American Express Membership Rewards - Have you used the AMEX Car Buying Program?

Just received an email today with details of Car Buying Program from AMEX. See here: car buying program (http://amexnetwork.zag.com/main.html?referrer_id=ZAMXAEM0001&om_rid=Nskv5$&om_mid=_BNBFgiB8Vm66Cm&om_lid=axp2)

Has anyone used it? I assume it's comparable to Costco's program. IOW, not too useful.

You may use your card for part of the purchase.

The program is run by ZAG. It's not as useful as their program with USAA. It's just as easy to negotiate on your own. As said above, it's not much of a benefit.

It was always my assumption that the ZAG program was kind of the same whether you went through USAA or AMEX or whichever flavor. I may be totally off base, and haven't looked closely at other version of ZAG besides USAA.

I have used the USAA version, and I was really impressed. I got about 18% off of sticker on a Ford Edge Limited w/ NAV. Yes, you can do similarly negotiating by yourself. But, I like spending as little time in the dealership as possible. I think that I was in and out in about 2 hours.

Oh yeah, "great" deals. Look at this one ;)

Reminds me of the classic line..."I'm selling it to my best customers for $21844. But for you, $26355"

Here's the link, although its lifetime is of course limited....https://amexnetwork.secure.zag.com/used-car-detail.html?pricingType=UsedCar&dealerId=8401&vin=1J4GA39179L753040&dealerState=CA&linkFrom=

Actually, the new car prices don't look that bad. I don't mind haggling over price, though, and I'd probably use the prices on this site as a negotiating tool / reason to leave the showroom.



http://mrreed.com/personal/car.jpg

I used the program in March and came in $800 below invoice on a Mazda. I also checked Edmunds and the price quoted through AmEx was actually quite good, so I went with it. Three dealers phoned me and I actually mentioned to one of them (my local dealer) that one of their competitors (72 miles away) had a lower price, so they matched it. It was a very painless process.

One of my colleagues is after a Prius. He has been negotiating with dealers for several weeks and I gave him the AmEx link on Monday. AmEx was $1,200 below what he was able to negotiate on his own.

I've tried Costco and others, but AmEx seemed to work the west for me (with minimal hassles).

hahahah
I just found a used '09 ford focus for $114000

Hmm, no Lambos or Ferraris listed; guess it's of limited use...:p

Anyone have any updated experience with buying a car through the Amex car purchase plan?


Bobette

[Moderator edit] I used the program over a year ago, I personally found it a worthwhile way to shorten the negotiating process and felt I got a pretty good deal. YMMV, as your end result likely depends on the dealers who you are referred to.

Whether you use the program directly with a dealer participating in the program or indirectly without identifying the dealer, I've found this part of the program useful. There's an analogy to Priceline where you get some information about the seller but don't necessarily get all of the information early in the process. In 2009, I used this service to research cars within a 200-mile radius of my home in Virginia. I saw a number of options, including several dealers clearly within the Baltimore area. I didn't attempt to set up anything through Amex; I just realized that the lowest price in Baltimore was several thousands less than in my home area. It was worth the effort to go to Baltimore and negotiate with the dealer I suspected was the dealer in the Amex program.

When the time to start talking dollars arrived, I just pulled the sheet from my folder and said, "I don't know if this is your dealership. But I do know that I can get this price by hitting the Send button and getting American Express to identify the dealership. If this isn't the dealership, it probably doesn't make any difference to you, except that if you can't match the price, I'll be walking out of here, knowing that I've narrowed the list of remaining dealerships that will offer this price. And if I've picked the right dealership, I've just saved you the percentage you'll have to pay American Express for sending my business your way."

I got the price within 10 minutes. Could I have done better? I'm sure I could have saved several hundred dollars more. But could I have had an easier purchase? No, because I'm sure I had the right dealership in hand, and they knew I was right. They would have lost several hundred on the sale if I'd actually asked Amex to identify the dealership I could have negotiated with, in turn forcing the dealership to pay Amex a "finder's fee."

The caveat: I negotiated in June 2009, just before the Cash for Clunkers program was formally announced. I figured that once the general public knew that many could get thousands for their worthless trade-ins, the dealers would simply up their prices by the amounts of the anticipated rebates. And since the dealer I used had a website with their published, discount prices, I was able to check several weeks later, after the Clunkers program was announced, to see that the price for the car I had bought had risen by $2000.

lwildernorva, thanks for the helpful post.

