American Express Basic Charge Card

thegoodman

Ben8282 wrote: »

30 years ago an American Express charge card WAS essential for regular travellers. These days, as VISA/MC acceptance has grown around the world, it is not.

There are problems with getting the Amex card accepted. Problems experienced by myself have included:

Airline that I travel frequently with (NOT the RyanAir/Easyjet crowd) stopped accepting the Amex card due to high charges by Amex. Tried to make booking through Amex travel service but was told they cannot accept card as airline does not accept it. Amex travel service then refused to accept card in their own right as they will have to pay the fees themselves.

Amex travel service are of dubious competence anyway. They once arranged travel ticket to one city with late evening arrival time and hotel accomodation for the same night at a city hundreds of miles away in a different country. When brought to their attention, staff couldn't see what the problem was and tried to charge me to correct their error. Amex travel service will charge you to issue a ticket even if it is a full fare business class ticket on which they are already receiving very substantial commission from the airline. Pure greed.

Restaurants when presented with the card saying 'Don't you have a Visa or Mastercard'.

Having to argue with a car rental company used regularly to force them to accept the card; they wanted Visa or MC due to high charges by Amex.

Stupid comments from restaurant staff about 'Millionaires' card and having card shown round the entire staff of a Dixons branch 'Have you seen one of these before'.

Got fed up with having to have arguments to get a card that I was paying a very high annual fee for accepted. Told Amex what was going on and eventually cancellled card after over 15 years of Amex membership.

The comments made by another poster about good perks/insurances are correct IF YOU GET THEM! I had to wait over a year to get the Priority Pass card and a promised Hilton Hotels (?) gold card of some sort never ever arrived.

I agree with you 100%. Amex cards are not for first timer or who do not spend high amount, over £40,000 and travel a lot.
Amex fan boys try to make it sound like the reward points are batter than all other cards. The Amex card with trave perks have a charge of £300 a year. If you need the perks you can buy them separate and work out much cheaper.

I am sure some people mainly on high income over £60,000 rather pay £300 than try to look for perks separate. Nothing wrong with this. Unlikely to use this forum anyway.

It's the Amex fan boys who go on about Amex and try others to fall for the Amex card when not required. Most Amex fan boys are the type who will try to show off the card to others. I have an Amex card because I am worth it. While showing off end up paying 00's in fee.

pleasedelete

I love my Amex platinum charge card.

1 point per £1. We use for starwwod hotels or ba flights. Get 5 free 5 star hotel nights a year just by using it.

Get gold Hilton, spg, radisson hotel cards, hertz etc
Priority pass. Fabulous annual travel insurance for up to 4 card holders and families. Our parent are additional card holders as pensioner annual travel insurance is really pricey. So we get insurance for 6 people from 1 account.

Almost everywhere takes it unlike 10 years ago. Only Jack Wills that I can think of doesn't.

We put 95 per cent of our spending on it- all insurances,e bay selling fees, food- everything.

We once couldn't get a flight to new York. Tbey got us them for £300 when everyone else was saying £800 (tickets that came said £800).

Book hotels and you get an upgrade and a gift. Spent Christmas in fabulous suite at ritz Carlton having booked a room. Brilliant free massages at four seasons et etc

Any error and they leap into action.

We don't use credit cards at all.

thegoodman

pleasedelete wrote: »

I love my Amex platinum charge card.

1 point per £1. We use for starwwod hotels or ba flights. Get 5 free 5 star hotel nights a year just by using it.

Get gold Hilton, spg, radisson hotel cards, hertz etc
Priority pass. Fabulous annual travel insurance for up to 4 card holders and families. Our parent are additional card holders as pensioner annual travel insurance is really pricey. So we get insurance for 6 people from 1 account.

Almost everywhere takes it unlike 10 years ago. Only Jack Wills that I can think of doesn't.

We put 95 per cent of our spending on it- all insurances,e bay selling fees, food- everything.

We once couldn't get a flight to new York. Tbey got us them for £300 when everyone else was saying £800 (tickets that came said £800).

Book hotels and you get an upgrade and a gift. Spent Christmas in fabulous suite at ritz Carlton having booked a room. Brilliant free massages at four seasons et etc

Any error and they leap into action.

We don't use credit cards at all.

Most users are not high spender like you or willing to pay £300 a year for the card. The post like this create the Amex fan boys thinking I can get all this. You will need to either run a business or spen a lot to get free tickets etc. How much do you spen on the card a year?
How much cash back would you get at 1.25%?

chattychappy

Very good post, and matches my experience entirely. (I had no problems getting PP though.) As I say, I stopped using is as a purchase card. I just regarded the £250 fee (or whatever) as worth it for the bundle of benefits I got at the time.

When I started with Amex you got a month to pay. If you were late - no problem. No charges, no interest. This was pretty handy if you had to extend a trip and needed time to shuffle cash around. Eventually they'd call you up or send you a letter and perhaps stop the card. Those days are gone, of course.

