Credit Card Offers Amex Explorer: 50,000 bonus Amex points

Earn uncapped Amex Points and enjoy a $400 travel credit every year!​

Learn more and apply for this card:

American Express® Explorer Credit Card

With the American Express Explorer credit card, earn uncapped Amex Membership Rewards points and offset the annual fee with a travel credit.

www.australianfrequentflyer.com.au

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What are the main benefits of this card?

1. Signup bonus: 50,000 bonus Amex Membership Rewards Points, when you spend at least $4,000 on eligible purchases within 3 months of approval
2. Earn 2 Membership Rewards Points per $1 on eligible purchases, uncapped, which you can transfer to 13 different airline & hotel programs
3. $400 annual travel credit fully offsets the $395 annual fee

Why we like the American Express Explorer credit card

This card lets you earn Amex Membership Rewards points at a solid rate of 2 points per dollar, uncapped, without the higher annual fee of the Amex Platinum card.

You can transfer Amex points to 11 airline frequent flyer programs and 2 hotel loyalty programs, generally at a 2:1 rate. For example, this means you’re effectively earning 1 Velocity Point, Qatar Avios or Cathay Asia Mile per $1 spent on the card.

The $395 annual fee is offset by a $400 annual travel credit that you can spend on eligible flights, car rentals or hotels when booking through American Express Travel.

You'll also receive two free annual visits to the Amex Centurion Lounges in Sydney or Melbourne Airport, plus complimentary travel insurance. See our card guide for the full details:

American Express® Explorer Credit Card

With the American Express Explorer credit card, earn uncapped Amex Membership Rewards points and offset the annual fee with a travel credit.

www.australianfrequentflyer.com.au

AFF members are welcome to discuss this card in this thread.

 

[albyd]

Clicking through your account balance on the website gives you a detailed transaction listing. It's pretty detailed. I hope that helps.

 

[alexy23]

Mrs Alex Currently Holds:
- Amex Bus Plat
- Amex Edge

I signed Mrs Alex to Amex Explorer under her new married name thinking it would create a new Veda Profile (however Veda cross reference her old profile due to D/L match). Welcome letter said your an existing card holder etc even though I ticked she wasn't

Upon activating and logging in - the points section said - Please view your points balance under Card : xx_-xx_x (her Amex Bus Plat) (the same thing happened to the Amex Edge once we signed up to and activated the Amex Bus Plat and the points for Edge were auto transferred over). It seems if you are a Bus Plat card holder that takes precedence over all other card programs and does an auto link. Bus Plat is by far the best program to be in as it includes Qantas!

TLDR; The good news - no linking is required if you are an Amex Bus Plat card holder - it's already done. The Bad News - I highly doubt the 100k bonus points will land (however I'm now earning at a 2:1 ratio).

 

[lovetravellingoz]

Mrs Alex Currently Holds:
- Amex Bus Plat
- Amex Edge

I signed Mrs Alex to Amex Explorer under her new married name thinking it would create a new Veda Profile (however Veda cross reference her old profile due to D/L match). Welcome letter said your an existing card holder etc even though I ticked she wasn't

Upon activating and logging in - the points section said - Please view your points balance under Card : xx_-xx_x (her Amex Bus Plat) (the same thing happened to the Amex Edge once we signed up to and activated the Amex Bus Plat and the points for Edge were auto transferred over). It seems if you are a Bus Plat card holder that takes precedence over all other card programs and does an auto link. Bus Plat is by far the best program to be in as it includes Qantas!

TLDR; The good news - no linking is required if you are an Amex Bus Plat card holder - it's already done. The Bad News - I highly doubt the 100k bonus points will land (however I'm now earning at a 2:1 ratio).

Thanks for the detailed update.

Once again it confirms that it does not matter if one tries to pretend that one does not have an Amex Card as it most cases, if not all, Amex will pick it up.

 

[BriarFlyer]

Similar thing for me, as Mrs Alex. I held the Explorer Card, then signed up for the Platinum Charge Card. The cards/programs were linked with my Gateway points from the Explorer transferred to the Ascent Program automatically.

 

[unfunkable]

Hi All
Just a quick question - has anybody paid via postbillpay (not the paypal option) - does this only pay 0.5MR/$ ?
cheers

 

[bbqwer]

Hi All
Just a quick question - has anybody paid via postbillpay (not the paypal option) - does this only pay 0.5MR/$ ?
cheers

Yes it is 0.5MR

 

[chris86]

Hi All,
I recently signed up for this card, and just got the 100k points in my account after only a couple of weeks.
So i logged on to transfer the point to velocity and to my delight found that there is currently a promotion on points transfers to velocity, bonus 15%
Hopefully there are no catches but seems like a bonus 15k points for me!
I will post back if this all goes through ok for me!
If your using this card for velocity points probably a good time to cash in.
Time for me to refer my wife and hopefully get the 30k referral bonus and her 100k points in time as well!

