In the recently received e-mail, Craig Herbison, said, “the choice was plain and simple at BNZ: to put you first.”
But that’s not what he was quoted as saying to the media, not long ago:
BNZ’s retail and marketing director, Craig Herbison, said the decision would benefit the bank and had been months in the planning.
So Craig, make up your mind. Was the decision made for putting the bank or the customers first?
I was under the impression that customer satisfaction was the core concept of marketing. Clearly not so at BNZ. The new cashback rewards are pretty well equivalent in value to the Airdollars, but what was to me the most important component of the Platinum GlobalPlus rewards, the Status Points, has no replacement.
I can’t see the benefit to BNZ of alienating customers. Neither the bank nor its customers have been put first.
Have to agree. The Status points add 50% or more again in value to me. BNZ seem to have miscalculated value and are making some poor assumptions. I think I’m going to go to Westpac.
I think the bottom line is that BNZ is only really thinking of it’s bottom line. It is a fair assumption that BNZ was not prepared to meet the customer benefits that Westpac was prepared to put on the table so AirNZ have moved on. After all, AirNZ knows that the higher the Airpoints in customers’ accounts the more captive business for them!
Yes you have covered the value of the airports with your cash back offer, but to me, the major benefit of the GP Platinum card was earning status points. I do not fly frequently enough to qualify as airpoints gold but with the status points I earn on my platinum card I get across the line! The ‘promotional offers’ of your cashback scheme will have to be ongoing and pretty spectacular to match free Koru membership and two complimentary flight upgrades a year, which qualifying for Airpoints gold gives me. I don’t think I will be the only Platinum cardholder transferring their business to another provider. I am a person who wants to be tied to one airline and one type of reward! If you really wanted to put me first, why didn’t you ask me before making these changes? Given that status points are important to me, I will probably switch to Kiwibank as they have the best status point earn rate.
About a week ago, I completed an on-line form (expression of transfer interest) with westpac and nothing has happened, since. I wonder if they’re happily buried under an avalanche of applications? What’s perverse is moving BACK to westpac, after dropping them years ago, in favour of BNZ global plus. Now, I tread the trail in reverse. I hope it will be as pain free as your experience, but I’m not overly optimistic.
The bait is out! BNZ is now offering three fee-free years. Not much of an incentive for those who were already fee-free, by virtue of their 6-monthly spending figure. (Yawn)
It looks like the fee charged by westpac is not rebated at a certain level of spending. So the $160 for 2 x cards-with-no-rebate doesn’t compare well with $200 for 2 cards with a full rebate of that $200 when the annual spend exceeds $60,000.
The disconnect is alive and well. Today I completed a BNZ Voice survey on credit card rewards schemes! BNZ are only now finding out what the Global PLus link to the Air New Zealand airpoints scheme meant to me! Way too little, way too late! Got my Kiwibank airpoints card within a week of making my first enquiry!
Did you do a comparison between westpac and kiwibank Platinum cards, before deciding? Kiwibank seems to have even less benefits than westpac.
It depends on what is most important to each individual. The higher rate of accrual of status points made the Kiwibank card a no-brainer for me, and I was bowled over by how quick and easy the application was.
$200 vs $225 doesn’t seem like a big enough difference to tip the scales. Once I got started, The westpac application process was easy - a lot easier than I’d expected. Quite a few fields pre-populated from the Airpoints system - I’d guess. And I can’t see where kiwibank offer extended warranty on card-purchased appliances. Sadly, neither seem to offer a fee rebate at a certain spending threshold. Oh, well . . .
Well, I went to initiate the kiwibank application. Must’ve seen me coming. Six pages with unanswerable questions in the first two. I gave up, at that point. No pre-populated fields, so that must be a preferential deal between westpac and AirNZ.
Westpac have risen to the bait. First year is now fee-free and triple airpoints for May, June and July. I waded through the kiwibank application but was sent to stand in the corner while they think about it. Not having the pre-populated fields from the AirNZ airpoints database meant it was so much easier for Westpac than kiwibank. Fun and games!
Some blurb recently received from BNZ about a “Rewards Advantage” that is “coming soon.”
Plus another item that says: “The Choice Advantage” will be available “from June 2015.”
Yet, much earlier, BNZ customers were told that axing the airpoints credit card option , " had been months in the planning."
Planning for a 1 May change over?
What planning?