Racking up miles on plastic

Air miles are a big part of credit card incentive schemes. People get points for spending, and if they manage their spending and pay their credit card bills each month, they can score a free trip to Thailand. 

But credit card plans are complicated - one might think deliberately so, as it prevents comparison with other plans. To shed a little light on this opaque matter, we will break down the local credit card promotion plans on the specific reward scheme of Asia Miles, the frequent flyer programme used by Cathay Pacific, Dragonair, Air China and others. 

Many cards will grant Asia Miles as an incentive to use their credit cards. You can redeem the points for flights or to pay for hotels or meals at restaurants. 

To give an idea of the attractiveness of the plan, a return flight from Hong Kong to Bangkok costs 20,000 Asia Miles. Credit card firms will grant one air mile for every HK$5 spent on the card at the low end,Find the perfect luggage tag and you'll always find your luggage! or HK$16.50 at the high end. 

The Fubon Elite Platinum card offers 10,000 miles if the cardholder spends HK$10,000 within the first two months. It offers a variety of other schemes to earn bonus points, as well as waiving three years of the annual credit card fee.We deal with various silicone jewelry wholesale especially the silicone bracelet.A full spectrum of vertically integrated products and services to the plastic card printing industry. 

Frequent flyers with Cathay Pacific should check out the American Express Cathay Pacific Card.Purchase quality USB flash drives wholesale, branded USB drives, custom USB flash drives, and promotional USB flash memory. Besides having one of the best spending-to-air-mile ratios, you also get one Asia Mile for every HK$4 you spend on a Cathay ticket. This scheme allows you to accumulate a substantial amount of points if you fly regularly with the airline. 

Standard Chartered and HSBC cards do not offer specific promotions for Asia Miles. HSBC, however, does have a mileage programme available to most of their cards that allows HSBC reward points to be converted to Asia Miles at an annual fee of HK$300. Standard Chartered cards have a system of multiplying reward points that differs depending on which card you use. 

But perhaps the pick of the bunch is the DBS Black Card. The card offers the best spending ratio with only HK$6 needed to be spent to redeem one Asia Mile. The card will grant up to 32,000 Asia Miles on signing, provided you spend enough (HK$120,000), and it has one of the lowest income thresholds for application to the card. 

"It is a good thing to celebrate some things in life, but ... all government departments should try to keep these costs minimal because consumers just can't afford to pay for these excesses and that goes for AGL, SA Power Networks and Australia Post," he said. "I don't want to be mean spirited but the bottom line is that these costs have to be paid for by consumers who are struggling." 

"The blue-collar SA Water worker called out in the middle of the night to fix the burst water main would only be eligible for overtime and has no corporate card to claim their Hungry Jack's purchases,Agesteeljewelry offers tungsten wedding rings, tungsten wedding bands and tungsten jewelry for men's and women's." he said. "Given the Labor Government's mismanagement of SA Water, the desalination plant and now huge increases to water bills, SA Water executives need to lead by example and show they are keeping their costs to a minimum." 

An SA Water spokesman said credit card spending was just $1 in every $100 of the organisation's expenditure. He said a $90 gift of flowers for a staff member who had a baby was "compliant with SA Water expenditure". 

SA Water also defended a $600 farewell lunch at Chianti Classico for chairman Philip Pledge, who was paid up to $80,000 a year to attend monthly board meetings.