Bankwest Breeze Mastercard

Pauline Hatch

Pauline is a personal finance expert at CreditCard.com.au, with 8 years in money, budgeting and property reporting under her belt. Ask Pauline a Question about this card.

Who suits the Bankwest Breeze Mastercard?

Carefree Splurger: budgets are a bummer, and you may need help getting on top of debt. Low interest rates and low fees would be great.	Rainy Day Prepper: you want something low-cost to keep in your pocket. Even better if it has interest-free perks for when you do need it.	First Timer: you’re looking for a fairly simple card with a few perks to get you started. You’d like a low annual fee and a low interest rate.

“Debt? That’ll be a Breeze to pay off!”

That's what the slogan for Bankwest’s Breeze card could have been but alas, it was a missed opportunity - tsk tsk, marketing team! Although in fairness, I'm glad Bankwest focuses its effort on credit cards and not slogans, because it comes up with ideas like the Bankwest Breeze Mastercard. This tough little debt-cracker can be a very effective card for keeping costs low and cashflow under control (if you use the card with some savvy).

I’ll go through how the 0% p.a. offers work and Bankwest’s very cool interest-free Easy Instalments plans.

Editor's Review: What I love about the Bankwest Breeze Mastercard classic

The Breeze Mastercard has a big offer attached to its card right now: a 0% p.a. package on new purchases and balance transfers for 12 months. You’ll need to be a new Bankwest Breeze customer to get the offer (but you can have had a different Bankwest credit card before).

Here’s how the Breeze’s offers work:

0% offer on new purchases: Starting from the day your card is activated, you’ll pay no interest on any purchases you make using your card for 12 months. That gives you time to pay off big buys (like the robot vacuum that’s currently doing my housework - worth every penny) without worrying about interest. Just make sure you have a plan to pay off your purchases before the 12 months is up, or you’ll start paying interest again.

0% offer on balance transfers: Bankwest lets you transfer up to 95% of your card’s limit from other non-Bankwest credit cards and store cards. Then, you’ll have 12 months to pay off the transferred amount without paying interest. A 2% balance transfer fee applies. Once the promotional period is up, you’ll start paying the revert rate of 12.99% p.a. on the remainder - which is actually a nice deal considering the average revert rate for credit cards is 21% to 24% p.a..

Can you use both interest-free promotions at the same time? Yes, you can. Normally a balance transfer voids any interest-free periods on new purchases, but this special offer lets you use both simultaneously.

Annual fee discount: A low annual fee of $49 p.a..

If you’re looking for a low-cost rainy-day card or only have a small amount you want to pay off with a balance transfer, the Breeze may work well with its $1000 minimum credit limit.

Other perks and nice touches

Since the Breeze Mastercard focuses on paying down balances interest-free, it’s a nice touch that you can also use its Easy Instalment plans to divvy up your purchases and pay them off with zero interest in a Buy-now-pay-later style service. Here’s how it works:

1. Use the app or online banking to choose a purchase in the last 30 days between $100 and $1000 (you can have up to 5 plans at once)
2. Follow the prompts to set up the plan, which will divide the purchase into four payments over four months
3. Each month you’ll be reminded to make your instalment payment
4. To keep your 55 days interest-free, pay the minimum monthly repayments for your instalment plan and any other balances not part of your 0% p.a. purchases and balance transfer offer

The instalment plan gives the Bankwest Breeze card longevity after the 12-month interest-free promotional period is over, because you’ll still be able to access interest-free repayments on big or unexpected purchases. Just note that you can’t do Easy Instalments on ineligible items like cash advances, balance transfers, gambling transactions and purchases on a promotional offer.

What's not so great...

While the ongoing interest rate and even the balance transfer revert rate is only 12.99% p.a., the cash advance rate is much more ‘normal’ for credit cards. You’ll pay 21.99% on the amount you withdraw plus a fee of 3% or $4, whichever is greater. That’s not unexpected for a credit card, and hopefully, if you’re looking to pay off debts and balances then you’re not using the card to withdraw cash anyway.

The other thing to point out is that this card doesn’t come with loads of extras. It’s not a rewards card and doesn’t pretend to be; instead, it’s low-cost and helps with paying off debt at your own pace. All that means is that it may not suit you if you’re looking for a card with free insurances, discounts or frequent flyer points.

Overall Rating

The Bankwest Breeze Mastercard classic offers one of my favourite tools, which is an effective way to pay off debt or manage a big purchase you might have to make without getting caught up in the interest snowball. And it’s not just for emergencies; interest-free periods can help with cashflow for travel and accommodation costs, expensive school uniforms, a new bike for riding to work and so on. The clear caveat being that you wisely budget so it’s paid off before the promotional period ends.

If you’re after a card that doesn’t cost much to keep, has very low interest rates and has good ways to get on top of debt, the Bankwest Breeze is a nice one in the credit card lineup. My two cents: just remember the 0% p.a. offer on purchases and balance transfers is a limited-time promotion.