Which Amex is right for me?

[garbanzobeans]

Hi folks,
I'm hoping for some advice on picking the right Amex card. I find the range of Amex cards really confusing, charge cards and credit cards, with lots of offers coming out all the time. I have inherited a prejudice that Amex has high transaction fees and isn't accepted in many places - while this may or may not be accurate, it has put me off til now, but I'm at a point in my churning where Amex is one of the few options left. I'm open to recommendations

I usually go for a CC bonus points offer, pay off quickly and close hopefully with an annual fee refund. I'm happy to do that with the right Amex too. However, some have a very high annual fee for which you can 'only get your money's worth' if you take full advantage of the other perks. Also I gather that some people have Amex as their 'keeper card' because of high reward spend and I'm wondering if that might suit me too.

So far in a year of churning I've focused on Velocity points but haven't actually used any for booking flights yet. I do probably eight trips a year of AU domestic travel and I'm accumulating points to try for a big trip to Europe later this year and possibly an Asia trip too, and to Europe again next year for a family wedding. I'm open to other reward programmes beyond velocity. I've travelled all over the world but I've always been a happy economy seat guy. I have never used airline lounges - I prefer to spend as little time as possible in airports, and in my experience most airport food is not great (particularly given some food allergies) so I tend not to eat there either, and I don't stay in high end hotels. But of course I may be missing out on a lot! Three big international trips with potentially long layovers makes me wonder if it's worth dipping my toe in to more comfortable travel.

I'd welcome any suggestions of which Amex you'd recommend and why - either as a quick churn, as a travel cc for my upcoming trips, or as a keeper for regular spend.

Thanks in advance

 

[burneracc]

The Qantas ult has the single highest earn rate across any credit card in Australia (under 80k aud spend per year, after which it drops slightly). The current sign up bonus of 100k qff points is pretty strong too, plus the travel credit pretty much offsets the fee.

If you spend more than 6 figures per year perhaps consider the platinum (or if you don’t care for Qantas points and prefer the flexibility of Amex mrp program) but otherwise the Qantas ultimate card is usually the best value for money.

Can refer if you want for either of them, just LMK and I’ll pm the link, or if that’s not allowed I can share it in the referrals forum instead, although I’d rather not put it on the public internet.

Edit to add: I can’t really speak to the velocity offerings. They seem decent but I don’t know anyone directly who uses that product. Among my friend group the platinum and Qantas ultimate (and on here too) seem to be the most popular.

 

[zainman]

How will you get around the 18 month AMEX exclusion period? AFAIK no bonus if you got a bonus within 18 months, you should try another bank and rotate

 

[Human]

I am a very strong believer in accumulating flexible points currencies where possible -- ie. points that can be converted into a number of different FF programmes. This has two clear benefits:

1. You have the luxury of converting your points into the FF programme that has the availability you want. Nothing is more frustrating than having no flights available in the programme that you have points with, and plenty of availability in another programme you have no points in! Having flexible points means that you can quickly and easily move your points into the programme that has flights you want to book.
2. You're protecting yourself against devaluations and changes. Just because Velocity may be better than Qantas now, for example (and for redemptions to Europe I believe it is), does not mean that it will stay that way.

This means that you should consider a card which has Membership Rewards points. I started out with the Explorer card and then after a year or so I got a Platinum charge card, which for me is most definitely a keeper.

Want to Fly to Europe? Collect a Flexible Points Currency!

Credit card rewards programs offer flexible points currencies that you can transfer to whichever airline has the best deal when you book.

www.australianfrequentflyer.com.au

The Benefits of Flexible Credit Card Rewards

12 May, 2018

www.australianfrequentflyer.com.au

 

[Bell21]

I think Human has given you excellent advice - accumulating flexible points is the key to an effective points strategy - especially now that AMEX allows you to transfer points into all 3 of the major airline alliances (with Virgin Atlantic moving into SkyTeam) - eg, I just flew family members on Vietnam Airways using Virgin Atlantic points from AMEX - if I was just relying on VFF or QFF, it was likely not an option --- I'm not currently across all the AMEX cards, but if you can justify the spend on the Platinum card, that gives you the option of QFF plus all the other airline partners --- YMMV, but there's a decent amount of value in that card, especially if you're travelling overseas at least 2 per year - there's a whole thread on AFF listing all the card's perks in detail.