The travel service was useless. I gave them a whirl a couple of times, but lots of hassles. My supplementary cardholder tried to get a flight ticket for herself through the travel service and they insisted that I authorised the transaction which was difficult as I was in a different time zone. So she just went over the road to a normal travel agent and got it there. I needed some flight tickets that didn't start in the UK and they couldn't do it - but again a normal agent could. Their prices/deals were nothing special either. The "membership rewards" thing started off OK. I put a load of miles onto SAS (the airline), but then they dropped that relationship. Then I put them onto Air France, enough to get a Business Class return UK to Asia, but then they changed the conversion rate.

So I think for business travellers (like me) it was pretty good before the internet age. Got stuck somewhere without a hotel, perhaps they'd sort you out. (Perhaps not.) But now, you can get excellent economy flight deals online. For business class travellers, specialist travel agencies offer a personal service so much better than Amex (and know how to allocate specific seats, how to read fare rules etc). And for insurance, you can tailor make something online.

rodmace

thegoodman wrote: »

Amex fan boys try to make it sound like the reward points are batter than all other cards.

TBH, I dont see any so-called AMEX fan-boys here, but I do see an AMEX-hater keep bashing it. :T

rodmace

thegoodman wrote: »

Amex fan boys try to make it sound like the reward points are batter than all other cards. The Amex card with trave perks have a charge of £300 a year. If you need the perks you can buy them separate and work out much cheaper.

Before making a comment like this, you should at least do a bit research... The two PP prestige cards alone worth £500+/year.

chattychappy

rodmace wrote: »

. The two PP prestige cards alone worth £500+/year.

To most people, they are not. The £259 headline price from PP is puff really.

Very few people buy PP from PP directly. Those that do are generally regular economy class flyers. They hang around airports alot and see the "priority pass" logo at lounge entrances. So they pick up a form and send it off/sign up online.

Everytime people turn up at a PP lounge, the lounge company charges a fee to PP. This is typically US$15 to US$30.

So, the price that PP charges if you get a card from them directly is very high. This is because those customers will be the ones who have a very heavy usage. And of course, it also helps the claim "worth £XXX" or whatever when bundled - which is their main business.

People who get it bundled with a card are (on average) much lighter users. It makes a credit card very attractive "Airport VIP lounge access" - sounds very posh. The cost to PP of providing the card to these users is much lower (plus there is a benefit to the CC in promoting a VIP image).

Priority Pass lounges are usually the "cheapest" VIP lounges and many can be booked online before you travel - perhaps for £15-£20. So you can add up how many times you will be airside with time on your hands in a year and multiply this by £20 - and then decide if PP is worth £500 or so for a pair of them. Also, consider 1) is there is a PP lounge in the terminal you're using and 2) is it near the gate or miles away? By the end of my PP membership I found I would only be using it on 25% of trips because either 1) no lounge/inconvenient (no PP lounge at LHR T4 on my last attempt), 2) I was in business class so the airline lounge was better+nearer to the gate or 3) I had an airline FF card so again could use their lounge.

As I say, the vast majority of PP holders got their card bundled and most use them just a couple of times if at all.

I know this stuff from a neighbour who works for them, but it's pretty obvious really.

pleasedelete

thegoodman wrote: »

Most users are not high spender like you or willing to pay £300 a year for the card. The post like this create the Amex fan boys thinking I can get all this. You will need to either run a business or spen a lot to get free tickets etc. How much do you spen on the card a year?
How much cash back would you get at 1.25%?

But Amex charge cards are aimed at people who spend a lot and can pay it back.

They did offer us a black? One a few years ago. At £600 it wasn't worth it- I think they are 2k a year now.

The trAvel insurance is great. We paid more than the card cost for annual travel insurance as I have had unusual surgery which makes insurers scared (not been Ill for 24 years or had a day off with it).

We then added my parents as we gave them additional cards. Annual travel insurance for 4 adults (2 hard to insure) and 2 children. It would be more than the £300 cost.

We do charge everything except gas and electricity and life insurance, council tax, water and mortgage. Everything else goes through Amex.

thegoodman

rodmace wrote: »

Before making a comment like this, you should at least do a bit research... The two PP prestige cards alone worth £500+/year.

Without the pp card you will pay £ 15 per person or £30 for two.
If you travel four time a year and also use the card you will pay £120 per year. Eight times will be £240.

Most people don't travel more than four times a year unless it's for business.

How have you worked out £500?

pleasedelete

thegoodman wrote: »

Most users are not high spender like you or willing to pay £300 a year for the card. The post like this create the Amex fan boys thinking I can get all this. You will need to either run a business or spen a lot to get free tickets etc. How much do you spen on the card a year?
How much cash back would you get at 1.25%?

Depends. We put everything on. I cleared the points in December and have about 55k now so spent about 55k in 10 months. Some is business not all personal.

That will give me 5 nights in a great hotel through one of partner hotels which would be about £1k to £1500 to buy. We save them up usually for Asia or USA trips. So a better return than cash back I think.