When you pay for a Qantas flight with a credit or debit card, you have to cop Qantas’ annoying card payment fee, which is up to $11 for a domestic flight or $70 for an international flight, per passenger.
While these fees aren’t huge, they do add up – especially if you travel often or in a group – and although Qantas does provide fee-free payment options, many customers want to use a card because of the convenience, to earn reward points or (depending on the card T&Cs) to trigger travel insurance.
What most people don’t know is that there is a relatively easy way to avoid Qantas’ card payment fee. It involves first purchasing a Qantas gift voucher and then using it as part payment for your booking.
When you do this, Qantas waives the card payment fee for both the initial voucher purchase and for any further payment needed to cover the cost of the fare.
For example, you can buy a $50 gift voucher and redeem it for a fare that costs thousands of dollars, paying for both the voucher and the remaining amount with a credit or debit card. No card payment fees will be charged, saving you up to $70.
You can buy a voucher for yourself, for someone else or for a group of people. When you buy it, it’s delivered to your email inbox almost straight away, ready for use.
The minimum voucher amount is $50 per passenger. There’s no need to purchase any more than this, as the voucher only needs to cover a portion of the final fare for this trick to work.
There are some restrictions on how a voucher can be used, so make sure you read the terms and conditions on Qantas’ website, here.
Importantly, you have to nominate the number of people who will fly using the voucher, and this number cannot be changed later (but the names of the persons can be).
Up until late 2016, Qantas occasionally ran promotions where you could earn up to $10 points per dollar on gift voucher purchases. That was an easy way to earn more points on flight bookings, but we haven’t seen such a promotion for a while, so it might not be back. Still, it’s worth keeping an eye out for it.
To buy, redeem or read more about Qantas gift vouchers, click here.
To get tips like this delivered straight to your inbox, subscribe to our newsletter:
