What's so good about American Express?

mrsammyp

I've had an AMEX platinum cashback card for about two years now and although I do have to carry more than one card, the amount of shops that accept AMEX has increased.

You can now use it to buy your car tax online and on many websites that accept Paypal.

The offers which you can save to card can be very good, something you don't get with the Barclaycard Duo.

PeacefulWaters

Sncjw wrote: »

It came from because your credit applications are high. I was looking back at your posts and wondered how you were affording these forms of credit

Credit cards can be repaid in full every month.

Current accounts don't have to go overdrawn.

The OP certainly seems to be a tad over enthusiastic with credit facilities but I've seen little to suggest that he's actually carrying any debt of note as a result.

TheEffect

Nebulous2 wrote: »

Congratulations. What about sharing how you managed that?

Is it all personal spending, or did it include business expenses? How long did it take you?

Thanks

From my experience, lets take London Heathrow to JFK New York in Club Europe on BA.

Get a Lloyds Avios CC, spend £7k on the AMEX. That will give you a free upgrade voucher, and 17.5k Avios.

Open an AMEX Gold card, spend £2k, that'll give you 22k Avios.

Open AMEX BA card, spend £1k, get 9k Avios.

Convert £80 from TopCashBack into Avios for 10k Avios.

Total Avios: 58k Avios.
Total Spend required on credit cards: £10k
Total paid for Avios: £80

Now go to book your BA Business Class flight....

56K Avios and £350-£500 taxes for return flight in Club Europe from LHR to JFK.

Total cost to you: £430-£580

There's other ways of getting there, and you can earn more Avios for being referred, but just a general outlook.

PeacefulWaters

TheEffect wrote: »

From my experience, lets take London Heathrow to JFK New York in Club Europe on BA.

Get a Lloyds Avios CC, spend £7k on the AMEX. That will give you a free upgrade voucher, and 17.5k Avios.

Open an AMEX Gold card, spend £2k, that'll give you 22k Avios.

Open AMEX BA card, spend £1k, get 9k Avios.

Convert £80 from TopCashBack into Avios for 10k Avios.

Total Avios: 58k Avios.
Total Spend required on credit cards: £10k
Total paid for Avios: £80

Now go to book your BA Business Class flight....

56K Avios and £350-£500 taxes for return flight in Club Europe from LHR to JFK.

Total cost to you: £430-£580

There's other ways of getting there, and you can earn more Avios for being referred, but just a general outlook.

I think you mean Club World. I'm impressed you got there without any Tesco shopping!

Booking from Madrid to JFK after transferring Avios to Iberia dramatically reduces the taxes too.

TheEffect

PeacefulWaters wrote: »

I think you mean Club World. I'm impressed you got there without any Tesco shopping!

Booking from Madrid to JFK after transferring Avios to Iberia dramatically reduces the taxes too.

Oops, yes Club World.

Transferring to Iberia is good idea to save on taxes, but cannot be done if using the Lloyds Upgrade Voucher I believe.

I did fly Iberia economy MAD>JFK a few months ago and was very impressed (paid for, not Avios booking).

I used the TopCashBack £50 to Tesco then to Avios as it was a great deal, but looks like they're got rid of this offer now. On a smaller plus side, you can transfer 1p to 1.25 Avios directly. Not as good as Tesco, but better than nothing.

I've also referred a few people for the AMEX Gold card and got 9k MR points each time, converting to 9k Avios.

Currently sitting on 100k Avios and 1 Lloyds upgrade voucher expiring in a few months, but no plans to fly anywhere. Maybe I'll book a few days in NYC.

Jlawson118

Sncjw wrote: »

It came from because your credit applications are high. I was looking back at your posts and wondered how you were affording these forms of credit

Asking what the big deal about AMEX cards though isn't really applicable to my other forms of credit. I only have two credit cards, one in which I rarely use. Whether my credit applications are high or not, leave that for the threads that debate that, not me wondering what's good about American Express and why it's such a popular brand when quite a lot of places don't accept it, nor have I seen many people with one but it's something that's pretty big

Jlawson118

PeacefulWaters wrote: »

Credit cards can be repaid in full every month.

