You'd be forgiven if you struggled to spot the differences between the ANZ Frequent Flyer Visa Gold and the standard
ANZ Frequent Flyer Visa. Even using ANZ's own comparison table, the distinction is not immediately obvious. You'll notice the Gold has a higher annual fee, but that's about it. So why pay $195 instead of $95?
Good question. There are small differences, but unlike most credit card families where each step-up brings considerably more features, the value of the Gold seems to be almost identically proportional to the increased annual fee.
So really, there is no incentive to select the Gold over the standard card.
As we mentioned above, the annual fee is $100 higher which buys an increased interest free period (55 days instead of 44), commission free travellers cheques (hooray) and different reward point thresholds.
Under the standard Frequent Flyer Visa, you'd earn one point per dollar spent up to $1,500 per month and one point per two dollars spent between $1,500 and $5,000. On the Gold, you can earn one point per dollar spent up to $2,000 per month and one point per two dollars spent up to $10,000. On both cards, bonus points earned from eligible partner retailers are not capped.
So what does all this mean? Let's say you spend $2,000 per month on your credit card. On the ANZ Frequent Flyer Visa, you'd earn 1,750 points. Spend the same amount on your ANZ Frequent Flyer Visa Gold and you'll earn about 2,000 points (excluding any additional points earned from bonus partners) - an increase of 250 points per month.
Obviously if you're spending more than $2,000 per month, the value increases and if you're spending less than $1,500 per month ($375 per week), there will be absolutely no difference in the amount of reward points you'll earn between the two cards.
When we recently
compared twenty-two Australian reward programs, we found a $100 flight requires approximately 11,000 points under the Qantas Frequent Flyer program. Therefore, the additional 250 points is worth around $2.27 per month (about $27.24 per year).
Couple this with the longer interest free period and the $100 annual fee increase hardly seems like a bargain.
Like the standard card, the interest rate is 19.49% on purchases and 20.74% on cash, which is a little high. You can also still get up to three additional cardholders and emergency worldwide card replacement.
One of our major criticisms of the Frequent Flyer Visa was the baffling exclusion of travel insurance on what is clearly a travel credit card. Unfortunately, the problem is not corrected on the Gold.
The verdict: for this interest rate and annual fee, there are better options available. For travellers, there are plenty of cheaper cards which come with better travel features (e.g. travel insurance, transit accident cover, dual cards etc).
