[Renato1 (Renato)]

I joined the Australian Frequent Flyer site recently, and discovered I've been a bit of a dill. It just hadn't occurred to me that by using the right credit cards (American Express Platinum Edge and Amex David Jones) our average yearly supermarket bills could pay for return flights for two to many places in Australia.

Generally speaking, one gets more bang for the buck saving Virgin Velocity points, as it takes less of their points for a return trip than do the Qantas Frequent Flyer points. Though the Qantas FF points are better if you want to go to places that Virgin don't go to.

I hadn't kept tabs on one thing - both point schemes are now pretty useless for overseas destinations, compared to what they used to be. When I last used points for a trip to Europe back in 2009, taxes fees and charges were around $500. Now, for the same trip they'd be over $1900.

Basically, one Qantas FF point is worth on average around 1.4cents when used for domestic air travel. With a credit card that gets you 3 points per dollar spent at Coles and Woolworths and IGA, that's a bonus of 4.2 cents per dollar (or around 4.5c per dollar with Virgin velocity).

So, I'd suggest giving consideration to not wasting this bonus if the idea of flying around Australia appeals to you.

Cheers,
Renato