Another angle at inventing the wheel.. Hopefully it saves time, and less hassle.

Problem is, in order to know that's the vehicle you want, you need to visit a local dealer to do a test drive.. so may waste a salesman's time, and you end up buying online.

I actually used the Amex program to my advantage a couple of years ago when I bought my last new car. Since the program worked, and maybe still does work a bit like Priceline (a general search for unidentified dealers within a certain distance from the zip code you enter), I went online and searched for all dealers within a 200-mile radius from my home. One dealer in particular had a very low price for the car I wanted, and I figured out from the mileage that it was probably a dealer in the Baltimore-DC area. I then reentered a search, using a Baltimore zip code, and what appeared to be the same dealer went from being 180 miles away to 10 miles away.

Taking a shot on the specific dealer, I didn't enter the program to identify the specific dealer (and bind myself and the dealer to the program) but just went to the dealer in the Baltimore area during a weekend visit with some friends there. When it came to doing the deal, I gave the salesman the sheet I had printed from the Amex site with the price for the car with all of the options I wanted.

I told him, "I don't know if this is your dealership. If it isn't and you can't do the deal, I'll just click on the button on the Amex site when I get home and get in contact with that dealership. But if it is your dealership, then you know I can ask to put at least $5000 of my purchase price on my Amex Plat card (a requirement for a dealer to participate in the program, at least at that time) and I've gotta assume you're also paying Amex some kind of finder's fee. I'll split that amount right now with your dealership; here's my price."

A couple of minutes later, I had the car at my price. Could I have gotten the car for less? Maybe, but the price I paid was probably $5000 less than I would have paid if I had visited a dealer nearer my home. Well worth the money.

I think the car buying program is a great information source, but there's a lot of truth to the idea that you'll save money on the car by using it for that purpose only and by paying by traditional means.

Right now.. in the market for a brand new Sienna..

We've got the Amex Aeroplat card.. Is there anyway to run an entire Toyota Purchase through Amex? Any sources?

Got cash down.. so we can pay for the entire vehicle when the bill becomes due..

I guess I'll look into the Amex vehicle program..

Right now.. in the market for a brand new Sienna..

We've got the Amex Aeroplat card.. Is there anyway to run an entire Toyota Purchase through Amex? Any sources?

Got cash down.. so we can pay for the entire vehicle when the bill becomes due..

I guess I'll look into the Amex vehicle program..

Since I've learned that Amex seems to offer different benefits with a similar card in different countries, I won't guarantee that Aeroplat includes this benefit, but I found it through the US Amex site by clicking on the "Rewards" heading on the main page and then selecting "Shopping Discounts" under "Card Rewards and Benefits."

This information was included on my page: "All participating program dealers will allow you to put at least a portion of your vehicle purchase on any American Express Card. Vehicle purchases are not required to be charged in full to an American Express Card." I thought I remembered a guarantee that a dealer would allow at least $5000 on the card when I looked at the program in 2009, but I'm not certain about that. This language would indicate that a dealer could allow any amount, no matter how low, and still participate in the program.

We purchased our car in Feb using AMEX purchase program.

We actually submitted the request and got 3 dealership names and their subsequent emails /phone calls.

The closest and most convenient dealership actually had the best price.

They initially stuck to the price quoted thru AMEX but we told them they could do better else we walked. The "internet" sales manager did not do much dance but let us sit for over an hour by ourselves. However the dealership has very comfortable waiting area equipped with fancy coffee machines, a reasonably-priced restaurant food counter (actually cooked to order foods but not a restaurant) and 2 internet terminals, plus magazines/newspapers. So the wait was OK as we were occupied in comfortable environment. :)

The manager eventually came out and we showed him a local map marked with other dealerships who had newspaper ads in the past 2 weeks, told him if he did not agree with our price we would walk.

He then wrote a "take it or leave it" out the door price which was a few hundreds BETTER than what we asked on our scrap paper but refused to write it on his biz card (for fear we took it elsewhere). Since the price was better than we hoped for by a couple hundreds so we accepted it.

However at the "finance office" the woman preparing the sales contract produced a contract that the final total was several hundreds higher and I caught it. She made a internal phone call and then told us the manager "forgot" to mention not to add a certain line item but now it was all taken care of and it was indeed the price we were told by him, not the price she had it on the contract...

