Rewards Credit Card or Debit Card? How Surcharges Affect Your Points

You’re at the checkout. You’ve got a rewards credit card and a debit card in your wallet. You tap the debit card because it’s simpler — no surcharge, no interest, no thinking required.

Fair enough. But depending on the purchase, you might not be getting the best return on that spend.

The trade-off

A rewards credit card earns you points on every transaction. Those points have a real dollar value. A Qantas Point can be worth anywhere between 0.45 and 9.6 cents depending on how you redeem it. A Velocity point is similar. Even bank reward points — CommBank, ANZ, Westpac, NAB — have a value when transferred to an airline program or redeemed for gift cards.

Your debit card earns nothing.

So the real question is whether the value of the points you’d earn on a purchase outweighs any surcharge the merchant adds for credit. Sometimes it does. Sometimes it doesn’t. And the answer changes depending on the card, the merchant, and how you use your points.

When a rewards card beats debit

Plenty of large retailers don’t add a surcharge for Visa and Mastercard credit cards. No surcharge means you pay the same amount as debit and earn points on top — though the overall value still depends on whether your annual card fee is justified by your level of spending.

A $200 weekly grocery shop on a card earning 1 Qantas Point per dollar gives you 200 points a week. That doesn’t feel like much. But over a year it adds up to 10,400 Qantas Points — worth around $175 at the average redemption rate. For doing nothing different except tapping a different card.

Scale that to $30,000 in annual spending — groceries, fuel, insurance, utilities, dining — and you’re earning 30,000 points a year. That’s enough for a domestic return flight, or a solid start toward an international one. All from purchases you were going to make anyway.

When the surcharge complicates things

Smaller shops, cafes, and tradespeople often add a surcharge for credit — typically 0.5% to 1.5% for Visa and Mastercard, sometimes 2% or more for Amex.

This is where it gets interesting. On a $100 purchase with a 1.5% surcharge, you’re paying an extra $1.50 to use your credit card. If your card earns 1 Qantas Point per dollar, those 100 points are worth roughly $1.70 at the average redemption rate. You’re still ahead — but only just.

Flip a couple of variables — a higher surcharge, a lower earn rate — and debit comes out in front. Nobody’s doing that maths in their head while the barista waits.

The Amex question

Amex cards tend to earn more — 1.25 to 2.25 Membership Rewards points per dollar on many cards. But merchants tend to surcharge Amex more heavily too, often 2–3%.

Whether the higher earn rate outweighs the higher surcharge depends on the card, the merchant, and how you plan to use your points. Some purchases it’s worth it. Others, your Visa or Mastercard is the better call.

How PointMate answers this for you

PointMate’s Pay feature does this calculation so you don’t have to. Debit and cash are already included — you just add your rewards credit cards and set the surcharge rate for each network. Enter a purchase amount, and it ranks every option by net benefit after surcharges.

If your Amex comes out ahead despite the surcharge, you’ll see it. If debit wins, you’ll see that too. No mental arithmetic at the register — you already know before you get there.

Over time, those better decisions add up. PointMate’s Savings feature tracks the difference, so you can see exactly what smarter card choices are worth across weeks and months of everyday spending.

Note: From 1 October 2026, the RBA is banning surcharges on Visa, Mastercard, and eftpos transactions. Amex surcharges remain permitted.