ANZ Travel Adventures Card

Summary/TL;DR

If you fly domestically at least once per year, and are able to book your flight 60 days in advance, then the ANZ Travel Adventures Card ($225 annual fee) would certainly suit your needs. This card also gives you the ability to earn Rewards Points, waives international transaction fees, provides Travel Insurance, Car Rental Excess Insurance in Australia and lounge access.

There is currently a bonus points promotion where you can earn 40k Velocity Points ($200 Coles Gift Cards) if you are able to spend $500+ in the first 3 months of approval.

Read on for a more comprehensive breakdown of the card..

ANZ Travel Adventures Card

The ANZ Travel Adventures Card is a card that was mentioned in the Best Travel Cards post I made.

The value one can extract from this card is very situationally specific. This card can either be really good value, or subpar depending on:

• How reasonably^ you will be able to use the included free domestic flight
• How much you tend to spend on non-Australian dollar transactions

Provided you can realistically^ use the flight, the value you can extract from this card is actually very good. You can effectively see the free flight as more than paying for the card, and in addition you get lounge access and the ability to earn points without having to pay a surcharge on overseas transactions.

It is also a pretty good time to be applying for this card, as there is currently a bonus points offer of 40,000 Velocity Points ($200 in Coles Gift Cards) if you apply and spend $500+ within 3 months of approval. There does not appear to be a specified end date.

Advantages:

• At the time of writing, the only Credit Card remaining in the Australian market that still includes a free flight for East Coast cities to Perth and return (BNE/MEL/SYD to Perth return)
  • Flights are Return, on Virgin Australia and include 23kg check-in baggage and food/drink/snacks as usually offered by Virgin Australia
• No foreign exchange fee
• No international/overseas transaction fee
• Ability to earn ANZ Rewards points on all expenditure at a rate of 1.5 ANZ Rewards Points/$ for the first $2000 of a statement period (from 5 August 2017 – uncapped points earn prior)
  • The rate above $2000 is 0.5 ANZ Rewards Points/$
  • 1.5 ANZ Reward Points is equivalent to 0.75 Velocity Points, 0.5 Asia Miles, 0.5 KrisFlyer Miles
  • Rate of Return: At a rate of 1.5 ANZ Reward Points/$, each dollar you spend yields you the equivalent of 0.67% return in the form of ANZ Rewards Points
    • This calculation is based on the 4445 Points it costs to purchase a $20 Westfield Gift Card
• 2x Virgin Australia lounge passes issued upon spending $500 within the first 3 months of each year you hold the card
  • These lounge passes can be sold in theory as they have no name on it, but there is a serial number attached to it [Source] – this means it could be possible for the lounge passes to be traced back to you in the case that the person using them is not you
• The only Credit Card in the Australian market that both waives International Transaction Fees and earns you Rewards Points
• The only Credit Card in the Australian market that is a Visa card which waives International Transaction Fees
  • This is usually not a significant problem because most merchants that accept Visa also accept Mastercard (and vice versa). However, in my recent experience, PriorityPass charge in USD and only accept Visa (no Mastercard). It is the only time I have experienced this.
  • The Citibank Plus issues a Visa card – but this is a Debit Transaction account! i.e. you need to have the money in your account
• Travel Insurance including “Rental Excess Cover” within Australia – aka “Car Rental Hire”

Disadvantages:

• $225 annual fee, although this could be considered to pay for the free domestic flight
• Flight availability is supposedly worse than the Virgin Australia flights offered by the AMEX cards [Source]
• Flight can only be booked in the name of the cardholder – this is unlike the free flights offered by American Express Credit Cards which can be booked in anyone’s name
• Flight must be booked 2 months+ in advance
  • I am not familiar with the change fees, but I would imagine you would not be able to change the departure date to a date within 2 months.

Provided you are able to use the Domestic Flight, this would probably make this the best Travel Card in the market. If you the free flight doesn’t really suit your needs/lifestyle, have a read of the Best Cards for Travelling article to see what your other options are.

^When I say “realistically” or “reasonably”, I mean for a trip that you would actually be booking anyway – i.e. you are not simply booking it because you have a free flight. Having said that, even if you are simply booking it because you have a free flight, it might just be a good way for you to get a bit of a holiday out of your Credit Card that you otherwise wouldn’t take!

Do any of you hold the card and have any additional tips to provide? If so, please feel free to leave comments and do not forget to subscribe if you enjoy my content!