AmEx Platinum Used Properly (Converting to VFF or QFF) - How You Can Benefit over $10k+ in The First Year

TwentyTwoCarats on 07/11/2024 - 16:00

As an avid OzB user, I saw that people really use the heck out of credit cards and bonuses, so I gave it a crack and got the Amex Platinum as my first CC. Amex was accepted for about 90-95% of my transactions, but I had to get the Coles No Annual fee as a backup. That card got me something like $150-200 in FlyBuys used at Coles, and at that point I hadn't decided to cash in on the VFF program, in hindsight I would have converted to VFF.

Benefit / Cost Value Comments
Annual Fee -1450 Grrr annual fee so high…
Travel Voucher 450 Used for Amex Fine Hotels + Resorts
Accor Plus Year 1 399 Used Stay Plus free night at Brisbane hotel, got 2x complimentary drinks upon arrival
Accor Plus Year 2 399 Cancelled the card as late as possible, so Accor Plus renewed for the second year in the final week, therefore claimed the Stay Plus free night twice in a one year period.
Dining Local Year 1 200 Used in Melbourne
Dining International Year 1 200 Used in NZ
Dining Local Year 2 200 Dining credits are issued in calendar year periods, so got two in one year period.
Dining International Year 2 0 Didn't get to use the overseas dining the second time
Retail Discounts 190 Not sure if I calculated this accurately, could be more.
Amazon Prime 79 Got a year of Amazon Prime for free, which I would have paid for anyway.
Mr Porter 75 North face shirt, delivered.
232,053 VFF (Converted from Amex Rewards Points) 10047.89 2 Amex = 1 VFF. 1) 225,000 Amex Rewards sign-up bonus, 2) General spending at 2.25 Amex Pts per $1 spent where I spent about $55k in the year, 3) Used 15% Velocity Points bonus, 4) VFF used for 2x Business Class SQ flights to Barcelona in 2025 covering 83% of the VFF needed. Paid $479 per person in taxes., 5) 2x business class flights cost $13,011 AUD; after taxes, points valued at 4.33 cents per VFF.
Lounge Accesses 399 1) Wife and I did 20 visits to Virgin Domestic Lounges, lots of travel this year., 2) Could calculate as 20x $65, but using $399 cost of Virgin Lounge program is more logical.
Amex FHR Food/Drink Voucher $100USD 150 1) Booked an Amex Fine Hotel + Resort, received $100 USD food/drink credit at hotel., 2) Got free breakfast daily, but not counting that.
Travel Insurance 50 Nominal value as the card includes Domestic Travel Insurance, though I wouldn't usually buy travel insurance for domestic travel.
Profit $11,389 AUD This is my first CC-Churrnn ever. Yes it was a very non-standard year as I got married and so did a lot of my mates, hence the domestic travel. But we got to book the Europe trip in J. I've moved onto the next now, but boy I loved the Amex Plat.

So in a year I profited upwards of $11,000 from this card in its first year. Subtract the sign up bonus of 225,000 Amex Points (which I estimate is around $5000 value when converted to 112,500 VFF used at 4.33 c/p on business class), subtract the double dinner and accor credits ($600-800) and that still leaves you with around $5,000 profit and that's being generous. This is all assuming that you convert the points into a frequent flyer program and use it for business reward seats. If you didn't do that, then using it for economy would net you 25% of the value potentially.

Financial American Express Frequent Flyer Qantas Frequent Flyer Reward Points Velocity Frequent Flyer

Related Stores

American Express
American Express

Comments

  • a1k on 07/11/2024 - 16:12
    +12

    tldr: how I benefitted over $10k+ by using frequent flyer points to book business class flights

    • SlickMick on 09/11/2024 - 11:13

      tldr: how I justify spending $1,450pa on a credit card

  • askbargain on 07/11/2024 - 16:14

    You pay full price for your Accor plus??

  • Drakesy on 07/11/2024 - 16:34
    +1

    k

  • b-t on 07/11/2024 - 16:58
    +1

    Hang on, why is VFF valued at $0.0433? Isn't it closer to $0.012?

    • TwentyTwoCarats on 07/11/2024 - 19:58

      Because i used it on business class. If used on economy then it’s closer to what you said

  • freshofftheboat on 07/11/2024 - 17:00
    +9

    Maybe an unpopular opinion but anyway … I often see people saying they redeemed xxx,xxx amount of points for a flight worth $xxxxx, equating some obscene cpm.

    I strongly believe that frequent flyer points are worth what you would otherwise pay for the flights. Were you really going to drop 11.3k on 2x one way flights to BCN in Business? I personally would only be willing to pay 6-7k max return, or 3.5k one-way to Europe in Business per person. I think there's a bit of fallacy here with how people calculate cpm based on 'retail, fully flexible business fares', which are often double-triple the price of a Business Class save/promo fare.

    I'm glad however, you managed to find redemption seats in Business, and that, at the end of the day, is what collecting frequent flyer miles is about - aspirational travel.

