American Express

Exactly. I don't NEED emergency money, I use it daily while my money sits in my account. I'd pay my rent with it if he took AMEX, why not get something back for spending money rather than not?
 
My PR/Gold charge card is pretty much the only card I ever use. Living, working and socialising exclusively in central London means Amex acceptance is pretty much the rule, rather than the exception. I have a corporate one, but don't get MR points for using it, so just end up putting all expenses on my personal Amex. In addition to the 20,000 sign-up points gained for moving to the Gold card last year, I've picked up an additional 15,000 or so bonus points for putting £15k on the card in my first year.

If you've got the throughput and can use the card as your primary method of payment, I think it's great. The purchase protection has been very good for me too, last Christmas I was gypped by a hotel that charged me for a second room at £400. They refused to back down or acknowledge that they'd screwed up; one quick call to Amex and they sorted it for me. Couldn't say if it's the best customer service out there, but I'm pleased as punch with it!
 
I have a couple in Malaysia - although Credit cards , not charge card.

First one gets me 1.1 Enrich mile (Malaysia airlines) for every RM spent (£0.18) - so basically spend around £18k on the card to get enough miles for Business class return to London (ex. tax)

The other - free taxi ride home with 3 foreign swipes, and 60,000 Enrich miles on activation. So just 3 small foreign transactions and £20 taxi ride free, can't complain :D

Edit : First one also comes with Plaza Premium access x 5 , second unlimited but only for a few airports (KL, Hong Kong, Shanghai from memory)
 
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I have the preferred rewards Gold charge card. It's usually £125 but you get the first year free.

I honestly can't recommend Amex enough, great service and the very best rewards. I've had so many free flights and hotel stays, I don't even now how much they would be worth but well over £1K in the 5 years I've been using them.

The only argument people usually have against them is that they're not accepted everywhere. They are accepted 80% of the places I shop and for the remaining 20% I just use VISA. Simple.

If you don't have one, but would like a referral let me know and I'll happily do it. We both get points but you get a few extra if you're referred to if you just sign up on your own.
 
R4z0r said:
The only argument people usually have against them is that they're not accepted everywhere. They are accepted 80% of the places I shop and for the remaining 20% I just use VISA. Simple.
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The problem that Amex have - and it's a very big, real problem - is that 80% coverage just doesn't cut it these days (I also dispute 80% as being toppy). When the other 2 Schemes have everything tied up to approaching 99% acceptance, 80% sounds a bit underwhelming.

As I said before, Mastercard and VISA don't offer the best customer care compared to Amex but they do afford you the ability to pay for pretty much anything pretty much anywhere and for a lot of people that's a huge selling point.

You'd be astonished or amused/horrified at the workings going on behind your classic/gold/platinum/black cards, by the way. Quite the eye opener.
 
I've amassed over 30,000 points using my Gold card now.

What's the most savvy way to spend the points? Some of the things you can get off their rewards site are hilarious (saucepans taking up 15,000 and so forth) and clearly a rip-off, or not the best use of your rewards.

What's the best use you've found for actually spending points?
 
Karl said:
I've amassed over 30,000 points using my Gold card now.

What's the most savvy way to spend the points? Some of the things you can get off their rewards site are hilarious (saucepans taking up 15,000 and so forth) and clearly a rip-off, or not the best use of your rewards.

What's the best use you've found for actually spending points?
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I found it's a bit of a minefield but HHonors points are meant to be reasonably good if you can fit your plans around the free nights. I transferred the whole lot to Virgin Atlantic miles plus a few work trips adding to my total and got a couple of Upper class return tickets to Boston/NYC for me and the misses for 160,000 miles - not the best usage in terms of value but a great experience.
 
Karl said:
I've amassed over 30,000 points using my Gold card now.

What's the most savvy way to spend the points? Some of the things you can get off their rewards site are hilarious (saucepans taking up 15,000 and so forth) and clearly a rip-off, or not the best use of your rewards.

What's the best use you've found for actually spending points?
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Probably hotel stays, flights, something like that. If you work out the value of points relative to how much it would cost you to buy the items on their site with actual money, it's easy to see where it is better to buy. Last time I checked their Bose gear was reasonably priced compared to the Rainforest.
 
I've used AMEX since I graduated. Their CS is amazing, which is primarily the reason I stick with them as I have had few instances of cloning etc. I usually change every year or so to different MBNA/American Express AMEXs to take advantage of various offers (e.g. the 20,000 pts, quidco, virgin companion vouchers etc etc)

London is fine for AMEX, but I notice when you go to other places it is poor in terms of coverage. I liked MBNA's Virgin one as they give you an AMEX/Visa for the same account.
 
londonbairn said:
I've used AMEX since I graduated. Their CS is amazing, which is primarily the reason I stick with them as I have had few instances of cloning etc. I usually change every year or so to different MBNA/American Express AMEXs to take advantage of various offers (e.g. the 20,000 pts, quidco, virgin companion vouchers etc etc)

London is fine for AMEX, but I notice when you go to other places it is poor in terms of coverage. I liked MBNA's Virgin one as they give you an AMEX/Visa for the same account.
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How do you change? Do you apply for a new card or just call up CS ?
 
i'm on the other side of the fence with amex as a merchant.


hopefully will gain a lot more acceptance now they have dropped their merchant charges last month. same as visa and mastercard now (well world is still slightly dearer)


cs is the same as mentioned above, bloody brilliant very can do attitude towards helping you out with queries or problems and they really do help out with plenty of free POS material and branded merchandise.
 
Theophany said:
Probably hotel stays, flights, something like that. If you work out the value of points relative to how much it would cost you to buy the items on their site with actual money, it's easy to see where it is better to buy. Last time I checked their Bose gear was reasonably priced compared to the Rainforest.
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But if you want free flights, surely the BA AMEX card is better value? The last time I looked, the only good thing about the Gold card was the flexibility on what you could spend the points on.
 
I cant imagine the platinum is worth it for anyone other than heavy travellers due to the £450 per annum fee, ive had it in the past, just for the points you got for taking it out. As soon as I had them, I transferred them to avios and cancelled the card for a pro rata refund ;) I have had a gold card for the same reason but the only one a keep is the ba premium plus for the 241 vouchers, had a number of first class flights using it.
 
Raymond Lin said:
How do you change? Do you apply for a new card or just call up CS ?
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I've just cancelled then re-apply later, last round I went American Express==>MNBA==>American Express.

Before I had a good corporate card which I was putting through a lot of business expenses I stuck with for a couple of years, that allowed me to accrue rewards personally.
 
Tunney said:
But if you want free flights, surely the BA AMEX card is better value? The last time I looked, the only good thing about the Gold card was the flexibility on what you could spend the points on.
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But the person who asked the question doesn't have an Amex BA, they have a Gold card and were asking for suggestions on what to spend their MR points on. :p
 
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