A big factor in people applying for credit cards is to earn large sign-up bonuses, like the 100,000 points currently on offer for the American Express Explorer and Westpac Altitude Black.
In order to earn the bonus points, you usually have to meet a minimum spend requirement, most commonly running between $1,500 and $5,000 in eligible purchases within the first three months of opening the card.
But how do you know if you have met that threshold? And how important is it to get that right?
My (almost) mistake
I applied for the tenth credit card in my wallet back in May and was required to spend $1,500 in the first three months of opening it in order to earn 70,000 bonus sign-up points. After that, I planned to re-direct my spending back to my usual better-earning credit cards.
I planned to use some of the 70,000 points for a redemption in Singapore Airlines’ A350 Business Class
I quickly racked up what I thought was $1,500 in expenses within the first month but the bonus points didn’t post.
I waited until the second month, and they hadn’t posted. Weird.
I forgot about this until two days before the end of the third month and thought, ‘I’ll go back into my bank’s portal and add up my spending.’ As far as I could see, I had spent over $1,500 but I still hadn’t received my sign-up bonus.
So, crucially, I decided to send the bank a message through its secure online portal to confirm things from their side. Low and behold, they said I had received a $30 partial refund on a product I’d bought back in May and so I had only spent $1,470 on the card! I must have missed that in my calculations.
With only 48 hours to make a purchase to push me over the threshold, I quickly bought an Amazon gift card with the credit card and within a week I had the 70,000 bonus points safely in my account. Phew!
Summing up
Correctly calculating your eligible purchases to meet a minimum spend requirement in order to trigger a sign-up bonus is crucial.
If you are close to the threshold, it may be worth your time to give your credit card provider a call or send them a message to confirm the numbers on their end.
It is also worth remembering that card annual fees and often BPAY, ATO and/or utility payments do not count towards meeting a minimum spend requirement, so it is worth checking your individual card’s terms and conditions.
@Matt, do you have a list of recommended Prepaid cards (Visa & Mastercard) and Gift Cards that we can refer to as newbie to supplement the minimum spend to get the sign-up bonus?
Not exactly but this guide may help you!
oh right, that’s new!
i guess gift cards etc are always a back up option to make up the difference 🙂
Hi,
Also Bpay payments don’t count with Westpac or maybe ANZ. I always read “eligible purchase criteria” section when l apply or receive new card. Have seen ATO, Council rates etc but never strata payments, which l make using DEFT, not bpay.
Another point to remember is that period might start on the date your card is approved, and not the date you actually receive or activate the card.
Hi Matt – good article. You mention it’s your tenth credit card, how do you make sure you aren’t stopped from applying for more after the first few? I had 3 FF credit cards and when I applied for more I was instantally rejected (even though income vs expenses are good) I was then told by one bank that my applications had been listed on VEDA and automatic rejection of new credit card applications. Also how is it possible to ‘reset’ this? All cards have been paid off in full and accounts now closed, do you know if there’s a period of time before I can apply for others / or is the VEDA permanent or is there a way to remove?
Thank you
This three-part series on the credit card assessment process may answer some of those questions.
Good reminder. Waiting for my Virgin Flyer card to arrive, the minimum spend is $1500 a month for 3 months to get the bonus 20k each month so I’ve been holding off on big purchases until now.
Also worth noting to make sure you read the small print, some purchases don’t count (for example strata/rent payments, ATO etc)
They will count towards the minium spend criterion usually though you might not earn the normal points on them
They confirmed they will not count towards the minimum spend on the phone yesterday (Virgin)
This happened to me – cost me 50k points – had a 5k min spend over 3 months – racked that up, checked acct balance – 5.2k, awesome, paid if off and waited for my 50 + 50 thousand points – cut a long story short – I only received 1 lot of 50k points as I “didn’t make minimum spend” – seems that when I checked the balance, 300 dollars of that was the “card fee” – which apparently doesnt count toward the minimum spend – so, that little misjudement cost me 50k FF – beware, bank was totally unsympathetic and would not come to the party.
Right, annual fees do not count towards minimum spend.