than at

(02:06):
the fifty dollars A and Z airpoints low fee Visa
card is, but you'll earn an airpoint for every seventy
dollars you spend on AMEX, whereas you'll have to spend
two hundred dollars to earn an airpoint on those low
fee cards. Right, So now New World have joined the party.
They've just announced as of the thirty first of March
that five New World dollars will equal five Air New

(02:29):
Zealand airpoints. But I did a quick tot up and
that would be about a six hundred dollars grocery spend
to get your five airpoint dollars. Now, don't be confused
between airpoints and status points. Okay, he's still with me,
Diana'm listening, Okay, So look, it keeps me loyal because
I am gold. I got within Cooey a sniff of

(02:51):
elite and then it dropped away. And here's why. Because
status points expire and airpoints don't when you're gold, and
so status points are earned in a separate way. So
once you get once you've spent enough on your credit cards,
especially if you've trying to jump up to elite, air
New Zealand will cap that. And I haven't earned status

(03:13):
points on my elite pursuit for about two years. On
my credit card spend. I've got to earn it all
on flights. So it's all right for me because I
can travel around the world and I can choose my
airlines and I deliberately choose. If it's not a New Zealand,
I'll choose a Star Alliance airline like United all Off
Tanza or Air China or Singapore Airlines, depending on where

(03:34):
I'm going. And another trick is to get your travel
agent if they can, to book you an Air New
Zealand ticket on a Star Alliance aircraft and then you
might get more points and status points with that. But
I always make sure it's my Air New Zealand points
that are registered, like not my United mileage. Plus I
don't collect those, so I'm really all in on the

(03:55):
one program and then I don't have to pay for
domestic flights at all. Brilliant.

Speaker 2 (04:00):
Are you going to put that up on a blog
for us?

Speaker 3 (04:02):
I'm going to check it on Facebook. I could put
it in a blog, but look, it's likely to change
next week, so I'm going to put this all up
on my Facebook page, Blogger at large and then people
can have a good old read through that.

Speaker 1 (04:13):
For more from the Sunday session with Francesca Rudkin, listen
live to News Talks it'd be from nine am Sunday,
or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio