[one9]

The National Bank Ant American Express card and Ant Gold American Express card has had the 1.5 points per $1 offer extended until 31 January 2007.

History:
June04-Jun05 : 2 points per dollar
July05-July06: 1.5 points per dollar
July06 - January07 - 1.5 points per dollar

The annual fee for the Ant Amex card is $99, which is lower than most American Express or Amex branded cards offering 1.5 points per dollar.

The other advantages are:
* Linked into your National Bank Internet/Telephone banking
* You can link your National Savings/Cheque account to the card
* 1 for 1 transfer to Qantas
* Redeem points for anyflight, anytime through Harvey World Travel

[Tiki]

I have a fee-free Ant card with no points earning except Flybuys. I would consider switching to this one if I could transfer the points to AA or IC-PC points, is this possible for Australians? It really irks me that PC especially only has credit cards for Americans and British people! QF points would be useless, I chose AA to be my OW program.

[one9]

Originally Posted by Tiki

I have a fee-free Ant card with no points earning except Flybuys. I would consider switching to this one if I could transfer the points to AA or IC-PC points, is this possible for Australians? It really irks me that PC especially only has credit cards for Americans and British people! QF points would be useless, I chose AA to be my OW program.

Like most Australian cards, Qantas is the only go.

You can get an Amex card directly and then transfer to AA through Starwood.

I think that it is a relatively new thing for Australians to start ditching the Qantas frequent flyer program for different International airline frequent flyer programs. If this continues into the mainstream, then I expect the banks to start investigating options to introduce different programs. And I think now with this happening, it will make any future qantas devaluations less harsh than they otherwise would be.

[Tiki]

There's a thought. How do you mean get an Amex directly, not through a bank? I'm not in Starwood, but they do have hotels in Tahiti which would be my preferred "point burning" region. Or transfer to AA. How many Starwood points per $?

[JohnK]

Originally Posted by Tiki

How do you mean get an Amex directly, not through a bank?

Get an Amex card directly through American Express and pay to join the Ascent membership rewards program.

Originally Posted by Tiki

I'm not in Starwood, but they do have hotels in Tahiti which would be my preferred "point burning" region. Or transfer to AA. How many Starwood points per $?

As far as I know you do not need to stay in Starwood hotel to join their program. You can transfer Australian Amex points to Starwood and then to AA. It has been mentioned on this site a few times.

I may have it wrong but it goes something like this:
1000 Amex points = 330 starwood points
20000 starwood points = 25000 AA points