Points
The supermarket now beats Qantas Marketplace on gift cards
Two quiet rate cuts this year have flipped where the value sits. The advice most people are still repeating is now the worse option by a factor of about ten.
Not financial advice — I'm a points hobbyist writing about my own account, not a licensed adviser. Points costs and program rules change without notice. All figures checked 12 September 2026. Always confirm current pricing with the airline before you book.
If you have read anything about earning points on gift cards in the last few years, it probably told you to buy them through Qantas Marketplace.
That advice is now out of date, and most of the guides repeating it have not been updated.
Qantas cut gift card earn rates twice in 2026 — and the periodic bonus point offers at Coles and Woolworths, which did not change, are now worth roughly ten times more on the same purchase.
What actually changed
Qantas Marketplace gift card rates, 2026
| 30 April — Bunnings, Airbnb, Amazon and others | cut to 1–2 pts per $1 |
| 1 May — Everyday WISH and Woolworths | cut from 3 to 1 pt per $1 |
Neither was announced with any fanfare. I found the second one the way most people will — by looking at my own statement and seeing a $500 gift card earn exactly 500 points, when it used to earn about 1,500.
The maths, on the same $100
Take a $100 gift card for something you were buying anyway.
$100 gift card, two routes
| Qantas Marketplace, at 1 pt per $1 | 100 Qantas Points |
| Supermarket on a 20x bonus week | 2,000 Everyday Rewards pts |
| → which converts to | 1,000 Qantas Points |
Ten times the points, on the same $100, for the same thing.
That is not a marginal difference you can argue about. It is the whole reason to stop doing it the old way.
How the bonus weeks work
Coles and Woolworths both run periodic bonus point promotions on third-party gift cards — the rack of cards near the checkout for other retailers, not their own.
- Watch for the offer. It appears in the supermarket app, usually as a boosted or activatable offer. It is not always on, and it is not always the same brands.
- Activate it first. An unactivated offer earns you the base rate and nothing else. This is where most of the value gets lost.
- Buy in store and scan your loyalty card before you pay.
- Pay with a rewards card so that layer earns too.
- Spend the card on the thing you were already buying.
Which cards to look for
The brands that turn up in these offers are usually the ones people genuinely spend at — electronics, homewares, food delivery, clothing. JB Hi-Fi, Apple, Uber, The Good Guys, IKEA and similar have all appeared.
The useful habit is the reverse of how most people do it. Do not look at the offer and then find something to buy. Keep a mental list of what is coming up — a birthday, a replacement appliance, a school uniform — and wait for that brand to appear.
This only works in one direction. A gift card bought for a purchase you were making anyway is free points. A purchase invented because there was an offer is just spending, and it will cost you far more than the points are worth.
When Marketplace is still the answer
To be fair to it:
- When there is no bonus week running. 1 point per dollar is still better than zero, and the offers are periodic.
- For brands the supermarkets do not stock. The Marketplace range is wider.
- When you want the points in Qantas directly rather than waiting for an Everyday Rewards conversion threshold.
And the Woolworths card specifically still earns its keep inside the grocery triple dip, because there the gift card layer is only one of three.
The rules that keep it sensible
- Only for planned spending. Every time.
- Check the expiry. Gift cards do expire, and an expired card is worse than cash you never spent.
- Do not over-buy. A drawer of part-used cards is a loss, not a strategy.
- Re-check the rates. Two cuts in one year is the lesson here. Whatever is true today has a shelf life.
That last one is really the point of this whole article. The tactic matters less than the habit of checking, because the programs change quietly and the guides do not.
Questions I get asked
Is Qantas Marketplace still good for gift cards?
It is much weaker than it was. Everyday WISH and Woolworths cards dropped from 3 points per dollar to 1 on 1 May 2026, and Bunnings, Airbnb, Amazon and others were cut to 1-2 points on 30 April. It is still better than nothing when no supermarket bonus offer is running.
How much better are supermarket bonus weeks?
On a $100 gift card, a 20x bonus offer earns about 2,000 Everyday Rewards points, which converts to about 1,000 Qantas Points. The same $100 through Qantas Marketplace at 1 point per dollar earns 100. That is roughly ten times the points.
Do I need to activate the bonus offer?
Yes. Bonus point offers generally need activating in the supermarket app before you buy. An unactivated offer earns only the base rate, and this is where most people lose the value.
Are gift card points worth chasing?
Only on spending you had already planned. Buying something you did not need in order to earn points always costs more than the points are worth.
Why did Qantas cut the gift card rates?
Qantas has not made much of the change publicly. What is observable is that two separate cuts landed within days of each other in late April and early May 2026, and that neither was widely announced.
Do you watch for the bonus weeks, or is this the first you've heard of them?