Qantas extends cards deadline

A last minute rush by credit card customers angling to transfer their reward points to Qantas frequent flyer points forced the airline to extend the deadline for the transfer under a controversial plan that alters the basis of many card reward schemes.

The deadline for making the transfer out of generic credit card reward schemes was yesterday. Overnight, though, Qantas wrote to members of its frequent flyer scheme to advise that it will accept point transfers from any card provider for an unspecified "limited time".

The airline blamed "exceptionally high demand" and "some customer service issues" at banks and credit card companies.

First announced in July 2008, the revised approach by Qantas means that credit card customers who want to earn frequent flyer points must from today hold a credit card that directly earns the points (and purchased directly by the lender from Qantas on an ongoing basis) rather than being purchased from Qantas by the lender at the time a card holder opts to redeem their awards.

Card holders appear to have cottoned on to the need to choose to transfer points, or ignore the offer, only very late and only after advertising messages (some from competitors such as Virgin Blue mocking the plan) began to catch the attention of credit card users.