"Transfer your Membership Rewards points between 1 May 2017 and 31 May 2017 and receive 15% Bonus Velocity Points*. Bonus Points offer is part of Velocity’s Billion Point Giveaway campaign and is limited to 1 billion Bonus Points*.

With Velocity, the frequent flyer program of Virgin Australia, you can earn and redeem your Velocity Points to more than 500 destinations around the world when flying with Virgin Australia and Velocity's international airline partners. Enjoy one-stop travel to Europe and flights to the Americas, the Middle East, Asia and beyond. For more information or to sign up to Velocity Frequent Flyer free online, visit virginaustralia.com/velocity.

The transfer of points will be administered solely by American Express and will take up to 3 business days to transfer into your Velocity Account. The Velocity 15% Bonus Points will be administered by Velocity Frequent Flyer which will also take up to 3 business days to transfer into your Velocity Membership Account."

 

[mmchow]

Hi All,
I recently signed up for this card, and just got the 100k points in my account after only a couple of weeks. So i logged on to transfer the point to velocity and to my delight found that there is currently a promotion on points transfers to velocity, bonus 15%. Hopefully there are no catches but seems like a bonus 15k points for me!

If the points is in Gateway program, the conversion is 2 Gateway AMEX point to 1.5 VA points, making your 100K worth 75K VA points + 11,250 bonus VA points for the 15% bonus transfer.

 

[desafinado74]

Hi guys,
I plan to transfer my membership points to my Krisflyer account.
How long does it take to complete the transaction ?

 

[Dr Ralph]

Hi guys,
I plan to transfer my membership points to my Krisflyer account.
How long does it take to complete the transaction ?

2 to 3 working days for me.

 

[Charleston]

Hey guys,

Apologies if this has been asked before, but is there anyway to check on when my 18 month threshold is?

I was a previous customer, but i'll be damned if i remember exactly when I closed my last card.

Cheers

 

[Aumelle]

Hey guys,

Apologies if this has been asked before, but is there anyway to check on when my 18 month threshold is?

I was a previous customer, but i'll be damned if i remember exactly when I closed my last card.

Cheers

I guess this means you don't keep a copy of your previous cc statements? Do you use a tool like Pocketbook to sync your spend? Have you tried logging in to your (old) Amex account?
There are a few cases (myself included) of people who did get the bonus points despite not meeting the 18 month criteria.

 

[yld200]

I've just hit the minimum spend which has cleared and I cannot see the bonus points on my account

My history is that I've held Amex Velocity Platinum and Amex QF Premium cards within the past 12 months. The Velocity card was cancelled around December and the QF card probably around June by memory. I applied for the Amex explorer using a referral link about 3 weeks ago and did not have an Amex issued card at the time.

I booked a hotel using this card on Monday which took me over the $1500 overall spend which is no longer displayed as pending and my points balance has updated to reflect the points earnt on my actual spend to date. Bonus points are nowhere to be seen at this stage

I will wait a few days to see if there are any updates and then try the dreaded call.

I was really hoping to score these bonus points and use them along with 100K from my wifes card (pending me being successful) to book a weeks accommodation in NYC which would save us over $2,000.

 

[jb747]

So for points newbies like me, is there a consensus on the bonus points if you already have an Edge card?

 

[Dr Ralph]

So for points newbies like me, is there a consensus on the bonus points if you already have an Edge card?

I think a few months ago the answer would have been yes, but today it's not as clear.

 

[fairbasa]

So for points newbies like me, is there a consensus on the bonus points if you already have an Edge card?

Seems like as of about March this year, people have no longer been getting points if they are existing AMEX holders. There has been the odd exception (luck I think), but in general it seems AMEX have fixed their loopholes.

On the other hand JB, you can still get 40k MR points through the DJ card which is a separate scheme (provided you haven't had a DJ card in the last 18mths).

 

[lovetravellingoz]

I think a few months ago the answer would have been yes, but today it's not as clear.

Since 1 Feb, most reports would indicate that sign-on bonus points do not occur if you have recently had an Amex (not sure if it is the full 18 months as most reports have been from people who cancelled Jan 2017 or later).

Very few exceptions seem to have been posted.

 

[Aumelle]

So for points newbies like me, is there a consensus on the bonus points if you already have an Edge card?

Consensus, no. But I'll send you a PM with the steps I took (I did get the 100k points and already had a PE like you).

 

[Aumelle]

I booked a hotel using this card on Monday which took me over the $1500 overall spend

Is that before or after the $395 card fee? If your $395 cadr fee is part of your $1,500 spend, perhaps spend another $400 or so first?

 

[lovetravellingoz]

Consensus, no. But I'll send you a PM with the steps I took (I did get the 100k points and already had a PE like you).

I think it is misleading to imply that there are steps to achieve it, as opposed to blind luck in calling a CSR who failed to check if you already had an Amex and who stated that you were eligible for the bonus when you clearly were not.



Essentially advice is if you miss out to call and ask about the bonus not posting. You may be lucky too. HUAC. Most who have tried have not been successful. Organisations do make mistakes from time to time though......