Apple’s wireless earbuds are in demand at the minute, so we thought we would run through the points-earning options for making a purchase if you are looking to buy some.
It is worth shopping around different retailers for the best price, however, for the purposes of this article, I am working with the $229 recommended retail price (RRP) from the Apple website.
Note that students can access special discounts at Apple depending on the product.
Purchase through an online shopping portal
All four major online shopping portals offer points on purchases from Apple, calculated as:
- 2 Qantas/Velocity Points per AUD spent
- 1.5 KrisFlyer/Asia Miles miles per USD spent
That means that if you buy through the Qantas or Velocity portal, you will earn 458 points for this purchase. According to our points valuations, those points are worth ~$8.
If you are more loyal to KrisFlyer or Asia Miles, factoring in the exchange rate from USD, you’ll earn ~260 miles, worth $4-5.
Also be aware that the online malls periodically run bonus points promotions for specific retailers, so keep an eye on their pages and/or emails. It could be, for example, triple Qantas/Velocity Points on Apple purchases for one day only.
I found AirPods online with The Good Guys and Kogan.com—with whom you can earn both Qantas and Velocity points—for $30 cheaper than directly from Apple, showing it pays to do your research.
Make sure you have cookies turned on so that the frequent flyer program can track your purchase in order to award the points.
Earn cashback
Cashrewards is free to join and offers 1.4% cashback on Apple purchases when clicking through their site, worth $3 in the case of AirPods—obviously if you were buying a smartphone, tablet or computer, this would be worth more.
Stack with a high points-earning credit card
No matter which avenue you take, it is best to use a high points-earning credit card, with highlights for this purchase being the:
- American Express Explorer: 458 American Express Membership Rewards points
- American Express Velocity Platinum: 343 Velocity Points
- Westpac Altitude Black: 286 Qantas/687 Altitude Rewards points
Buy a gift card
You can purchase a gift card for Myer (at Woolworths only) or JB Hi-Fi (at either Coles or Woolworths) and use that gift card towards your AirPods.
If you use a credit card that earns bonus points at supermarkets, then that will apply to your gift card purchase. For example, the American Express Platinum Edge card will earn you 687 American Express Membership Rewards points on this purchase.
Savvy points collectors may ponder that they can pick up bonus Qantas/flybuys points at Woolworths/Coles but that does not apply to gift cards, unfortunately.
Summing up
When you are looking to make a large purchase, especially for electronics, it is worth having a look to see if your preferred frequent flyer program’s online shopping portal will offer you bonus points for clicking through their site. Then using a high points-earning credit card can maximise your points earn.
For example, if you clicked through the Qantas or Velocity online shopping portal and completed your purchase with the American Express Explorer card, you would amass over 900 points in buying AirPods—with little effort.
Other avenues include clicking through Cashrewards or buying a gift card at a supermarket to use at a store that sells the product you are after.
And then how to use those points? Here are some ideas.
Are you planning on buying AirPods (or another Apple product) in the near future? How do you intend to maximise your points earn on this purchase?
Supplementary images courtesy Apple.
I have an Qantas American Express Ultimate card & American Express David Jones card.
Cheers!
An alternative is to wait for Woolworths to offer 30x bonus points on Apple Gift Cards again, where you could potentially earn 120,000 Everyday Rewards points (worth 60,000 Qantas Points) on a purchase of 8x $500 gift cards. You’d still get the credit card points on top. The downside of this is the risk – we don’t know when the promotion will come back, and other readers have reported stores either running out of gift cards or not letting you buy that many in one transaction. But if you pull it off, that’s the most lucrative way by far.
Yes that’s right. Excluded products will be listed in the terms and conditions of the Apple Store page within the portal. It usually excludes new Apple products that have recently been released, with the exclusion period generally lasting anywhere between 2 weeks to 5 months.