![]() ![]() The Platinum charge card on its own provides the user with a $450 travel credit every year once the annual fee is paid off. If we used points for a travel in the next year, we can recoup the entirety of the $1450 annual fee this way. This gives an approximate valuation of 3.885 cents per Qantas point.Ĩ0,000 bonus points = 40,000 Qantas points (2:1 transfer ratio)Ĥ0,000 Qantas points = approximately $1554 The same ticket can be purchased by paying with points and buying a Business Classic Reward for 36,800 points with an additional $75 to be paid by cash. To put that into context, today a Sydney-Melbourne business class round trip costs a little over $1430 on Qantas. In October 2019, and even today, AMEX offers an 80,000 bonus to sign up. However, if one is a new customer to AMEX, or a returning customer after an 18-month hiatus, then you are eligible for the bonus points. We were still confident of breaking even. Already having head an AMEX Explorer card and merely upgrading to a Platinum card does that to you. Not a good start then, since we didn’t receive the welcome bonus. These points can be then transferred at a conversion rate of 2:1 to many major airline partners like Qantas, Virgin Australia, Singapore airlines, etc. The Platinum card offers one of the highest earn rates in Australia at 2.25 AMEX Membership points excluding government transactions. However, with plans turned on its head, and the annual fee already paid off, we decided to review this card after a year to see how AMEX manages to hold on to its customer base. The plan was to travel domestic within Australia, visit home in India and go across the ditch to New Zealand in 2019-2020 and we were confident that we could break even and then some. We applied and were approved for the card in October 2019. We also highlight the adhoc benefits which Amex introduced this year to cater to their customers who are not able to reap the travel benefits due to the pandemic and travel restrictions. We have tried to place a monetary value to each benefit. Our guiding principle is always to pay off the entire statement amount irrespective of whether it’s a credit or a charge card.ĪMEX in Australia provides a host of benefits which heavily lean towards travel and hospitality. You will also need to pay off the entire amount stated in the monthly statement. American Express has internally set a limit to spending based on the user’s spending habits, and may increase the limits based on the user’s relationship with the bank, spending habits, payment history etc. A charge card has no pre-set spending limit. Stating this card is a credit card is slightly misleading since it is a charge card. Costs a leg and a hand then, but having spent a year with it, in an age where we haven’t travelled enough, we look at whether we have managed to break even.īefore we continue, I would like to add a disclaimer that we are not sponsored by American Express, or any of its competitors, and the views specified below are strictly our own, and the value we place to each benefit is based on our own understanding. The annual fee used to be $1200 in 2019, and just before the world ground to a halt, it was revised to $1450. The Platinum card certainly puts you on the backfoot initially. But is it an overkill for you and me? Especially this year, with a pandemic raging and every country shutting its borders to everyone else. It’s an excellent travel card, and with its sleek metal card, adds a certain statement when you whisk it out to pay your tab. American Express Platinum Review (Australia) ![]()
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