Considering AmEx Platinum for Small Business, What to Use When Not Accepted?

[buckerooni]

Hi All,

We're victoria based but travel yearly to India and looking for a business card to accumulate points to offset this travel - most likely fly singapore air - so Krisflyer points are what we're looking at.

The Amex Platium looks like a beast of a card for this (our spend will be around 250K p.a.) but assume it won't be accepted everywhere and will need a business visa/mastercard backup.

What do people use as a backup business card, that potentially compliments the points, or do you just keep it simple and get a low rate card or just a simple debit as a catch-all ?

We have business accounts (incl. business debit) with commonwealth at the moment, so we could just keep using that to really keep it simple (Amex Plat + CBA business debit).

thanks for any insights.

 

[Ktan89]

Hi Bukerooni, If they don't take Amex, I find the St George Amplify Award Signature is a good alternative to collect Krisflyer. You get 0.75 KFpoints per dollar plus extra 10% points top up on your birthday making it roughly 0.82KFpoints per dollar.

Current bonus with St George is 150k points = 75k KF points for $139 fee.
Not a bad start earing KF if you do this and the amex plat bonus

 

[buckerooni]

Hi Bukerooni, If they don't take Amex, I find the St George Amplify Award Signature is a good alternative to collect Krisflyer. You get 0.75 KFpoints per dollar plus extra 10% points top up on your birthday making it roughly 0.82KFpoints per dollar.

Current bonus with St George is 150k points = 75k KF points for $139 fee.
Not a bad start earing KF if you do this and the amex plat bonus

Thanks for the reply and that St George is a really great card! I'm thinking I may get that card instead for everything and don't get the Amex!\

I lose out some points for sure, but the simplicity of managing one card with a low fee to really satisfy 1 big trip (and maybe 1 small one) a year may be an easier solution.

happy to hear any alternate/opposing views, I'm pretty new to this game!

 

[daft009]

amex + amplify is a winning combo. unbeatable for KF currently

i see you have posted here too.. heaps more tricks to learn on AFF

 

[cbreeze]

I personally hated using the St George app after using the CBA app for so long.
I know it’s not a business card but would you consider the CBA Ultimate Awards card? If you are using it overseas you get more points per dollar and no international transaction fees.

 

[buckerooni]

I personally hated using the St George app after using the CBA app for so long.
I know it’s not a business card but would you consider the CBA Ultimate Awards card? If you are using it overseas you get more points per dollar and no international transaction fees.

thanks for the reply. I had wondered about that!

It does need to be a business card, as we have 250K+ worth of operational expenses.

I'm hoping I don't have to deal with the app too much, what were the big issues/major gripes?

 

[daft009]

no issues with the st george app for me.
check my remaining limit, check my points.
dont need an app to do much more if its just a creditcard

 

[cbreeze]

thanks for the reply. I had wondered about that!

It does need to be a business card, as we have 250K+ worth of operational expenses.

I'm hoping I don't have to deal with the app too much, what were the big issues/major gripes?

It constantly says “connection error” when I open it because it thinks the FaceId has been inactive for too long. Often I find myself force restarting the app so faceId reloads. I hate how you can’t get notifications per transaction. It generally doesn’t have a native iOS feel to it. Maybe I’ve been spoiled with the CBA app.

 

[daft009]

No issues on Android then

 

[buckerooni]

It constantly says “connection error” when I open it because it thinks the FaceId has been inactive for too long. Often I find myself force restarting the app so faceId reloads. I hate how you can’t get notifications per transaction. It generally doesn’t have a native iOS feel to it. Maybe I’ve been spoiled with the CBA app.

thanks for the reply, good to know, I'm also on android and that seems OK so fingers crossed.

 

[306]

The main issue with the St George app is that it doesn't notify transactions in real time, only when they move out of pending. You get them all at bulk when they clear, including ATM cash deposits, even though you can access those funds immediately.

As for the 250k, that's not an issue at all with the card, they don't care if you use the card for business expenses, but you may get a kyc call

 

[Chicken]

It does need to be a business card, as we have 250K+ worth of operational expenses.

You don't need business card for $250k , personal card would be fine if you want.

St George charges 3% forex commission. Are you sure that it would still worth it?

 

[albyd]

St George card is a personal card isn’t it?

I use mine for both. I manage to get almost everything through Amex now. I use payment platforms for suppliers who don’t take credit cards so can shiny more through Amex.

You need to be able to justify the cost of those platforms though. If it works for you, no reason not to use them. I hardly use my Visa anymore 99% Amex.

 

[buckerooni]

yes, you are right the St George card is personal, I got lost clicking around points hack website and didn't realise I'd gone back to personal cards :/

So I think it'll be ANZ Black Business for now, as they have a decent promo and St George Business Amplify don't!

We need the business card structure and while I'm now aware of some of these payment platforms - I'm not performing the company payments myself, nor reconciling, so using a more straight-ahead approach but good to know there's other ways to squeeze a bit more juice

Can't believe we've been using a business debit for the last 3 years and missed out on quiiiite a lot!

 

[306]

yes, you are right the St George card is personal, I got lost clicking around points hack website and didn't realise I'd gone back to personal cards :/

You're overthinking it, if you are putting $250k per year through a cc,

StG Signature - 1.65 p/$ (after 10% birthday bonus)
= 250000 x 1.65 = 412500 amp points
= 206250 KF/VFF

StG business - 1 p/$
= 250000 amp points
= 125000 KF/VFF

you're losing 81250 KF/VFF points per year
or simply 0.325 p/$

as we have said, the bank doesn't care if you use the personal card for (legit) business transactions

Ignore if you plan to churn, but personally it's just too much hassle to churn your prime business card.