I always though American Express was a big U.S. company so I don't understand why people here in Australia recommend to get an AMEX.
Can someone guide me through the benefit?
Is it only for big spenders / big travelers?
Thanks for your insights
What Is The Point of Getting an AmEx Card?
borgainerz on 14/08/2023 - 13:33
Last edited 14/08/2023 - 13:42 by 1 other user
Last edited 14/08/2023 - 13:42 by 1 other user
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Classic episode.
Amex is for everyone, not just big spenders. They have better rewards programs compared to Mastercard and Visa. I have three myself
I used to have three but found that I no longer used my green charge card. So I phoned to cancel it and they offered me a bunch of points to keep it for another year. Same thing happened the next year, and third time there were no incentives left so I was able to cancel.
Which country do you think VISA and MasterCard are from?
What is the Point
Same reason for High Yield European car
The primary benefit of an AMEX card is the increased surgcharge they allow you to pay.
It also stacks with any public holiday surcharges.
Amex has always been highly customer-focussed with past members only having charge cards - credit cards and lines of credit came later. Unlike in the US, merchant acceptance is not universal so you'll need a Visa or Mastercard as well. Amex offers decent benefits on the ground and in my experience generously rewards customer loyalty.
Charge cards are not credit cards…. You can't carry a balance. For me that is a useful financial tool, that doesn't impact my debit ceiling.
Same for me and I rack up the points quick.
Just paid for a property deposit with my Amex
How did you that? How did you manage to make a payment that wasnt a bank transfer?
The second 10% via my lawyer was a bank transfer
Relatively generous sign up bonuses and previously good member offers.
used to be so good.
I remember the $1,200 bonus a year or two ago.
I'd say there are multiple reasons people like AMEX:
- Perks: For some cards the perks basically offset the annual fee that you pay, e.g. a free domestic return flight (Velocity Platinum) or $450 flight credits (Qantas Ultimate) as well as lounge passes, and this is on top of earning points. Rewards cards from the Big 4 banks will let you earn points and give you free travel insurance but other than that you don't get much else for the annual fee. Obviously there's not much point in having an AMEX card with a fee if you won't use the "free" flights though.
- AMEX offers: These appear regularly in the app and can give you discount with retailers or restaurants. AMEX also have promos during the year, e.g. Delicious Month Out where they offer discounts for specific restaurants.
- Customer service: AMEX customer service is the best I've dealt with compared to other credit providers like the big 4 banks and Virgin Money. They are well-known for their customer service so it's not just anecdotal.
I don't know why anyone would bother with cards from the Big 4 banks (other than churning them), most of them provide very little value compared to AMEX.
Many merchants don't accept AMEX as mentioned above so having a Visa/Mastercard from the other big 4 is necessary.
True, but it’s a lot better than it was in the mid-2010s.
Doesn’t have to be a big 4 bank, for example I use the Virgin Flyer card which gives you a $129 flight voucher each year that fully offsets the $129 annual fee.
Hoping this deal would come again soon
I'm just a subsidiary to my wife's Amex Plat.
We use it for lounge access, special tickets (Hamilton, Taylor Swift, etc) and travel insurance. We've been stockpiling points too but haven't gotten around to using it yet funnily enough.
HOWEVER, another reason is that the charge nature of the card can really help with sudden emergenies.
In our case, my wife was hospitalised overseas on her own a few year ago. As AMEX has historically good customer service, she could liaise with concierge from her hospital bed to reconfirm her travel insurance details. After a few days, the hospital only let her leave because she could charge all her expenses to the card since charge cards don't have a hard limit.
So yes, Amex platinum was very helpful in an emergency situation.
My partner fractured her foot during our holiday. AMEX Charge Platinum paid my partner's salary for 3 months. That's about $9,000 for 3 months since they capped it at $3,000 per month.
Did they average her monthly income?
No, we just showed my partner's payslip for 1 month on sick leave and evidence of no income after that. They just paid that amount but capped it at $3,000 each month.
I used to have an AMEX because it gave the greatest points per dollar earning on some particular spending that aligned with my expenses at the time, travel. Was a good little points earner, with the $450 travel credit per year offsetting the annual card fee… until I accidentally overpaid my bill by $15,000! (it was a double payment).
Now you know how hard they credit card companies chase you if you are just one day late for a payment… Well they aren't so keen to give you your own money back! 3 months and hours and hours of phone calls later, I was not able to get any money refunded. So closed the account and forced the issue. Have never been back.
Point redemption value: 20000 points can get you $100 statement credit instead of having to get gift cards. Every other credit card requires more points for a $100 gift card and even more for money back.
AMEX used to have really travel benefits on their platinum charge card - like instant high-level benefits to hotel chains and frequent flyer programs that then came with free upgrades and cheap tickets. Also, I don't know what the point value is now, but it was 1.5 points per dollar spend before. And the exchange rate with frequent flyer programs were higher than Visa and Mastercards. Then they started increasing the annual fees and removing certain benefits. It's $1,450/year now and no longer worth it (for me).
