Review: NAB Velocity Rewards Premium Visa

Introduction

For $150/year, the NAB Velocity Rewards Premium Visa credit card delivers up to one Velocity point per dollar spent and generous travel insurance that also covers flight delays and hotel burglaries on trips within Australia.

What's more, the card is relatively easy to qualify for with no defined minimum income level.

Any points you do earn are automatically transferred to Virgin Australia's Velocity Frequent Flyer program every month, and if you add an additional cardholder to the account (such as your partner or spouse), you could be earning points twice as quickly at no extra cost.

NAB Velocity Rewards Premium card: fast facts

• Grade/tier: Platinum
• Card type: Visa
• Loyalty program: Virgin Australia Velocity Frequent Flyer
• Velocity points earned per dollar spent: 0.66 on the first $3,000 of monthly spend (one point per $1.50), and 0.33 on spends of $3,001-$6,000. No points earned thereafter.
  
  

Fees, charges and interest:

• Annual fee: $150
• Additional cardholder fee: $0
• Interest rate on purchases: 19.99% p.a.
• Interest-free days on purchases: Up to 44
• Interest rate on cash advances: 21.74% p.a.
• Total international transaction fee: 3%
• Minimum income requirement: No defined minimum
• Minimum credit limit: $6,000
  
  

Earning points for free flights:

You could earn enough points for a one-way Sydney-Melbourne economy flight by spending a total of $11,819 across a number of months.

This assumes you spend $3,000 or less in each monthly billing period, on which you'll earn points at the more favourable rate of 0.66 Velocity points per dollar spent – giving you the 7,800 Velocity points needed to book your ticket.

Inclusive international travel insurance:

You may be covered by NAB's free international travel insurance simply by charging at least $500 of your travel expenses to your card before your trip begins.

Whether that's your flights, pre-paid hotels or land tour costs is up to you, with cover extending to journeys of up to six months.

Just note, there's no automatic cover when booking your flights using frequent flyer points – even those accumulated via your NAB credit card – so you'll want to also pre-pay a hotel night or two to ensure you reach that minimum spend requirement.

Thrown in as well is interstate flight inconvenience insurance, transport accident insurance, purchase protection insurance, extended warranty cover and price protection insurance.

Trumping many other banks, NAB also offers domestic hotel burglary insurance of up to $2,500 to cardholders travelling within Australia and charging their full hotel costs to either NAB credit card.

Airport lounge access:

Complimentary access to airport lounges isn't a perk offered on these cards.

Chris C.

Chris is a a former contributor to Executive Traveller.