I have been waiting for bonus offer on Amex Platinum Edge since a couple months now but looks like there's been nothing since at least August 2018 looking at: https://www.ozbargain.com.au/search/node/platinum%20edge%20t…
I've never had an AmEx card before and wondering if I should wait or just go ahead and apply without any welcome bonus (points and/or credit) that has been offered before or wait a bit longer?
Oh? Whats a good Amex card to get now?
The Qantas or Velocity AmEx cards offer sign up bonuses of 120000 to 100000 points every so often and are obviously not part of the devalued membership rewards points program.
But you need to have a use for qantas points or velocity points to make it worthwhile (also they each come with a flight credit which you should use to get the most value from the card)
Interesting, but these cards have low points to dollar ratio to begin with, so its all the same, isn't it?
@expatOz: 1 membership reward (MR) point from the platinum edge converts to only 0.5 airline points at all the partner airlines.
So people may think 'wow! I get 3 MR Points per dollar at supermarkets' but in actual fact it converts to 1.5 airline points/$ which is not much better than the 1.25 points/$ you get on the Qantas Ultimate or Velocity equivalent AmEx Card.
In addition the 3 MR points per dollar only applies at supermarkets/petrol stations, almost everywhere else in Australia it is only 1 MR point/$ which is equivalent to 0.5 airline points/$ (which is ridiculously low for a so called 'platinum card') while the 1.25 points/$ for the Qantas and Velocity cards applies everywhere in Australia (apart from gov charges like ATO payments)
In my view the platinum edge is not good value (even if taking into account the piddling 50000 MR point max signup bonus that comes up once in a blue moon). However, others might have a use for it as it does give you more choice in terms of what airlines you can covert points into (though the conversion rate has become so awful lately as mentioned previously).
Also, unless you are spending a sh*t tonne each year on these cards the points per dollar rate hardly matters as the sign-up bonuses are where it is all at
@JacobHarvey: Just realized currently this is available: https://www.ozbargain.com.au/node/497319#comment-8072999 is this any good?
@expatOz: Yes that is a reasonably good offer for Velocity points.
Just keep in mind that once you sign up to one AmEx you cannot get any other sign-up bonuses for other AmEx cards until you cancel the card and wait 18 months (the only exceptions to this are the David Jones Amex and Westpac Amex cards which have separate bonus eligibility)
Don't forget you can usually get an extra 10k than what's listed on the Amex website by having an existing customer refer you.
Yep, well are of that. Get PMs every time I post anything about Amex. :)
Haha. People are always chasing those referral points!
Want a referral? hahahaha
So I checked and under my Amex Edge, I get 30k and you get a lousy 10k <— and that is very lousy. So hence I would tell you do not do it.
So I checked my Amex Ultimate, I get 40k and you get an OK 65k. It is not bad but not good so I wouldn't recommend this to you either.
Wait for a 100K+ deal, they will come!
This is 100K: https://www.ozbargain.com.au/node/497319#comment-8072999 should I wait for 100k+ you mean?
@expatOz: There's plenty of comments on that thread;
For me, 100k velocity is OK because my ultimate goal if I chose that option, would be to get it to Singapore Airlines and the exchange is like 2:1 or something like that. So through the exchange I end up half, so I would not jump on it unless I was in need for around 50K points to complete a SQ award booking.
If it was 100k qantas points, I'd jump on it.
@TheMindsetTraveller: I've realized VFF > QFF. Also availability of flights is better on Virgin. Or does it depend on destination and time of travel and/or other factors?
Just in case you don't know, the card has become much worse value since they halved the effective value of membership rewards points in April 2019