Five reasons to slip an ANZ Black card into your pocket or purse

Week in and week out, Australian Business Traveller casts an expert eye across the best credit cards for business travellers and frequent flyers.

There's been an increasing trend of late towards premium black cards boasting a swag of benefits, and foremost among these are the ANZ Rewards Black and ANZ Qantas Frequent Flyer Black cards.

1. Choose your card

The ANZ Rewards Black and ANZ Qantas Frequent Flyer Black are now just offered as a single Visa card, instead of a combined American Express + Visa package as it was previously. 

What does this change mean for you? ANZ has greatly increased the earn rate of its Visa cards to keep it appealing to consumers, leaving you free to combine this card with a standalone one from American Express, such as the Qantas AMEX Ultimate card. 

2. Choose your points

Some people want to earn Qantas frequent flyer points every time they swipe their credit card; others prefer to send their points to other airlines such as Virgin Australia, Singapore Airlines, Cathay Pacific or Air New Zealand.

That's the main difference between the ANZ Qantas Frequent Flyer Black and ANZ Rewards Black cards.

Currently the ANZ Qantas Frequent Flyer Black earns 1 Qantas Point per dollar spent up to $7,500 in a statement period, dropping to 0.5 Qantas Points after that threshold but remaining uncapped. 

With ANZ Rewards Black (below) you earn the bank's own ANZ Rewards points, which can then be converted into frequent flyer points with Virgin Australia, Singapore Airlines, Cathay Pacific and Air New Zealand.

The earning rate is two ANZ Rewards points per dollar on Rewards Black Visa, up to $5,000 per statement period. If you go over the $5,000 threshold, the earn rate drops to 1 Rewards point per dollar. 

3. Unlimited points

Unlike many other cards, the ANZ Rewards Black and ANZ Qantas Frequent Flyer Black are 'uncapped' – meaning there is no ceiling on how many points you can earn in a given month.

This is a substantial benefit if you have large purchases or high expenses looming. Just swipe the card as often as you want and pick up as many points as you can.

After all, why should a bank determine how many points you can earn?

4. Airport lounge access

The ANZ Black cards also opens the doors at airport lounges.

Both the ANZ Rewards Black and ANZ Qantas Frequent Flyer Black cards offer access to various airport lounges across the globe, as part of the Velocé' independent lounge network.

Even if you're already a Gold- or Platinum-grade frequent flyer, Véloce access comes in handy when travelling with airlines outside of your regular alliance or where your preferred airline has no lounge access at a particular airport.

On top of all that, the ANZ Qantas Frequent Flyer Black card adds two single-use Qantas Club lounge passes each year – these passes (which you can also gift to colleagues, family or friends) are good for domestic Qantas Club lounges and international Qantas business class lounges, including Qantas' overseas lounges at Singapore, Hong Kong and from March 2017, London.

And if you’d like unlimited access to Qantas lounges both at home and abroad whenever flying Qantas and Jetstar, the ANZ Qantas Frequent Flyer Black card saves you up to $497 on the first year of Qantas Club membership with a waived joining fee and discount on the membership price.

That’s less than half of the normal asking price, and when it comes time to renew in 12 months, you’ll again save $98 on the one-year membership fee via the Qantas call centre.

Read more: ANZ Frequent Flyer Black – save on Qantas Club membership

5. Free travel insurance

Both the ANZ Rewards Black and ANZ Qantas Frequent Flyer Black provide no-cost international travel insurance.

This may be automatically activated when you charge at least $250 of travel costs (such as flights and hotels) to your ANZ Rewards Black credit card before starting your journey.

You may also be protected against loss, theft or accidental damage on selected goods for up to 90 days from the date of purchase; may enjoy up to 12 months of free extended warranty cover; and have other protections available including interstate flight inconvenience insurance and a 'best price guarantee'.

Also read our ANZ Frequent Flyer Black credit card review and ANZ Rewards Black credit card review

David Flynn

David Flynn is the Editor-in-Chief of Executive Traveller and a bit of a travel tragic with a weakness for good coffee, shopping and lychee martinis.