For quite some time now I've been with only one financial institution. We've settled into quite a comfortable relationship. I pay relatively low fees and get relatively basic services. But sometimes you miss the thrill of the chase. The tang of something new.

Who am I kidding, no you don't. And this is why.

To some extent my hand was forced on this because I don't want to be overseas later this year and be reliant on a single financial institution back home. I therefore had already decided to get another credit card with a different financial institution as a safety net. While I was doing that I thought I might as well take a look at my existing credit cards. They were adequate, relatively cheap and completely unexciting in terms of benefits.

Another financial institution had a Frequent Flyer reward program for Qantas in which you accumulate Frequent Flyer points quite rapidly. Indeed, if I spend $2500 in the first three months (I'm posting this shot at the end of February and have already done that), then you get 75,000 bonus Frequent Flyer points which is enough to get me a business class upgrade to Dubai one way. I therefore need to double that to get a return, and quadruple it to get two return upgrades. So it won't help for this upcoming trip but I'm hoping that this won't be the last time that we visit Europe. At the same time I upgraded my existing card to a Frequent Flyer program one as well. {Edit from 2023: HAH! How naive THAT was.}

I lodged my applications and got my cards. And this is what came in the mail.

Do they seriously expect me or anyone else who isn't Rain Man to read all of this? The reason that they do this of course is that our illustrious regulators want to make sure that we have full disclosure of each and every aspect of the card contracts. The problem is that without the contracts being simplified down to, oh, I don't know, maybe five pages of plain English, the contracts become impossible for anyone but a lawyer to read or understand, and even most lawyers would die of boredom before they reach the staples on the inside. So while you have theoretical full disclosure, you don't have practical full disclosure.

I thus tried to skim the most important points, and hoped that I haven't missed anything critical. And that's probably more than most people do because they have only one life and better things to do with it than reading through all of this garbage.

New banking relationships; who needs 'em?

Unfortunately this marks the end of me taking a photograph each day during 2016.

Edit from 2023: Here's the reality. IMHO the Frequent Flyer program is the greatest and most successful con perpetrated since banks decided that THEY should charge YOU fees for them borrowing your money.
- The points themselves are largely worthless. That 75,000 point business class upgrade? Yeah, try GETTING one.
- You don't BOOK the upgrade, you APPLY for it. You only get it if (a) nobody else wants the seats (which pretty much never happens on European flights) and (b) you have a high enough "status".
- Status points, which are separate from FF points, can only be earned by flying. A base member who has not flown that year will have a "Bronze" membership. You need 300 points to even reach Silver level, which is the equivalent of 8 flights to and from Perth in a single year. Only 2 if you fly business class, but that would set you back about 6 grand each flight. And frankly, Silver isn't likely to get you preferred treatment anyway. If Gold or Platinum members want that upgrade? They get it before you do.
- Status credits expire every year. You did 20 flights with Qantas last year? Thank you for your business, your status points are back to zero. Loyalty; with Qantas it flies only one way.
- 7 years later, I have more than 10 times the FF points that I mentioned above. We know that they are valueless for upgrades. So how many business class flights, not upgrades, to Europe will those points buy me? None. In Premium Economy? They'd buy me one seat, on one leg of the flight, in one direction. Thus at the current rate, it should take 56 years in total to get 2 Premium Economy tickets (not Business class) return, assuming that the value of the points isn't (again) devalued. But hey, since 7 years have elapsed already I can do it in 49.
- And if you don't accumulate any Frequent Flyer points in 2 years? Your points go *poof*. I know two people that that happened to.

Yep, I'll say it again... #QantasSucks.