    • askbargain on 07/11/2024 - 17:53

      Also fact is they use one way flight prices and not return prices/2

    • lgacb08 on 07/11/2024 - 20:18

      that's true and lounge access popping up for sale at $40 a head everyday on classifieds, and if you're travelling that much in a year you can pretty much get short expiry for nearly half that price almost every week, $65 is wishful thinking.

    • TwentyTwoCarats on 07/11/2024 - 23:01

      You are absolutely right - my analysis today was trying to calculate the literal $AUD value obtained - not factoring in what I would pay in reality in cash. I would never buy 2x business class tickets one way for $13k. Never ever ever.

      Butttt if I can take my wife and I to europe in business for $479 one way, then I’m absolutely taking that. We’ll buy our return tickets later, most likely in Economy and would be $1000 let’s say. So that’s 1.5k return per person where both flights on the way there are business - so that’s really good value. If I manage to rack up another 300k ish VFF in the next 6-9 months then I could take us home in Business too.

    • star-ggg on 07/11/2024 - 23:42
      +1

      These posts also hide the reality that using rewards sets means you need to be super flexible with destination or be willing to book for some random date 1year out. It's not as simple as choosing a place you want to go and converting the ticket price to points (at least not us you want the max conversion rate).

      • TwentyTwoCarats on 08/11/2024 - 09:23

        100% it requires a bit of dedication and research to score these business reward seats. Gotta use different sites to snipe those good deals.

        The point of my post is that this is how you use an Amex Plat correctly, so if you have a high-spend and frequent travelling year coming up, then it’s a perfect combo to make your travels nicer and stack up some points pretty quickly.

  • SnowDragon on 07/11/2024 - 17:03
    +1

    You spent 55k in a year? What are you buying.

    • jleno on 07/11/2024 - 17:07
      +2

      he / she got married. This will be peanuts compared to future years.

      • TwentyTwoCarats on 07/11/2024 - 17:50

        Correct. There’s more trips coming up, more house renos/appliances, etc etc. Will aim to make every dollar work towards VFF. Obviously can’t do that with the mortgage, but everything else is game.

    • Bargainitis on 07/11/2024 - 17:35
      +3

      the average spend on a platinum card is much much higher so $55K isn't out of whack at all - $4.5K a month….

      • TwentyTwoCarats on 07/11/2024 - 17:49

        Exactly. We had more spending on the Coles card too. Imagine if AMEX could be used everywhere? Would be looking at even higher annual spend.

      • SnowDragon on 07/11/2024 - 17:55
        +1

        Ah I forgot we're all on 300k and driving corollas.

  • ihbh on 07/11/2024 - 18:08

    Depends on what your goal in life is - to work forever and spend heaps or (retire early and spend sustainably) -> chicken and egg.

    How do you spend that much without kids? When I was that age range, my big spends were real estate, shares, repeat.

    • TwentyTwoCarats on 07/11/2024 - 23:06

      I absolutely share your sentiments. I think I’m lucky to have a great salary and my wife earns decent money too. We’re lucky enough to have PPOR, offset building up and in the 70s% LVR, own both our cars outright etc.

      So a lot of the big milestones are thankfully done, and after doing all that now I have gone into the CC churning game, ensuring that I do not pay a cent in interest. Salary -> offset, offset -> CC direct debit, bing bang bong.

      Currently doing minor renos to the place, which is helping with churning CCs, and may sell to upgrade in 5 years. Or keep and buy, dunno what the finances will be like. Kids would change eeeeverything. But i realise how lucky we are (and the hard work, but we Aussies so I can’t say that part first lol).

      Edit: how did you know my age haha

  • Salternative on 08/11/2024 - 00:48
    +2

    Correct me if I'm wrong, but most of your profit is from the J class flight via the 232k VFF, I'd say a better profit:cost ratio can be had via churn of the virgin/anz/nab VFF cards , also its unlikely that an average joe will travel at your scale , so I'd still go yeahhh Nahhhh at this amex deal, considering the annual fee and the propensity of Amex to decline churners . Citibank, ANZ , NAB ,westpac hell even CBA top tier cards are much better churns . Plus the hotel stays can be had at better rates from booking.com without the need to compromise on dates , same goes for the flights , lounge access, id go for the priority pass/ qantas lounge access provided by all the cards ( unlimited in Citibanks case) .

    • TwentyTwoCarats on 08/11/2024 - 08:20

      Fully agree with you that other cards such as nab and anz are far easier and better churns - i’m cracking into those other ones now.

      I think this is just an example of using Amex Plat appropriately - meaning that if you have a high spend and frequent travel year, then this card is very nice to have.

      Because I see all these people worried that they couldn’t even break even, so I’m showing that yes absolutely you can profit from it.

  • daft009 on 09/11/2024 - 20:48
    +1

    Great job. Pity you won't hang on to it.
    Has great international travel insurance too. Had mine since 2019. Invited to the Centurion earlier this year

Login or Join to leave a comment
Login Join