I’ve been using a crappy ANZ Frequent Flyer Platinum Visa card for a few years now that isn’t too spectacular points wise (0.75 points per dollar and a $3,000/m cap, then it drops to 0.5 points per
dollar).
To remedy that, I just received an American Express Platinum to use as my main card. I didn’t get the Qantas Business Amex even though it has a higher points earn and a higher sign up bonus because I wanted the flexibility to earn Amex points, not just Qantas points, as the Amex points can be transferred to Hilton & Marriot’s rewards program.
It’s been a while since I had an Amex (pre-Apple Pay!) and after about a week of use I’m surprised how easy it is to use everywhere. I’ve switched all my recurring billing stuff to it and when out, almost all the big stores take it with no extra fee.
Unlike other credit cards, the Amex is a “charge card”, there’s no pre-determined limit. It also means they don’t do a full credit check. I signed up for it and they didn’t ask for any payslips - handy as sole trader that doesn’t get a payslip!
The Amex Platinum earns me 2.25 points for every dollar spent and can be converted to Qantas and Marriot (2 Amex points = 1 Qantas point & 3 Amex points = 2 Marriot points) whenever I want to use em, or just directly via Amex’s travel bookings site, which appears to work out to 0.5 rewards points per dollar. So if I wanna book a $1,000 hotel, I’d need 200,000 Amex points.
The annual fee is steep at $1,450, but damn it’s got some good benefits:
- Wall Street Journal & The Australian digital subscription (I actually read the WSJ, excellent tech news)
- 15% off at Hertz & free car class upgrade
- Free night at an Accor hotel
- $450 Amex Travel credit (i.e: use on hotels, flights, cars etc.)
- $400 “dining” credit at a “a curated collection of restaurants” - $200 to use in AU, $200 to use overseas
- Smartphone screen damage insurance
- Roadside assistance & home emergency assistance
- 90-day refund cover (Card Refund Cover)
- 90-day accident/theft cover (Card Purchase Cover)
- 12-month extended warranty (aka Buyer’s Advantage)
- quite good travel insurance (unlike most credit cards which only come with basic travel insurance)
- lounge access at a bunch of airports (usually not airline lounges, but better than nothing)
- Free Amazon Prime
Take into consideration the $450 travel credit, the free Accor hotel night (~$200 at least) and the $200 dining credit, that’s $850 I would 100% use, bringing the annual fee down to an effective $600.
There’s also random offers they pop up. The ones available at the moment aren’t amazing but some good ones do pop up and Ozbargain usually highlights them. Sometimes they’re targetted, sometimes not.
My wife also signed up for a card, which I referred her for, so I get 45,000 Amex points and she’ll get 200,000 Amex points. So in under a month we would have earned 445,000 Amex points for “only” ~$1200 (as she’ll get the same travel offers that we can both use!) - just 0.54c per dollar when converted to Qantas points.
BTW if you read all this and you reckon it sounds pretty sweet, use my referral link and I get 45,000 Amex points 