Westpac Altitude Black Credit Card

Pauline Hatch

Pauline is a personal finance expert at CreditCard.com.au, with 9 years in money, budgeting and property reporting under her belt. Ask Pauline a Question about this card.

Who suits the Westpac Altitude Black 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.	Healthy Spender: your cashflow is high but healthy and you want to earn high-volume points. Perks and travel extras are a bonus.

Editor’s Overall Review

If you spend a lot of time on the road or in the air, the Westpac Altitude Black could make life a little more comfortable and save a dollar or two. It includes a ton of travel perks including lounge passes and global travel insurance.

At $295 per year, it sits in the mid-range of rewards cards, and the annual fee is offset for the first two years by the annual fee discount the first year, and the value of the bonus points on offer.

While many people tend to overlook concierge services, Westpac has upped its game by giving you access to a number of discounts, hard-to-get tickets and exclusive events by partnering with Ten Lifestyle Services.

Editor’s Full Review: the Westpac Altitude Black

The Westpac Altitude Black has a few bright-and-shiny perks to catch your eye, especially if you’re a frequent traveller. It earns Westpac’s Altitude Points, so you can use your points flexibly, including fights with several different airlines.

First, I’ll unpack the promotional perks, and then we’ll look at how this card can be used as a globetrotter’s companion.

Using the Westpac Altitude Black for travel

Like a well-stocked globetrotters bumbag, this card comes with almost every premium travel perk you could think of.

Let’s start with the different kinds of insurance. Some are specific to travel, and I've also included insurances that protect your purchases.

On top of insurances, you'll also get 2 lounge passes per year with Priority Pass, which has over 1200 premium lounges around the world you can use regardless of the airline you fly with. One of your passes can be gifted to a guest travelling with you, which is a very nice twist on the usual non-transferable rule.

If you want to use a Priority Pass lounge once your free visits are used up for the year, you can still enter the lounge for US$32 per person. You’ll need to enrol in Priority Pass once you have your Westpac Altitude Black card at www.prioritypass.com/westpacblack.

What about the Concierge and Lifestyle Services?

24 hours a day, you can request to have restaurant bookings (including off-beat bespoke requests), appointments, tickets to events, holidays, tours and more organised by a concierge on your behalf. When you book using Westpac’s concierge, you could also get other perks like room upgrades, complimentary breakfast, and exclusive seating at events.

Earning points with the Westpac Altitude Black

This card earns points in Westpac’s own Altitude Rewards program. I’ll explain what you can spend your points on in a moment, but first let’s look at how many points you can earn for your spending, and where.

Points per dollar and bonus points

The Altitude Black card is a little different in that you can earn bonus points for shopping with specific retailers and airlines (called Accelerated Earn). That means you can boost your points pretty quickly.

Here’s how it looks:

⚡There’s no cap on the total Altitude Points you can earn, but once you reach $10,000 in eligible spend within a statement cycle, the earn rate drops to 0.5 Altitude Points per $1 for any additional purchases that month. On the bright side, there are no rewards program fees, and your points never expire.

Redeeming your Altitude Rewards points

The Westpac Altitude Rewards program is flexible, so you can use your points for almost anything you like. They can be redeemed for gift cards, cash back, with partnering airlines and other travel expenses, and through the Altitude Rewards online store.

What’s not so great

While this is overall a good card, it does have some things that are worth pointing out. Firstly, you can’t redeem your points for Qantas points on this card (Westpac does offer credit cards that earn Qantas Points directly).

You’ll pay a 3% currency conversion fee when you spend overseas, and a $15 fee if you don’t pay the minimum monthly charges each month.

Who suits the Westpac Altitude Black?

This card is a good fit for people who travel frequently or want to bump up their points from shopping at specific stores. It earns points that can be redeemed flexibly, including with several different airlines. The Priority Pass lounge access is a great bonus and the travel insurance has coverage in Australia and overseas.