Strategy to obtain US Amex

[djchuckles]

Has anyone added an additional card to one of their US AMEX cards? I have an offer of 10k points for adding an additional card holder on my amex gold. I could add P2 but she doesnt have a SSN or ITIN so it may not be possible? It says I can provide the SSN/ITIN later upon card activation. Will they claw back points if we never provide it?

Thanks in advance

I did - and got the you must provide within 30 days message - queried this with Amex and said if you don’t have either you can provide passport number

Post automatically merged: Today at 3:15 PM

Some DPs:



I hadn't heard back from AMEX after ~10 days, so phoned them and asked for an update. Unfortunately, this wasn't sufficient for AMEX. I asked what constituted a "utility bill", but they couldn't give me examples - just that it was one of the categories of accepted ID. I'll have to wait until the US HSBC account is opened.

Interestingly, they only want to confirm my full name, not my residential address.



I called HSBC USA today after hearing nothing back from them (application made ~9 days ago). The woman on the phone was confused by the status of my account, as it was "Pending" but didn't specify why. After putting me on hold and calling the account opening team to check, she confirmed that it was pending because I had opened by AU HSBC account less than 30 days ago. Apparently once that period is over and I call back, they will open the account.

Hopefully I'll have a BofA account open in a fortnight or so; so will wait for a statement to generate and then go back to AMEX. Out of interest, does anybody know how long they will keep an application in a pending state while they wait for documents to be provided?

I had this and eventually manage to persuade both HSBC and Amex to do a 3 way call to confirm my name - push for this if you don’t want to wait

 

[albyd]

What's your non-driver ID and how did you get it?

I didn’t get it unfort so will need to be another time. They open up appointment slots on Fridays for the week ahead and they tend to go very quickly especially for the more popular central locations. If you are a “resident” of NYC can get a non driver ID (guess it’s a little like the ‘proof of age’ card in NSW. You can only get it by:

• Being a resident of NYC
• Making an appointment and turning up in person; and
• Producing proof of residency (currently bank statement < 60 days old and AU passport currently suffice)

I was trying to do this as C1 wanted a US government issued ID document (and wouldn’t accept AU passport as government issued document) no matter how politely I asked.

Are there any DPs for others getting accepted by C1 other than by going down this route?

Chase said they don’t accept these documents but were fine with my AU passport. So YMMV.

Btw this is the site where I made my appointment:

IDNYC

Please report back if it works for you especially if it gets you to ‘yes’ with C1.

 

[albyd]

I don't want to celebrate while others are mourning the Qantas changes, but these changes show the outsized value of holding a US Amex Biz Plat.

Under the new Qantas chart, a return Australia-London classic award in business class will cost: 332K + $1775.

If you value that $1775 in carrier charges at even 0.5c/point, the Qantas fare actually costs 332K + 88K = 420K.

The retail price for this type of flight is around $9-13K AUD. Say you can find it for $11K (pretty easy). That's $6.8K USD.

Book with a US Amex Biz Plat for 680K points. Get a 35% rebate back = 447K MR.

Remember this is a paid fare so you earn full points.

Say you're a Qantas Plat. You will currently earn an additional 62K Qantas points, but that appears to be going up even more after July. Subtract them from the 447K MR and your net cost is 385K points.

And you earn full status credits! And you don't have to fight for impossible classic award availability!!

It is literally cheaper to use US MR to buy a paid fare than it is to buy a classic award fare.

Thanks for this post. I was considering culling my Business Plat as the AF is quite steep but might hold onto it now - didn’t realize it had this benefit. I imagine finding award availability might give the best outsized value outcome. This is a nice alternative otherwise.

Has anyone tried to use the Adobe credit for instance? I have an Acrobat annual subscription but paid for it with my Aussie CC but this would reduce it from an eye watering $A383 to something closer to $A133. Do you use it as payment method for your AU subscription or do you need to change to a US based subscription to trigger the rebate?