Air NZ American Express Platinum Cards

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Regs

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Reply # 626250 16-May-2012 15:53
khull: The attractive thing about this over the GP/Kiwibank ones is the domestic travel insurance. I'll probably take a stab for the first year and see how it works out your contents are typically covered by your regular contents insurance in NZ, so you should only need it for cancellations , delays, rental car excess cover etc (if offered) Need help implementing Microsoft CRM? Give OA Systems a shout. Winners of CRM Solution of the Year at the 2010 Microsoft NZ Partner Awards

zhuyan

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Reply # 626279 16-May-2012 16:41
Well really interesting to see this post. As part of my efforts to tidy up my finances (got too many credit/finance cards), I was thinking of cancelling my American Express Gold Credit Card, on which I pay $90 annual fee. When I got home last night I got a letter from Amex introducing their new Amex Platinum Edge credit card; guess what? it will cost me $145 dollar a year to use it. However, with this new card they are also offering one complimentary direct domestic return flight each membership year!!! I think this is worth that $145 annual fee, at least??? And the free return ticket is for seat and bag. The condition is that you have book tickets through AMEX 15 days prior to your travel Other benefits include: 1) get 3 points for $1 spent at major supermarkets; 2points for $1 spent at major petrol station and 1 points for all other expenses; what they call 3+2+1. This is pretty cool isn't it? and the membership rewards program is automatically on once you sign up for the card 2) Free Travel insurance for both domestic and international travel (once you use Amex card to pay for the tickets), including Overseas Medical Emergency Cover, Repatriation Cover and also baggage cover 3) 2.99% interest rate for the first 6month; plus once approved and spend up to $500 on the new card, you also get 20,000 bonus reward points 4) 4 supplementary cards with no annual card fee All these for $145 a year, I think it is pretty good offer or have I missed something? I will cancel my Amex Gold and get this new card. As for usage of Amex card in NZ, I haven't noticed any inconvenience at all since I started to use it in 2006. I have also used the card in Australia, Singapore, Hk and China with no trouble at all. I thought some of you might be interested in this new card, particularly if you travel frequently.

Regs

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Reply # 626282 16-May-2012 16:44
zhuyan: Well really interesting to see this post. As part of my efforts to tidy up my finances (got too many credit/finance cards), I was thinking of cancelling my American Express Gold Credit Card, on which I pay $90 annual fee. When I got home last night I got a letter from Amex introducing their new Amex Platinum Edge credit card; guess what? it will cost me $145 dollar a year to use it. I got the same letter for my dad, who is overseas. His letter said that he had to keep his existing card in order to get the 'edge' card. That pushed the annual fees up a bit higher than the $145..... still, the free domestic flights they were throwing in sounded good. Need help implementing Microsoft CRM? Give OA Systems a shout. Winners of CRM Solution of the Year at the 2010 Microsoft NZ Partner Awards

zhuyan

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Reply # 626285 16-May-2012 16:48
Hi Regs, the letter didn't mention anything about having to keep the old card at all. In fact I was speaking to AMEX today and confirmed that once I receive the new card I could ring them to arrange my existing balance as well as reward points all over to the the new card and cancel the old one. They even agreed to credit me the proportion of the annual fee I have already paid for my current Gold card as I "have been a member since 2006" :)

PenultimateHop

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Reply # 626286 16-May-2012 16:49
Regs: one thing my spreadsheets didn't take into account was the surcharges. they are becoming more common these days and they basically start to wipe out any benefits you would have received by earning points. Its no point paying a $5 surcharge to get $3 worth of reward points... While anyone would have to look at the cost/benefit for their individual circumstances, the rewards can be very valuable - even with a surcharge. Hint: Airpoints is bad, bad, value - but due to the Airpoints program, not credit card earning.

khull

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Reply # 626331 16-May-2012 17:38
zhuyan: curious, are most of your purchases within the 3 points = $1 category? for me this is about 20% of my spending

zhuyan

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Reply # 626343 16-May-2012 17:51
khull: the 3points reward only applies to grocery shopping at most major Supermarkets within NZ; so for $200 per week grocery shopping that's $800 a month so to get 2400 points for that only is not too bad is it? Th thing is I could try to rearrange my spending to suit this and I guess this is probably what Amex is aiming at achieving - to use more of their cards. Anyway I will have to wait and see whether that is actually the way it is supposed to work :)

khull

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Reply # 626888 17-May-2012 15:43
cool keep us posted as I think I get better value in air points (next to cash back).

khull

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Reply # 629818 24-May-2012 12:01
my Air NZ card arrived couple days ago - I keep a budget and I hit nowhere near $200 a week on groceries (about $50 is my current budget for groceries - Yes I dine in and do takeouts because I don't have the time to cook) Translating to the Edge card, that would be about 4503=600 points which is worth about $3 back - so I would think compared to my other spending the Air NZ is working out well

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