Citi Premier Qantas Credit Card

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 Citi Premier Qantas card?

Globetrotter: you love travelling, and get a buzz from earning points that make your trips free and more fun.	Deal Digger: you're always on the lookout for freebie perks like insurances, dining discounts and earning points for paying bills.	Money Geek: you watch your accounts, and like budgeting and hitting money goals. You want good bang for your bucks.

Editor's Review: What we love about the Citi Premier Qantas card

The Citi Premier Qantas card is on par with the big guns for earning top-notch travel rewards. It may not be dishing out the biggest number of bonus Qantas Points on sign-up (some are 100k+), but it still stacks up: it has one of the highest Qantas-Points-earning rates along with the opportunity to pay a substantially lower annual fee compared to others in the rewards card space.

First, I’ll explain the terms behind the perks:

• Up to 70,000 bonus Qantas Points: to earn these, you need to be a new Citi Premier Qantas card customer (you can have had Citi credit cards before, though). Points are awarded on a tiered basis: 50,000 when you spend $6,000 or more on eligible purchases within 90 days from approval, plus an additional 20,000 bonus points when you keep your card for over 12 months.
• Annual fee discount: Pay the regular annual fee of $350 in the first year. You’ll get 50% off in subsequent years if you spend $48,000 or more on eligible purchases or cash advances in the previous year. With the discount, the annual fee is $175.

How can the Citi Premier Qantas card make travel cheaper?

Most of the extras with this credit card revolve around travel, accommodation, dining out and travel-related expenses:

How many Qantas Points can you earn?

A true travellers card, the Citi Premier Qantas card rewards you best when you’re shopping online or overseas. These rates apply to eligible spending, which is your regular retail purchases:

• 1 Qantas Point for every $1 you spend internationally
• 1 Qantas Point for every $1 you spend online within Australia
• 0.5 Qantas Points for every $1 you spend in-person in Australia

⚠ You can only earn a maximum of 100,000 Qantas Points per year with this card. However, that doesn’t apply to points you earn through City PayAll.

More deal-sweeteners and perks

Citi and the Citi Premier Qantas card have a lot of extras, so I’ve summarised them here to keep it short and sweet.

What's not so great

As good as this card is, it does have some conditions in the fine print you should know about.

Switching rewards programs. If you switch from earning Qantas Points for Citi’s own rewards program points, the annual fee changes to $300.

International transaction fee. You’ll pay 3.4% of the amount for any retail transaction or cash advance (money withdrawn from your credit card) from a merchant overseas. There’s also an international cash advance fee of $5 per withdrawal.

Cash advances in Australia. A 3.5% fee (charged at a minimum of $3.50) is charged when you withdraw cash from your card in Australia.

Citi PayAll costs. Citi Payall was free to use for new payments until October 31, 2023. The transaction fee has kicked back in, but it's been reduced from 2% to 0.95% of the amount being paid. So, you'll need to weigh up the points you would earn against the cost of the % fee when paying your bills to decide if it’s worth it.

What can you get with Qantas Points?

Flights & Travel 110,400 Qantas points = return flight to London	Shopping 96,890 Qantas points = Apple watch SE	Gift cards 23,330 Qantas points = $100 Bunnings gift card

You can use Qantas Frequent Flyer points for airlines in the oneworld Alliance, including British Airways, Cathay Pacific, American Airlines and Malaysia Airlines.

Qantas Points can also be redeemed for anything in the Qantas Rewards store. That includes appliances, homewares, electronics, gift cards and even subscriptions like Spotify.

Editor’s Summary

The Citi Premier Qantas card is flush with premium features, which is why the standard annual fee is $350; an average fee for a high-tier rewards card, and a pretty special deal if you can swing the 50% discount each year.

To get the most out of the card, you’ll want to check that you would spend enough each year to unlock the bonuses and earn decent Qantas Points. Overall, it’s a card with a number of ways to earn points, plus freebies and perks, and the potential to deliver very good bang for your (points-earning) bucks.