[clairewright]

hi! we are looking at changing our "strategy" for budgeting. currently its all about a weekly cash withdrawal. but we are planning to switch to putting majority of funds into our offset account.

then using cc for purchases. pay it off in full at end of month.[im assuming for this strategy we pay cc the day after our mortgage payment has been taken]

just wondering if anyone can recommend a cc [prefer one where we can get frequent flyers too if possible] we are planning a holiday in mid 2014, so ff points could be handy.

we are pretty strict with our budgeting, so would like to try this method and see if it works for us. anyone do this? successful?? any tips etc??

[jks91]

We have two QFF earning cards - I have a Qantas Discovery Amex in my name and DP has the Woolworths Everyday Rewards Credit Card in his.

The Amex is annual fee free and earns 1 point per dollar spent. Only downside is the limited acceptance and surcharging (not that we are willing to use it when there is surcharges), but it is good for groceries, fuel etc. Customer service from Amex is excellent, cannot fault them AT ALL. They send you weekly text message updates of your balance and if the bill is due within the week. 44 days interest free I believe.

The Woolworths QFF card has an $89 annual fee however we got this waived for 12 months, like the Amex earns 1 point per dollar but acceptance is far greater as it is a mastercard. However we won't be keeping it unless we can get the annual fee waived again, the customer service is not so great. I had to get my card replaced due to chip damage and was without a card for 6 weeks when it should have taken 10 working days. This card has 55 days interest free.

If you know you are strict with budgeting then it is a great tool. Just don't forget to pay it all off in full each month!

[SeaPrincess]

Have you spoken to your own bank? ANZ do a credit card account that has both an Amex and Visa card. The Amex earns points at a slightly higher rate, but if somewhere doesn't take Amex, we just use the Visa. We pay an additional cardholder fee, but I think the normal annual fee is waived when you spend over a certain amount on the card in a year. We pay our mortgage fortnightly, and I pay the credit card off on the same day each month, right around the time that the statement comes out.

[Jellyblush]

I have this one too. It's great, I've never racked up the points so fast. Mine are free with the mortgage package I have through ANZ, but I understand they are competitive as far as rewards cards go anyway. Usually there's a big points bonus for joining too (mine was 32,000 points). I use Amex wherever they take it, which is all the places I spend a lot anyway, Coles, Woolies, KMart, Myer, Petrol stations. Smaller shops often don't, but then I use the visa.

both cards are linked to one account, so you just have one credit card, but the choice of which actualy card to use.
You can set up a direct debit to pay it on the due date each month


Who is your mortgage with?

Have you spoken to your own bank? ANZ do a credit card account that has both an Amex and Visa card. The Amex earns points at a slightly higher rate, but if somewhere doesn't take Amex, we just use the Visa. We pay an additional cardholder fee, but I think the normal annual fee is waived when you spend over a certain amount on the card in a year. We pay our mortgage fortnightly, and I pay the credit card off on the same day each month, right around the time that the statement comes out.

[clairewright]

Thanks for replies. Anz sounds good. Our mortgage is with bankwest, so I will look into what they offer.

We do banking with suncorp too and ubank. Not sure if they offer any decent cc options.

We would be using cc mainly for bills, food shopping, crèche fees and petrol. We could get away with just the one card.


Our mortgage is deducted monthly from bankwest, we just pay into bankwest weekly amount so the offset is building up. So plan is to contribute more on a weekly basis into bankwest.put the weekly costs on cc. Pay off cc at due date with funds built up in bankwest acc.