ANZ has watered down the rewards scheme for its Qantas-linked credit cards, clipping the wings of customers hoping to score free flights.

ANZ has made a public notice of changes to its Qantas ANZ Visa and Qantas ANZ Visa Platinum cards, effective November 17.

The basic card will only earn one Qantas point on purchases up to NZ$5000 a year, half the current limit of NZ$10,000. After that, one point will be earned per $2 spent.

The platinum card will also earn one point for every dollar up to NZ$20,000, down from NZ$30,000, and one point per $2 over the limit.

ANZ spokesman Pete Barnao said the changes brought the cards in line with other flight rewards credit cards in the market.

“We regularly review the rewards offered by our credit cards in response to the evolving market,” he said.

“Customers will be advised by messages on their statements and public notice.”

Qantas Points can be used to buy the likes of flights, upgrades and travel insurance. They can also be earned and redeemed on selected flights operated by low-cost subsidiary Jetstar.

The points scheme is a hugely profitable part of the struggling airline’s business, with the Loyalty division recording double-digit growth for five years straight.

Qantas has complete control over the price of the points, which it sells to partners such as ANZ to give away in their loyalty programmes.

Chief executive of Qantas Loyalty, Lesley Grant, has previously said New Zealand was the airline’s second largest loyalty programme market.

Both the ANZ Qantas cards scored highly in a report into rewards credit cards issued by financial ratings firm Canstar earlier this year.

Canstar New Zealand general manager Derek Bonnar said the changes would be taken into consideration for next year’s report.

“We will however, record these changes from now on and they will be factored into the credit card ratings that we release in December,” he said.

ANZ is the only New Zealand bank offering a Qantas points rewards scheme. The Canstar report found it would take 10 months of spending at a rate of NZ$24,000 a year to get a free Qantas flight from Auckland to Wellington, longer than Air New Zealand reward scheme’s 8.6 months.

However, the Qantas rewards were superior in other scenarios from Auckland to Sydney and Los Angeles..

The report warned it was important not to get carried away “when you’re wallowing in the possible wealth potential of rewards points”.

All credit cards had pitfalls, and applying for lots of credit cards simply to clock up more and more rewards was “never a good idea”.

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