Finding a good credit card is all about understanding your credit habits. Some people like to purchase goods on their credit cards, earn the reward points, then pay off the entire balance before they incur any interest. This is not the card for them.
Others like to spend now, then worry about it later - the sort of people on a first-name basis with debt collectors. This is also not the card for them.
Then, there are those people in the middle. Those who use their card frequently and pay off some of their balance, but might occassionally have a portion of their balance roll over to the next month.
It is for this majority that the ANZ Balance Visa is perfect. It strikes a good mid-range balance - A low 14.49% interest rate and 55 days interest free means you get a few months to pay off any purchases, but you aren't heavily penalised for any amounts that lapse over the interest free period. This may not seem that special - there are at least a dozen other cards with lower interest rates and equivalent interest free periods. But very few offer a rewards program.
It's rare to find a sub-18% credit card with a rewards program, particularly one with a rewards program like the ANZ Balance Visa. You earn 1 point for every $1 spent (a ratio usually reserved only for gold or platinum cards) and unlike most other reward programs, you can redeem your points as cashback on your balance. You can even set up an 'auto-redemption' feature to cash-out any accumulated reward points at the end of each month.
In addition, your points never expire and, somewhat unusually, there is no limit on the amount of reward points you can earn (even the Platinum Frequent Flyer cards cap how many points you can earn in a month).
The annual fee is fairly moderate ($79) and like most ANZ cards, you're offered the opportunity to design your own card by uploading an image or choosing from a gallery.
ANZ are also currently offering a balance transfer rate of 2.9% for the first 18 months.
The one negative point is the high cash rate (21.74%), although that isn't uncommon with cards now. In our comparison table, a 21.74% cash rate sits somewhere in the middle. The trick will be to use your ANZ Balance Visa on your everyday expenses, but link the card to a normal savings account for when you need cash-out.
All-in-all, the Balance Visa strikes a great balance (no pun intended) between interest rate, interest free days and rewards and is the perfect mid-range card.
