Qantas Frequent Flyer Points: Five-minute call lands Aussie $197 flight to LA

A small business owner has revealed how she scored 50,000 Qantas points with a quick phone call. Katelin Gregg wanted to switch to a different American Express credit card and called up the provider to make the change.

The Sydney skin clinic co-founder explained to Yahoo Finance that she told the representative about the move and they gave her an offer she couldn't refuse. Even though she could have earned more points on the new card for every transaction, AMEX said she could get a lump sum of points if she stayed with her current account.

"I just called them and I was like 'I'm gonna move cards because we're getting the higher value card' and she was just like, 'Oh, for no extra cost, if you keep it until March next year, I'll put 50,000 points on your account this week'," Gregg said.

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She initially thought the offer was "too good to be true" but sure enough the points landed in her account in no time thanks to the five-minute call.

Gregg said it's a massive win for the next time she needs to use points.

"We run our whole business through the credit cards because the points system is so good," she told Yahoo Finance.

Do you have a points hack? Email stew.perrie@yahooinc.com

"So then it just makes means that when we're travelling for business or even for personal, we can pretty much just use points to pay for our trips and hotels and everything like that."

How far can I fly with 50,000 Qantas Frequent Flyer points?

Fifty thousand points can get you a pretty long way from Australia if you're on the ball.

According to Qantas, you can get a Classic Rewards economy flight from Melbourne to Los Angeles for just 41,900 points and $197.48.

Aussies can also fly to places like Shanghai, Hong Kong, Hawaii and New Zealand for less than 50,000 points and a bit of cash.

You can even nearly get yourself halfway around the world to London, with a one-way economy direct flight from Sydney costing 55,200 points plus $241.82

Frequent flyer aficionado PointsHQ explained that trying your hand at getting bonus points from AMEX should be timed when your annual fee is due.

But the hack site said you should be wise with your wording after a change in 2019 that's meant to protect consumers who are in fact trying to close their cards.

"So, for example, if the cardholder says, ‘I wish to close my card,’ then the provider must reasonably assist in doing this, meaning that they cannot proactively offer bonus points to retain the cardholder’s business," the site noted.

"However, if you say, ‘I’m thinking about closing my card, but would like to explore if you have any offers available to me before I decide to close,’ then a bonus retention offer is still okay."

Customers are advised to be firm and prepared to go through with your threat.

"No retention offer at all is quite common, so don’t get too disappointed if your bank doesn’t want to help you out and keep you as a customer," PointsHQ said.

While credit cards can be an amazing way to travel through racking up points, it's worth mentioning that you need to be careful when spending money you don't have.

Finder research released earlier this year found nearly 1.8 million Aussies were struggling to keep up with their credit card repayments

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