All in all, it was a time-consuming event because 90 minutes were wasted in waiting but there was no hard negotiation that one usually had to go through when buying a car.

We were able to put $5K on the SPG card as that was the maximum the dealer was willing to take. The rest was paid by cash.

There was another customer also bought his car using AMEX program on the same day and paid $5K on his AMEX card. The finance lady almost got our receipts mixed up!

Quick question.. any Canadians take advantage of this program.. or is it strictly a US based program?

if you review the early posts you will see that this program is not operated ny American Express. I suggest you look at zag.com to see if there is a Canadian version.

zag operates the same program for AAA in US. The sole reason we went for AMEX instead of AAA is AMEX program guarantees an amount be put on an AMEX card - it is up to the down payment or the maximum amount allowed by the car dealership versus in the past it was up to 100% of the purchase price. AAA program does not have this guarantee. Dealership may have resistance on using credit card as part of the payment if not using a program that guarantees such "benefits". In fact everyone at the dealership kept saying that how great their 1.9% financing was, why we would use our credit card... blah blah blah... despite we repeatedly told them we could pay 100% in cash but the card earned us points...

Zag may offer this service to CAA members. I would suggest OP check with CAA.

zag operates the same program for AAA in US. The sole reason we went for AMEX instead of AAA is AMEX program guarantees an amount be put on an AMEX card - it is up to the down payment or the maximum amount allowed by the car dealership versus in the past it was up to 100% of the purchase price. AAA program does not have this guarantee. Dealership may have resistance on using credit card as part of the payment if not using a program that guarantees such "benefits". In fact everyone at the dealership kept saying that how great their 1.9% financing was, why we would use our credit card... blah blah blah... despite we repeatedly told them we could pay 100% in cash but the card earned us points...

Zag may offer this service to CAA members. I would suggest OP check with CAA.

I'm a CAA member as well..

I'm more interested in running an entire vehicle purchase on cc..

Anybody know any Toyota Dealerships that may be willing to do that.. I can negotiate pretty good otherwise..

I'm a CAA member as well..

I'm more interested in running an entire vehicle purchase on cc..

Anybody know any Toyota Dealerships that may be willing to do that.. I can negotiate pretty good otherwise..

I believe your chance is very slim to put 100% on your CC unless you are willing to "pay" for that privilege.

You can negotiate pretty good to get the final price but good luck to get the delership sell at this price by charging your CC. At the end you may be politely asked to leave, or simply be told to leave as you are no longer welcome to do business with them...

There is no free lunch in the business world as they say. It is plain common sense - you cannot have it all to your benefit, the dealership needs to make a profit as well...

Of course if we slip into a 2nd recession like the one during 2008-2009, you would have a shot at it then.

I believe your chance is very slim to put 100% on your CC unless you are willing to "pay" for that privilege.

You can negotiate pretty good to get the final price but good luck to get the delership sell at this price by charging your CC. At the end you may be politely asked to leave, or simply be told to leave as you are no longer welcome to do business with them...

There is no free lunch in the business world as they say. It is plain common sense - you cannot have it all to your benefit, the dealership needs to make a profit as well...

Of course if we slip into a 2nd recession like the one during 2008-2009, you would have a shot at it then.

I know its a bit of a long shot.. but it wouldn't be the first time I've run $10K+, $20 K+, $30K+ of one shot spending through my cc's..

For landscaping I purchased 300 tonnes of rundle boulders, step stones, finishing rundle for my landscaping for the tune of $100K+.. all on cc direct from the quarry.. retail amount of boulders and rock was $250K.. if I was to buy from Burnco..

My window coverings were $67K.. I grinded the national coordinator of Direct Buy for window coverings down to $32K tax in.. and at the last moment I said run it on my cc.. he refused.. and finally relented.. purchased the whole shot of Hunter Douglas 4" Silhouette Alustra Bronze for 50+ windows on cc.. btw ask any Direct Buy member and they will tell you its very rare to run anything through credit card when dealing with them..

so a $30K Toyota minivan.. even though I was in the car business for 8 years.. knowing all of the used vehicle managers, and many new car managers.. when I operated Motor World, Calgary's Exclusive Dealer Magazine.. before selling the company.. I'm holding out some hope somebody wants to make a sale..