Just had a chat to their customer service rep and he was also surprised that it didn't specify an interest free period on the product page. He says it's 55 days.

Mind you there are two AMEX cards: charge and credit. The charge card requires full payment every month.

My main problem with Amex is the number of stores that don't accept it because of the high merchant fees they pay.

I reckon for only a $195 annual fee for the Platinum card, the benefits are worth it: 200 Airpoint Dollars, 2 AMEX Lounge Passes in AUS, 2 Priority Lounge Passes, Domestic and Overseas travel insurance etc. Providing I haven't misread anything or missed something... Almost sounds too good to be true.

Our MasterCard World card provides good benefit to us - we get top level Priority Pass membership with it, worth US$400 which is more than the annual fee ignoring the various other things you get including good Airpoints benefits.

I use the PP card a lot - for example, on my recent UK trip I accessed 5 lounges at no further cost.

Of course that would not be a huge benefit to people who do little international flying.

Not sure who you are banking with but might be worth hitting them up to see if they can reduce/remove the annual fee on the higher end cards? Our ANZ Platinum Airport Visa's have no annual fee and haven't for the last 7 or so years. Considering we pay the card off in full each fortnight we get a couple of flights out of it each year for no cost.

From AMEX Ts & Cs...

200 bonus Air New Zealand Airpoints Dollars will be awarded to the eligible Card Member’s Account 8-10 weeks after the spend criteria has been met.

Why does it take 8-10 weeks just to apply 200 Airpoint Dollars to your account?!

The ANZ Platinum Cashbacks Visa isn't capped at $300 rewards like the standard cashbacks card is.  So while it's got a higher fee, if you are going to spend more than $30k through it each year, which isn't hard to do, then it might be worth discussing "upgrading".

I like it as I have no use for rewards schemes that accrue point I can't use.  You spend money as normal, at the end of the year you get some cash back in your account.  As close to "free" money as you can get really.

sonyxperiageek:

From AMEX Ts & Cs...

200 bonus Air New Zealand Airpoints Dollars will be awarded to the eligible Card Member’s Account 8-10 weeks after the spend criteria has been met.

Why does it take 8-10 weeks just to apply 200 Airpoint Dollars to your account?!

Ended up getting an AMEX Airpoints Platinum as it seemed to me I'd get the best value out of it. Why can't our credit card benefits be as good as other countries'... The American AMEX cards get you like free Uber trips, no foreign transaction fees, gets you into many many airport lounges etc etc!

sonyxperiageek:

Ended up getting an AMEX Airpoints Platinum as it seemed to me I'd get the best value out of it. Why can't our credit card benefits be as good as other countries'... The American AMEX cards get you like free Uber trips, no foreign transaction fees, gets you into many many airport lounges etc etc!

So I have found out that places that accept AMEX (such as BP) all require a signature... why can't they just be a PIN like everybody else?

sonyxperiageek:

So I have found out that places that accept AMEX (such as BP) all require a signature... why can't they just be a PIN like everybody else?