I had this in the past also.  Yep, no catch,  I think if you sign up or 2 or 3yrs if you are a prev amex card holder you get that $50 free airpoints promo if you spend $500 or so in the first few months if that is still running.  I prefer the platinum cards due to the free travel insurance.  For what it is, pretty good.  Not tried with tap and go.  Amex card have a diff way to pay, you do a paymen to their Rabobank account with part of your card number as a reference.  So you don't have an app on the phone and pay from transaction account to your amex.  

All the major the banks have Amex as an official payee so I wouldn't recommend manually inputting any bank account numbers. Just look up American Express and enter the details Amex requires (which the bank will specify). Easy peasy and is much the same as paying credit cards issued by another bank.

This is what Amex says .. 

So my card arrived.. I've tried it in a few places and had mixed results... I can certainly see why they aren't too popular here in NZ, the experience is all over the place.

One place doesn't ask for a PIN or an account, it just immediately says "please sign"

One asked me to swipe my card instead of inserting the chip.

One asked for my pin and chip (as expected)

One allowed me to select credit and type my pin in, then said "not supported"

Not supported for Z FastLane, they only support MasterCard and Visa...

I might look into getting a different credit card before I leave the country. I have a gemvisa I've been paying for and not using, so I might just put that towards a decent Visa backed card.

Edit: fortunately I did have car insurance to pay for, so met the $750 in three months criteria pretty much immediately for the complimentary A$50.

Been a few years now.  I didn't really use wireless payment.  I think I tried it once or twice but it didn't work.  Yes, I certainly couldn't use them everywhere.  I don't go shopping or cafe hopping lots so I am not the best person to answer that but yeah my local (non chainstore) dentist didn't support amex.  Supermarkets did, petrol stations inside did.  Paypal etc .. does.  Even KFC drive thru did with the pin number.  AMP insurance does not.  I was with Snap before 2Degrees and they were also OK with Amex.  Genesis Energy cannot remember.  

In the past many banks did offer Amex like BNZ, Westpac etc .. but I think they pretty much all now only do Visa or MC.  Now it is directly off Amex themselves.  

Kiwibank offers a Master Card Zero.  No fees per year, but no points either.  I've found the Gold cards or Plat cards worth it due to the insurance and if you spend $10k a year you get back your annual fee back so you gain none and you lose none.  

Aaroona:

 

One place doesn't ask for a PIN or an account, it just immediately says "please sign"

 

One asked me to swipe my card instead of inserting the chip.

Doesn't match my general recent experience with Amex domestically at various merchants. Interestingly, both of what you describe have happened to me in the past with MC/V cards (both domestically but especially internationally where I always seemed to have to sign sometimes even after inputting a PIN).

Wonder if it might be because you have a new card. When I first got my Kiwibank Mastercard I did a paywave transaction at Countdown which I was required to sign for (which was only for about $30-odd) but worked fine afterwards.

One allowed me to select credit and type my pin in, then said "not supported"

This is typical for NZ EFTPOS terminals. Does that too when the merchant doesn't accept MC/V/etc. Rather annoying because it seems to process the transaction and just as you pray it shows ACCEPTED it fails with some cryptic error message (which seems to vary—most common I've seen is CARD TYPE ERROR). Some terminals seem to be programmed to block the card/account types it doesn't support but doesn't seem to be a common feature.

YMMV I guess. It's not a card for everyone.

I have this card as well, I like to think of it as getting 1% cash back (1APD = 1NZD, 1APD per $100 spent), and you just force yourself to put that money into savings for travel. The no fee is pretty sweet so I don't worry about not getting any value out of it if I use another card for a stretch of time. 

You'll eventually build a mental list of which stores accept it and what ones don't, and get used to saying "Do you take amex?" because apparently, decals at the register indicating what cards a store will take are a thing of the past. 

I thought I'd post a bit of an update.

I've had this card now for a few months, even took it with me to Europe as a backup (which actually came in handy.. more on that another day). I've found the acceptance of Amex to not as bad as I had expected, but still annoying when some retailers or shops don't process. 
My main issues have been with MadMex in Auckland and Z Fastlane and smaller shops.

Madmex support Amex in their Fort Street store, but doesn't appear their Popup store, Albany or Sylvia park stores support it, even though the Amex website says they (MadMex as a whole) do.

Z support Amex if you pay for fuel in store, but if you are one of the luckier people like me near a branch with Fastlane, you can pay via app-- unless you have Amex. They only accept Visa and Mastercard through their payment processor. Z were not too great with their response when asked about whether they would support Amex.

A lot of little stores, particularly convenience stores, stalls, take away shops, etc. don't support Amex and I found myself swapping back to another card when this occurred. 

I will definitely keep it, particularly because the annual fee is $0 - but I have now signed up for a platinum visa through a bank, mainly because the first year of fees was free, the $250 cash back and $1 cash back per $90 spend- ever so slightly better than the Amex rate $1/$100.

Once my credit card starts charging me fees again, I will move back to the Amex as my main credit card and run the risk of losing rewards on my smaller transactions. With the amount of money I spend on my card yearly, It's not worth paying $90+ fees each year, which is really where the Amex wins out IMO.

I had this card.  I spend it on anything like petrol and supermarket and stuff got my $50APD and then I didn't use it much, often I had it for couple of months, didn't put 1 transaction thru it.  No fees at all.  They then also don't issue you statements.  

I have always paid inside the petrol stations BP I think.  Supermarkets.  Snap/2Degrees home broadband in the past also, I had the BNZ Amex GlobalPlus before this and they were fine also.  I have used it in McDonalds and KFC but I never got wireless to work.  

AMP, and my local dentist didn't support AMEX. 

Edit

Either way, I always have a backup card.  When I had the BNZ GP AMEX, I had the Kiwibank Mastercard Zero - no fees per year.  

I have the Platinum Edge and find that the $149 a year is not bad considering the travel insurance, phone screen replacement, free flight, Amex restaurant month and other perks.

It is a little annoying that my dentist doesn't accept it.

For those on the platinum edge card some advise I ready, and have used is to buy gift cards for Mitre10 etc. from the supermarket (3 x points) then use them and get your air points from Mitre10.

I have also been looking at the rewards to use points on and it seems the gift cards for Harvey Norman etc. get the best return 160 points per $1

sbiddle:

You can't expect a lot from an entry level free card in NZ. The credit card market is simply nowhere near as good as somewhere like Australia.

I have one of these cards which I got a few years ago as an emergency card for travel, the earn is actually pretty good for a free card but you don't earn status points with the free card, only the Platinum card.

 

Batman:

sbiddle:

 

You can't expect a lot from an entry level free card in NZ. The credit card market is simply nowhere near as good as somewhere like Australia.

 

 

 

I have one of these cards which I got a few years ago as an emergency card for travel, the earn is actually pretty good for a free card but you don't earn status points with the free card, only the Platinum card.

 

 

 

 

 

When i was in Australia, cards had a 0.1% earn rate. NZ cards have a 1% earn rate.

That's because interchange rates have been slashed in Australia. That should be happening in NZ, but the new government still hasn't released the report into interchange that is now over a year late.

In general though the Australian market is still vastly more competitive than NZ, with far greater benefits - I'm not just meaning earn rates, I'm meaning extra perks as well such as hotel status that aren't typically on offer in NZ.