American Express Membership Rewards - Membership Rewards: Loosing at the hands of the Forex market

I've had a Gold Credit Card for some time now and have recently received a Platinum Charge Card here in the UK though a 'loyalty' mail shot.

I have just started my own business and to be honest, I know I won't be using the benefits of the card much, if at all this year.

So, because of my lower spending, but with the fee of the card (£275 here in the UK), it makes you take the 'rewards' of the card more seriously, as I know a lot of you frequent flyers on here of course do.

Which brings me to the point of the membership rewards. I've noticed that people in the US will get a much better deal, but I need your help to prove me right or wrong.

For every £1 spent, you get 1 membership reward, which I assume is the same in the US?

Now, take for example spending your reward points on Delta SkyMiles. Do you get 1 SkyMile for every membership reward point? (and the same for Virgin, etc.)

That would mean if you spent $50,000, you would get 50,000 membership rewards. But if I spent the equivalent of $50,000 over time, I would get aprox. 35,000 points, making the US customer 15,000 points better off, even when I pay the same, if not more on the fee.

With a potential lifetime of spending ahead on the card, this would be quite a rip-off to put it mildly.

Can anyone in the US prove me right or wrong? Any comments welcome.

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by bitelion:
Which brings me to the point of the membership rewards. I've noticed that people in the US will get a much better deal, but I need your help to prove me right or wrong.

For every £1 spent, you get 1 membership reward, which I assume is the same in the US?

Now, take for example spending your reward points on Delta SkyMiles. Do you get 1 SkyMile for every membership reward point? (and the same for Virgin, etc.)
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As I understand it, most of the MR redemption ratios are such that the US members have to redeem about 1.5x as many MRs per mile as we in the UK. I certainly believe this to be true for Delta, but I've not done a detailed comparison.

Its a point that has been debated before - UK customer normally come soff worse as such.

For example, last year I needed to have 100,000 Starwood Points for a couple of flights. To get to this level I needed 200,000 UK MR points which obvioulsy meant £200k of spend. Where in the US, they have their SPG card which dishes out a 1.5SPG point per $, which meant only $66k spend was required. Huge difference.

Not all the points ratios are multiplied to 1.5x to take this into conisderation, I seem to recall that Canada got an even better deal.

Thanks,
Richard

Well, that's not strictly a fair comparison - after all, these are different products that you're comparing. Not disputing that UK people get a worse deal on a lot of this stuff, but last time I checked I didn't feel I was getting ripped off THAT badly with MR redemption ratios vs. US.

Incidentally, did you get a quote in MRs for your flights; and if so, just how many did they want? :-)

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by RichardMannion:
. . .Where in the US, they have their SPG card which dishes out a 1.5SPG point per $, which meant only $66k spend was required. Huge difference.</font>

Incorrect. The SPG AMEX only earns you 1 Starpoint per $1 spent. You would earn more Starpoints if the charges were for a stay at a Starwood hotel, but you would earn the same number of points with any method of purchase. (That number would vary depending upon your Starwood elite status, if any -- not the card you're using.)

The Delta SkyMiles AMEX sometimes provides double points for a limited number of purchases such as groceries, gas, phone bill charges, post office charges -- not much. They've also also offered double points on Saturday purchases for a limited time and a couple of promotions like that, but for the most part it is 1:1 with this card as well.

When we got treated like this we rebelled. We had the Boston Tea Party!!!

I think Australia probably has the best deal - 1 MR Point for each AUD (about 2.5 to the pound). From memory, most of the airline transfers were 1 to 1

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by AZ Travels the World:
Incorrect. The SPG AMEX only earns you 1 Starpoint per $1 spent. You would earn more Starpoints if the charges were for a stay at a Starwood hotel, but you would earn the same number of points with any method of purchase. (That number would vary depending upon your Starwood elite status, if any -- not the card you're using.)

The Delta SkyMiles AMEX sometimes provides double points for a limited number of purchases such as groceries, gas, phone bill charges, post office charges -- not much. They've also also offered double points on Saturday purchases for a limited time and a couple of promotions like that, but for the most part it is 1:1 with this card as well.</font>

Yes sorry my mistake, but even at $100k, thats still about a third of £200k!

Thanks,
Richard

Thanks for the info. I think I might change my Credit Card over to the BA card (free for plat customers) - keep the plat charge for the benifits and spend on the BA card for the miles!

[This message has been edited by bitelion (edited 05-28-2003).]