Round the World Rewards Card

T4rQu1N

Hi All,

I've been doing some research and I think I have picked the best card for my circumstances.

Basically, come March, I will be travelling the world for 12 months with my GF, doing the good old RTW airline ticket which will cost in total roughly £3000. This is great as it hits many a card's "spend X amount, get X amount of points".

I was looking through the ones advised by this site and thought the BA premium card looked good. However, when I added in all the extra costs of backpackers insurance (£250 lowest price I could find), the costs started to escalate quite quickly.

I then discovered the AMEX Platinum (can't post links as a new user, just google it).

This does have a whopping £450 annual fee, but the benefits seem to be pretty comprehensive enough for us to warrant the cost. Worldwide (including winter sports which is a must for NZ) travel insurance valid for 365 consecutive days (so covers gap year type things) for both my and my partner, plus unlimited access to 700 VIP lounges at airports (which admittedly is a luxury but one we were going to fork out £65 each or so on a special card which gives access). There's also 30,000 membership points which I can transfer to other points reward schemes such as AVIOS, to redeem flight upgrades etc.

So the question is... I meet all the eligibility criteria, but I can't find things like foreign currency rates etc. Is this a good card to purchase my flights on, and spend up until I go; at which point I start using a dedicated travel card which has 0% on cash withdrawls etc. Or should I forget the whole thing and just buy it all separately?

Kind regards,

T4

grumbler

T4rQu1N wrote: »

... but I can't find things like foreign currency rates etc.

Read Summary Box
I expect the actual rate to be very close to the interbank one, but, unlike Visa and Mastercard, they seem to not be very keen on advertising it:

FOREIGN TRANSACTION CALCULATOR
If you are an existing Cardmember, for further information on fees and exchange rates, please log into your online account to access the Foreign Transaction Calculator.

Is this a good card to purchase my flights on, and spend up until I go;

If you pay in ££ it's no different from any other CC, including extra charges that most travel companies charge for CC payments.

Or should I forget the whole thing and just buy it all separately?

Do your maths.

PeacefulWaters

grumbler wrote: »

Do your maths.

Without knowing your travel plans it's hard to say. So Grumbler's last words come into play.

Put a value on things like the insurance. How much would a policy have been?

Put a value on the number of times you'll use the lounge. If you'd normally spend £7 on 2 x Boots Meal Deal that's the value. Or if it means saving £30 on Frankie and Bennys that's the value each time you're in an airport. Or maybe your 2 x £65 alternative card is the real value. But is that the same quality of lounge?

Will you trigger the 2-4-1 voucher on the card effectively? If you'd normally have travelled economy, that's the value. Although you might end up going business class.

What do you value an Avios at? As an economy flier I place a nominal value of 0.7p on it. A business class traveller could easily triple this. But I could rarely justify paying cash for business class, much as I'd like to!

My instinct is not to pay AMEX fees for overseas transactions (2.99%) but to get a Halifax Clarity card or similar for those. But using the AMEX for sterling spending might generate more valuable rewards than other reward cards. Unless you're about to trigger a sweet spot on the AMEX card in some way.

Your call!

dzug1

Not sure about this particular one, but most Amex cards charge a standard 2.99% (from memory - it will be between 2.5 and 3) currency exchange fee on top of the interbank rate. That is roughly the same as most UK issued cards

zerog

All UK Amexes charge a non-sterling transaction fee and the rate is generally no worse than 0.5% off the interbank.

The Halifax Clarity Mastercard rate is usually roughly 0.5% better than the interbank, plus it gives you £5 cashback per month if you spend £300 and fulfilled some other conditions; so for me it would be 4-5% better than the Amex Plat.

The Amex Gold is slightly better than the Plat as it gives you double, sometimes triple and quadruple points on non-sterling spend, but still charges the non-sterling fee and uses the slightly worse Amex rate.



You need to read the fine print of the insurance and make sure it's right for you compared to other insurance products you could buy separately. If it is, then go for it;

another option is to get the Amex Gold, hit the 20K bonus, then upgrade to the Plat for another 15K bonus (can't remember the spending target).

blindman

T4rQu1N wrote: »

Hi All,

I've been doing some research and I think I have picked the best card for my circumstances.

Basically, come March, I will be travelling the world for 12 months with my GF, doing the good old RTW airline ticket which will cost in total roughly £3000. This is great as it hits many a card's "spend X amount, get X amount of points".

I was looking through the ones advised by this site and thought the BA premium card looked good. However, when I added in all the extra costs of backpackers insurance (£250 lowest price I could find), the costs started to escalate quite quickly.

I then discovered the AMEX Platinum (can't post links as a new user, just google it).

This does have a whopping £450 annual fee, but the benefits seem to be pretty comprehensive enough for us to warrant the cost. Worldwide (including winter sports which is a must for NZ) travel insurance valid for 365 consecutive days (so covers gap year type things) for both my and my partner, plus unlimited access to 700 VIP lounges at airports (which admittedly is a luxury but one we were going to fork out £65 each or so on a special card which gives access). There's also 30,000 membership points which I can transfer to other points reward schemes such as AVIOS, to redeem flight upgrades etc.

So the question is... I meet all the eligibility criteria, but I can't find things like foreign currency rates etc. Is this a good card to purchase my flights on, and spend up until I go; at which point I start using a dedicated travel card which has 0% on cash withdrawls etc. Or should I forget the whole thing and just buy it all separately?

Kind regards,

T4

Amex Plat is a CHARGE card-you have to pay off the amount each month.

Priority Pass Lounges are nothing to shout about

As has been said-Look at the "free" travel insuracne to see if it suits.

N&P debit card (you have time to open an account) has ZERO % travel money conversion fee and has good rates.

T4rQu1N

I knew it was too good to be true. Just re-read the terms of the insurance and it turns out the gap year insurance is for dependent children under the age of 25, not for the card holders

Thanks for all the replies guys, but it's not quite so perfect after all! I'll check out some of the other suggested cards .