Gold is 125-175/year…Platinum is 450/year. If you USE the perks that come along with platinum it can be worth it. the Black is only offered if you have a couple consecutive years on the platinum spending $250k+/year then youre INVITED by a special package in the mail…theres no applying for approval…its $5000 initial and 2500/year and you have to maintain the $250k i believe. youd REALLY have to abuse their concierge services in order to get your money worth…its more of a prestige thing just to “have it.” Platinum would do just fine.
I personally make OK money but i dont think enough to justify $450/year for plat, it doesnt make sense to me …im more interested in gold and if i can get the 125 worth with booking flights/car rentals for work…work will obviously reimburse me the travel fees but will i get enough rewards worth over $125? The standard AmEx perks even for a green card are good though. you get all sorts of buyer protection and roadside assistance…
***Another perk most dont know is AmEx give you a courtesy extended warranty on a lot of products…if you buy an apple computer with it (or any electronic) and get the standard one year service and dont opt for apple care youre still covered for 5 years BY amex. amazing.
KC
We have the Southwest Chase card, charge pretty much everything, make a payment every-other week to keep it at a 0 balance. Earns a shitload of points to make it easier to come back to visit family. I think in the 2 months we’ve had the card we have something like 4k or 5k points already. Used to be a debit card person, then figured we could offset some of the cost of flying home by doing nothing except what we already were.
For the SW card, it’s a $99 yearly fee for the one we have, but the caveat is that with that yearly fee you “get” 6000 points, which equates to $100 in “wanna get away” airfare. So essentially they’re making you “spend” $99 a year to buy airfare. But to get the most out of it, you have to spend a lot of $$ on the card. We have our Internet, Direct TV, Car Ins, Renters Ins, Cell Phone all auto billing, and we pay our daycare charges with it; that alone is about $1100/mo (1100 points); plus whatever we spend on gas, food, clothes, etc. To get the most out of the rewards cards you have to use the hell out of them, and keep them paid off.
yea, you do have to use them a lot…but again…i’m talking charge cards, not credit…you CANT keep a balance on a charge, you MUST pay in full each month.
I use an AMEX Platinum and Gold. I charge everything to it so i can document my spending at end of year. It’s not technically a credit card, but a charge card and is paid off every month. I pay $450/yr to use it but its worth it with the travel perks, seat upgrades, airline lounges, concierge service, and rewards points. I have virtually no spending limit at this point. I have put as much as $160,000 on my card in a single month with no issues, technically another perk.
As far as rewards, I just racked up 1,000,000 points this past statement and will using my points for an all expense paid 2 week vacation to Bora Bora this year with an over the water bungalow suite. Sweet.
Penfed CC =
5% gas
3% all grocery stores
(both perks are unlimited and not promotional)
chase freedom =
pretty much everything else
1% (and a 10% bonus on points because I have a checking account with them also)
also has decent bonus categories quarterly.
I’ve gotten thousands of dollars worth of rewards and airline miles from credit cards in the past 2 years and never paid an annual fee. There are offers on Slickdeals.net all the time with first year annual fee waived and typically $250-1000 worth of rewards. I have 50,000 miles or more on AA, United, Continental, Delta, USAir, and Southwest plus all the cash and gift cards I’ve gotten. Currently using the Capital One Venture card with 2% cashback for every day purchases, PenFed for the 5% on gas, and Discover for any online purchases that I can use ShopDiscover and get 10% or more off.
I use the chase sapphire preferred credit card everywhere I can, two points on airfare/hotel/food. I mainly got it for the signup bonus though, 50k pts after spending $3k in 3 months, and the $99 annual fee is waived for the first month. Also no foreign transaction fees, which will be a plus for an upcoming trip to Thailand.
I also signed up for the chase southwest card for the signup bonus, another 50k. Only made one purchase with that, to get the 50k.
There are other cards I will be signing up for in a few months to get sign up bonuses again, there are two websites that are pretty informative for this type of thing…