Current accounts don't have to go overdrawn.

The OP certainly seems to be a tad over enthusiastic with credit facilities but I've seen little to suggest that he's actually carrying any debt of note as a result.

I'll admit here that I have been a little enthusiastic about credit facilities because it's a new world to me in all fairness, and I just want to try get in there with the best deals in the market but I've been dabbling around with them for just short of a year now so the novelty has worn off. I'm just impressed that you can get rewarded for general spending, I was drawn into the Barclaycard Reward join scheme to get £20 worth of rewards for spending so much or completing a 0% balance transfer, which I claimed on an iTunes voucher. iTunes is somewhere I shop a lot.

I don't know why this person is commenting like they are and you're right in saying that I've never been into debt. I probably spend about £500 a month on expenses if not less, and I usually pay the balance off at the end of each week when I get paid. It is time I chilled out with it a bit but I also do not spend more than I actually have in the bank

Jlawson118

mrsammyp wrote: »

I've had an AMEX platinum cashback card for about two years now and although I do have to carry more than one card, the amount of shops that accept AMEX has increased.

You can now use it to buy your car tax online and on many websites that accept Paypal.

The offers which you can save to card can be very good, something you don't get with the Barclaycard Duo.

Yeah most shops do accept AMEX now which is good. On the Lloyd's version I had, I did use it in most places and then some had the facility but only for chip and pin, not contactless

Nick_C

Nebulous2 wrote: »

Congratulations. What about sharing how you managed that?

Is it all personal spending, or did it include business expenses? How long did it take you?

Thanks

My partner and I will be flying to LA and back in BA Club World this summer using a Two For One voucher with the Amex / BAPP card.

Total cost:- Fees and taxes £1056.10 plus 125,000 Avios which cost us £548.24. So total cost a tad over £800 each.

Last year we earned 130,565 Avios:-

[FONT="Courier New"]
Tesco              29040    22%
Surveys            22835    17%
Amex               22091    17%
Surveys            26325    20%
Online Shopping    13984    11%
Flights             8130     6%
S Times Mag         4500     3%
Bonuses             3400     3%
Heathrow Rwrds       250     0%
Shell                 10     0%                
[/FONT]

My cost per avios includes the annual fee for the Amex card, the value of Tesco Clubcard points if spent in Tesco, the cost of the car hire and Sunday Times subscription (both of which were done just to get Avios), and the cash value of reward point earned through e-rewards. I've not applied a value to the Avios earned through Rewards for Thoughts as there are no alternatives to Avios from this site.

I've offset against the cost any exclusive Amex retailer cashback.

Javens

Nick_C wrote: »

My partner and I will be flying to LA and back in BA Club World this summer using a Two For One voucher with the Amex / BAPP card.

Total cost:- Fees and taxes £1056.10 plus 125,000 Avios which cost us £548.24. So total cost a tad over £800 each.

Last year we earned 130,565 Avios:-

[FONT="Courier New"]
Tesco              29040    22%
Surveys            22835    17%
Amex               22091    17%
Surveys            26325    20%
Online Shopping    13984    11%
Flights             8130     6%
S Times Mag         4500     3%
Bonuses             3400     3%
Heathrow Rwrds       250     0%
Shell                 10     0%                
[/FONT]

My cost per avios includes the annual fee for the Amex card, the value of Tesco Clubcard points if spent in Tesco, the cost of the car hire and Sunday Times subscription (both of which were done just to get Avios), and the cash value of reward point earned through e-rewards. I've not applied a value to the Avios earned through Rewards for Thoughts as there are no alternatives to Avios from this site.

I've offset against the cost any exclusive Amex retailer cashback.

Could you please give more info regarding the surveys? Which sites you used/was it worthwhile? Thanks.