Westpac have extended their offer of up to to 75,000 bonus Qantas or Altitude Points and discounted first year annual card fee for new cardholders of the American Express Altitude Platinum Credit Card Bundle until 2 June 2019.

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The Altitude Platinum is the mid-range card in the Altitude range with an ongoing annual card fee of $150 p.a. (plus $50 annual Qantas Rewards fee) with the Westpac Altitude Platinum Mastercard and $49 with the higher-earn-rate American Express Westpac Altitude Platinum companion card.

The bonus points for new cardholders are split into two, with 60,000 points coming from the Altitude Platinum Mastercard and an additional 15,000 points from the American Express Westpac Altitude Platinum.

Both cards require a minimum spend of $3,000 each within the first 90 days of approval. In short, you need to be able to spend $6,000 in total within the first three months to get all the bonus points.

There are also up to 120,000 bonus points with the American Express Westpac Altitude Black Bundle and 100,000 bonus points with the hybrid American Express Westpac Altitude Blended Bundle.

How you could use the bonus points from this card

All redemption figures shown are examples only and exclude accompanying taxes and fees. Points redemption price data is provided by a third-party, so inaccuracies may be present. Please check with the airline directly for a complete and accurate total redemption cost.

How the bundled American Express cards from Westpac work

This is a bit technical but American Express is now issuing cards for Westpac directly, instead of being issued by Westpac (as previously used to be the case). However, for bonus points eligibility, this card is considered to be a bank-issued card, so won’t affect your eligibility for bonus points on American Express-issued cards. You can read more about bank-issued vs American Express-issued cards here.

What does this mean? You essentially have two credit card accounts, one from each provider, which are linked for the purpose of earning points. You can also only apply for the companion Westpac American Express card once you’re an existing Westpac credit card cardholder of an Altitude Platinum or Altitude Black Mastercard, or at the time of making an application for Westpac’s own card.

When it comes to earning points, you’ll earn your points from each card into either your Qantas Frequent Flyer account or your Westpac Altitude Rewards account. We understand that points from either card will be credited to your rewards account separately.

The American Express Westpac Altitude card is 100% issued and serviced by American Express. This means you’ll be able to use their digital portal, including their dedicated website and the American Express app.

For existing American Express cardholders of other cards issued by Amex such as the American Express Explorer or Qantas Ultimate American Express, the Westpac card isn’t considered for bonus points eligibility purposes—we have been informed by Westpac that holding an American Express-issued card would not preclude you from earning the bonus points on a Westpac American Express card.

Finally, because the two cards are issued by two separate credit providers, it is likely that both will check your credit record.

The terms and conditions for earning points from Westpac’s American Express Altitude cards are here, while a number of terms documents for the Westpac Altitude Mastercard and associate rewards program and insurance policies are linked to from Westpac’s page, after clicking through from the link above.

Points earn rates from the American Express Westpac Altitude Platinum Credit Card Bundle

From 9 November 2018, Westpac reduced transfer rates to all important frequent flyer partners. Further information can be found here.

The American Express Westpac Altitude Platinum (not the Mastercard) can be used for payments to the Australian Taxation Office, earning 1 Altitude Rewards point or 0.5 Qantas Points per $ spent, as ATO payments are classified as ‘government spend’ in the terms and conditions on the application page.

While the American Express Altitude Platinum Bundle comes with fewer benefits than the top-end Altitude Black, it also has a more pocket-friendly annual card fee that gives you access to the Altitude Rewards program with uncapped earn rates.

Included insurances and other benefits

The American Express Westpac Altitude Platinum Credit Card Bundle comes with a range of insurances, including overseas travel insurance for trips of up to three months, transit accident insurance and extended warranty. You should check the descriptions for each policy if you plan to rely on them. Read the PDS for the Westpac Altitude Platinum here and for the American Express Westpac Altitude Platinum here.

Altitude Qantas vs Altitude Rewards

The Altitude Card range offers a choice of which points program you want to direct your points into: either Qantas Frequent Flyer or Westpac’s own loyalty program Altitude Rewards.

Note that there is an annual $50 Qantas Rewards fee on the Westpac Altitude Platinum Mastercard if you have selected to earn Qantas Points (rather than Altitude Rewards).

When choosing Altitude Qantas Platinum over Altitude Rewards Platinum, you’ll also need to factor in the different earn rates of each currency and transfer rates to partner programs. Our full guide to Altitude Rewards offers more detail about the program’s benefits.

Read the Point Hacks guide to the Westpac Altitude Rewards program

Read our guide here →

To sum up, points can be transferred into Velocity, Singapore Airlines KrisFlyer, Cathay Pacific Asia Miles and Malaysia Airlines Enrich at a rate of 3 Altitude Rewards points to 1 frequent flyer program point/mile.

The choice between Altitude Qantas or Altitude Rewards is dependent on your personal points-earning preference.

You might find the sign-up bonus from the card to be more valuable to take as Qantas Points but then using the card ongoing, there may be more value for you in taking advantage of Altitude Rewards’ flexibility from having a wide range of transfer options.

Summing up: the American Express Westpac Altitude Platinum Credit Card Bundle

With the launch of the new American Express Westpac Altitude Platinum companion card, the Westpac Altitude Platinum is a viable mid-range annual fee card for the savvy points collector who wants to have options about which points programs they can earn in or transfer points to.

The card has competitive earn rates compared to similar cards in the market, especially if you’re able to put most of your spend on the American Express companion card. As a bonus, the points earn is uncapped too, which is no longer the norm these days.

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Daniel Sciberras

Who wrote this article?

Daniel lives and breathes frequent flyer points, and finds nothing more exciting than researching the best ways to extract maximum value from these points. He travels mostly for leisure and being Gold Coast based, you'll find him hitting the surf and the gym, having a hit of tennis and overall enjoying the great outdoors.

Daniel can also be found on Twitter: @dsciberras