Virgin Money and NAB entice borrowers with home loan rewards points

By Kelly Emmerton · · 3 min read
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Interest rates are on the rise for Aussie home loan hopefuls, but banks are now offering other incentives to snag borrowers’ business, including the chance to earn rewards points on their home loan balance.

Virgin Money has allowed borrowers to earn Velocity points on their home loan balance for some time now, but has recently boosted the offer from 1,000 to 2,000 points per $10,000 drawn at settlement, for applications received before 14 June 2017.

Borrowers can also snag 1,000 Velocity points every month and 30,000 points every 3 years for as long as their mortgage balance remains above $50,000.

RELATED: Westpac cuts 1 year fixed home loan rate to 3.99%

Big bank NAB also recently announced a new rewards points scheme, offering 350,000 NAB Rewards Points to eligible borrowers. The points can be used to redeem freebies including gift cards, retail products and free flights, but borrowers will have to make sure they tick all the boxes to be able to snag them.

The offer is open to owner occupiers, investors and refinancers taking out loan products including the NAB Base Variable Rate Home Loan, NAB Tailored Home Loan and the NAB Choice Package (excluding the NAB FlexiPlus Mortgage.)

But to be eligible, borrowers also need to borrow more than $250,000, have their loan approved by 31 August, and drawn down by 30 November. They must also hold a NAB rewards credit card, and a NAB transaction account.

And that’s not quite all the criteria - the offer is also not available for new home lending or refinancing from UBank, Advantedge or from a different NAB home loan or NAB Broker.

For customers who can jump through the necessary hoops, the 350,000 reward points will be credited to their account within 90 days of the home loan drawdown.

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Other lenders offering rewards points along with their home loan products include Macquarie and Qudos Bank.

Macquarie offers a Flyer option on its home loan products, which allows borrowers to earn 10,000 points for every $100,000 they borrow, plus an extra 1,000 points per month on balances over $150,000 and 25,000 points on the third and fifth anniversary of their mortgage. But all this does come at a cost of an extra 0.05% added to the loan’s interest rate.

Qudos Bank’s Qantas Points Home Loan package comes with 150 Qantas points for every $1,000 of a borrower's yearly loan balance.

You might be wondering which of these offers actually offers the better points earning value. While the decision will come down to each borrower's individual situation, Mozo crunched the numbers using an example loan of $500,000 over a period of 30 years, to see which loan would bag a borrower the most points.

So if your home loan isn’t offering you the kind of value you’re after, there are plenty of better options out there. To find them, start by heading over to our home loan comparison table, where you can find some of the best value deals in the market.