Saxphile

I hate annual fees as much as the next guy, but here's some math for your consideration:

$30k spent with BNZ = AP$333.33
$30k spent with Kiwibank = AP$400

For your six month spending, the difference in AP earned alone is $66.67, which goes a long way toward the $75 bi-annual fee. This is not considering difference in SP earning and better earning rates for AirNZ spending.

BTW, I found the little security matrix card used by BNZ for online banking incredibly annoying (and from the security perspective, very stupid since many people would probably write their username and password on that card and carry it in their wallet/purse). I actually left BNZ for that reason.

flysally

Good point Saxphile. I still don't like using my own 'cash' to pay for the fee's but no harm in asking I guess.

BNZ have done away with the security card now for checking balance and transactions thank goodness.

MikeAKL

+1

Kiwibank also charges an additional $60/year for a partner card - GP Plat. does not.

uakmoraj13

ANZs 6 monthly fee for the Platinum card has gone uo to $75.

JayDNZ

I had a Go Fly Gold card for some years and upgraded to Platinum when I learned of the status points accrual early this year. I find Kiwi bank online banking really good, I have personal and business accounts with them also.

My main motivation for having either card was the Koru lounge passes for every $15K spent, plus the 2 you get when you reach silver…. However I have recently learned of the Aegean FFP and should get *A Gold following an upcoming return trip to the UK… so the lounge passes are no longer of use.

I don’t do enough travel to reach AIR NZ Gold status, is the Silver status worth maintaining by continuing to use the Airpoints MasterCard?... I’m not sure.

Does anyone know of any other NZ Credit cards that offer reasonable rewards other than Airpoints?

The “cash-back” cards all seem to have (rather low) upper cash-back limits.

Markhm

The thing that annoys me is the stupid koru passes. I used to receive them as oaper and now electronially, but have no value to me. Cannot gift them...mutter mutter. Not sure if I can use them to take a 6th person into lounge?

shadytravels

It would be great if while booking flights with this card that they would waive their ridiculous credit card fee!

sbiddle

The issue with this is those fees are what fund your A$ and status points. You can't have both!

While Air NZ's fees are inflated the fees charged by the bank are how they can afford to give you the points.

If you use your ANZ OneSmart card you pay no fee as the interchange fees for Debit cards (vs a Credit Card) are significantly lower.

Xiaotung

I disagree. Before the introduction of credit card fees, what funded FFP points?

As far as merchant fee goes, when a customer uses a debit card but presses the CREDIT key, a merchant will be charged credit card rates (% based). They will only be charged debit card rates (flat per transcation) when cardholders press the CHQ or SAV key.

When you use your debit card online, you are acutually "pressing" the CREDIT key so merchant fee is the same as standard credit card. Gold and Platinum cards attract more merchant fee (closer to AMEX) as what the banks call premium card.

southboundPete

I've received my new AirNZ airpoints card, and received 1st statement, but haven't had the airpoints and status points credited to my airpoints account yet..... neither AirNZ nor Kiwibank can tell me when this will go through. With my old ANZ airpoints card, the day the statement was issued was the same day I received the airpoints.

pbl22

Hi southboundPete, welcome to FT. Interesting that they are unable to let you know when the points go through.

By the way, I applied for my Air NZ card on the day it was announced and am still waiting for it.

sbiddle

I don't understand your question. Credit card fees fund your A$ and status points earned on your CC. It has nothing to do with points earned when flying.

The real problem with the model is that as interchange and bank fees have dropped they've had to recover some of those costs from the yearly card fees. Amex are slightly different though in that they are single entity so their interchange fee structure is very different (and a lot higher)

poopbunny

From memory as a "merchant", the fees discounted by Visa/MC from the actual sale ran somewhere between approx 2% - 4%. There is a matrix based on the number of transactions and value which decided what % Visa/MC took. Based on the popularity of credit cards most merchants should achieve the best rate of about 2% or close to it. Amex and Diners was higher but my problem with them was the extra paperwork rather than the %. I welcomed them equally unlike other merchants.

There was no difference as to whether the card was Silver, Gold or Platinum. If that was the case, some merchants would not accept Gold+, etc, just like they would shun Amex/Diners.

The fee they take from merchants is what I believe, fund any loyalty programme, be it Airpoints, cashback or whatever and also fund a small amount of "use of money interest" (ie, the time merchants are paid, usually next couple of days or so and the time the card holder pays, ie. 44 days or less, probably 22 days on average).

If AirNZ gives you 1 APD for every $65 you spend, that becomes very close to the breakeven point of 1 APD for every $50 (ie. the 2% deducted from merchants) and that is not counting the "UOMI" they have to fund.

The banks hate people who pay their credit card on time and in full. There is not much margin in it for them. The main source of income is partially the card fees and mostly interest charges from those who don't pay on time. If you read the fine print, they can run quite high.

I believe the card fees alone do not fund rewards based on volume/value based spending, if that alone was the case, big spenders would break them. The fees give cardholders access to higher earn rate but also to fund other services like, free travel insurance, membership discounts, concierge, etc.. and maybe something towards lounge passes.

My 2 cents.

Xiaotung

Merchant fees fund the A$ and Status Points. The credit card fees are an excuse airlines use to create extra revenue which should be legalled prohibited as in the US. The airlines should build this cost in the fares but unfortunately the governments in this part of the world don't quite understand that. They can say they are not recovering all the merchant charges from credit card fees but when you buy a $8,000 business class fare you don't expect to be charged a credit card fee. If I go to Harvey Norman to buy that amount of furniture and they want to charge me credit card fee, I will walk out straightaway. What's so different with airlines?

Xiaotung

I am not sure about New Zealand but here in Australia, domestic VISA/MC merchant fees are divided into Standard and Premuim cards. You don't know this unless you are a merchant and they are very clear on the merchant statement. Premium cards rates are a lot higher but to a lay person, there is no way tell which cards belong to Premium cards. So in a way when credit card fees are charged, standard card users are cross subsidising premium card users. There is not a purely fair way for consumers. Foreign cards are one rate as fees are partially covered by the exchange markup.