Black Bimmer drivers need a second metric to confirm the length of you know what.
Oh, so AmEx cards are a little smaller than others?
They used to have a slogan: We are not as bad as banks.
As traders we used to cop it all when their cards bounced.
To me Amex is just for pretenders, Happy to support most Australian CBA although I am not born here.
Qantas points and… well, that's it really.
plus the occasional promo month such as discounts at certain restaurants
For me was the security. One time an OS purchase not by me was automatically blocked and called to confirm. Second time an OS purchase was done me and called again to confirm. They told the site has been flagged as dodgy and so I didn't proceed.
Never got this level of security with Citibank MasterCard. In fact some hackers has managed to beat MasterCard's Secure code and now I have to pay for it. It was another OS purchase as well
I have Amex.
One very often overlooked benefit of Premium cards is Travel Insurance for supplementary cardholders.
I have one for my mother who is 74, still young enough to travel every year, it is $1000 savings a pop.
I also have the Travel insurance with my CBA credit card, this covers dependent as well (wife and kids).
any other reasons for Amex I am missing?
Amex Statement Credits
Have Amex joined up for a laugh 20 plus years ago & been with ever since.
Customer service has been 2nd to none from get go for me* and during the time have experienced various 'tiers' to now Plat Edge & Gold charge card is plenty & the service has always been impeccable regardless of the card I've been using.
*Especially supportive when I came across tough times from a redundancy - they were the 1 card company that didn't treat me like a piece of sht.Used concierge service many times for shows & restaurant bookings & the amount I have gotten back from monthly promos over the years is mega.
Many electric items across our family homes have been via redemption & when they linked with DJs made it even easier/smootherDefinitely more places accept it now than before which has helped & the travel insurance has always been a good "back of brain" check inclusions without extra $ paid out for trips been on
What benefit does concierge give for restaurant bookings that I can just do myself online in less time than it takes to call them and provide details? I must surely be missing something
Work.
I used to have an Amex but shut it down since I found MC/Visa to be way more convenient. Plus a lot of their perks have been watered heavily down including their points ever since the RBA rules kicked in years ago - along with the other banks. The perks received can be good value for money/offset a lot (if not all) the annual fees, but that's based on a big if - being if you actually use all the benefits to their maximum and sometimes, that may not even be enough to make it value for money.
For exampIe I used to own an Amex Velocity Platinum card which was pretty good, barring that fact that at the time, the only way I could redeem my complimentary flight was by calling Amex and was subject to extremely irritating availability criteria. Plus the fact that I couldnt do round trips i.e. Syd->Hobart, Melb->Syd. It had to be Syd->Melb, Melb->Syd. Plus the fact that I could only do it to select cities from Sydney which meant that most of the time for the travelling I did (majority Syd->Melb), the flight wasnt worth it since it was usually cheaper to find good deals and pay cash circa $250 (which is less than the $375 annual fee) return and get more fleixilibty than redeeming with Amex.
Then I switched to the Amex Explorer which gave a $400 travel credit, but then came with more silly restrictions like must be booked via Amex Travel (meaning I would usually miss out on benefitting from deals that hotels/cars/airlines would offer if booking directly with them which would often be close to $100 worth of savings I missed out on), and must be redeemed all in one go and any unredeemed dollar value would be forfeited etc.
That coupled with the fact that many places I typically frequent domestically dont accept Amex or charge stupid surcharges ~1.8-2% meant that I was paying with my MC/Visa more often that I would like and not benefitting from the points as much as I would like. Dont even get me started on trying to use an Amex overseas - stick with MC/Visa to save you the headache.
In the end, I found that a high points earning MC/Visa was worth way more for my money than Amex was and was easier to manage just one card rather than having to juggle two just cos you need a backup MC/Visa whenever you carry an Amex.
Thanks for this feedback.
One other thing I’d like to add, which is very interesting, is if you move overseas and you have an Australian AMEX it’s far easier to get an AMEX in your new country as AMEX will recognise your good credit history whereas other banks will not.
Unlike MC or Visa, AMEX oftens jumps too quickly with penalty esp when using BPay's slow cash transfer. Yet their charge rate is higher than the MC and Visa's.
I have an amex for cashbacks they offer and the card is fee free.
My main card is a visa though.
Amex offers with cashback.
Great points earning capability.
Extended warranty + other insurances.
Customer service: I like how they answer straight away with “Hello Mr. Cashbackman, how can I assist you today?” I’m under 25 no one else ever shows me that much respect.You can readily get a replacement card overseas if you lose it.
https://www.americanexpress.com/us/security-center/card-assi…
Not true of aussie bank-issued cards.
Mr Bean uses AMEX so that's probably why.