Fifty dollars isn't much anymore. A trip to the movies usually costs more than that. Hell, a bottle of Pump and a choc top from the Candy Bar is about a thousand dollars.
So what does $50 buy you in the range of Westpac Altitude cards? That's how much more you'll pay for the Westpac Altitude Gold ($150 annual fee) instead of the standard
Westpac Altitude ($100 annual fee) and surprisingly, it buys quite a lot of value.
The big bonus is international travel insurance. If you've travelled overseas before, you'll know insurance can cost upward of $500 per person. The included cover on the Altitude Gold extends to you and your immediate family for trips up to three months and provides up to $2.5 million in personal liability cover, $5,000 on rental vehicle loss and damage and up to $15,000 per person for loss or damage to personal property.
Then there's the transit accident cover, which will protect you for death or injury while travelling on a plane, bus, train or ferry while overseas (when you've purchased your tickets using the card before you leave).
You also get purchase security protection, which insures your newly-purchased items against loss, theft or accidental damage for up to three months, plus extended warranty protection which provides a one year warranty over-and-above the manufacturer's warranty on goods you've purchased.
Pretty good for $50.
Like the Altitude, the rewards program is great. Points earned contribute to your Velocity account, which we voted Best Flights Program when we recently
compared twenty two Australian reward programs. The Gold comes with two cards - an American Express and your choice of a Visa or MasterCard. You'll earn two reward points per dollar spent on the Amex and one point per dollar spent on the Visa or MasterCard.
These earn rates are identical to the standard Altitude, which is a little disappointing. You'd expect a Gold or Platinum card in any range to have a better earn rate than the standard card, but we can hardly complain - the included insurance is generous and you do receive 10,000 bonus Velocity points upon your first card spend.
The purchase rate is 17.74% and the cash rate is 19.99%, both of which are identical to the rates on the standard Altitude and in-line with other cards offering the same kind of features. The interest free period is 45 days, which is a little short.
You can still get the balance transfer rate of 3.99% for six months, but as with the Altitude, it's a nice bonus at best. If you're specifically after a balance transfer offer, there are far better deals available.
One other thing: hidden away at the bottom of the promotional materials is a mention of a priority service phone line. It's light on details, but it sounds like a call centre line which you can call and skip the normal queue. If that's the case, Westpac should promote it more heavily: a feature which allows you to skip through all that 'in a few simple words, tell me what you're query is about...' crap is a great selling point.
Bottom line: I have a new favourite travel credit card. Duplicate cards (an Amex and the only card we've seen that gives you a choice of Visa or MasterCard), travel insurance, transit accident cover and a fantastic flights-based rewards program.
Obviously, if you're not a traveller, this isn't the card for you. There's no escaping the fact that while the card does deliver an exceptional range of features, $150 is still a lot of money and those features don't mean squat if you're not using them.
