American Express Membership Rewards - Why do people get AMEX charge cards?

Why not just get a blue or clear card?

1. No annual fee. With a charge card you pay an annual fee and not only that if you do the math you have to spend 10k+ most of the time just to break even on the annual fee. With a blue and clear card you start coming out ahead with your first purchase.

2. The benefits are very similar...extended warranty, etc.

3. Dont have to worry about your imaginary "no pre-set spending limit".

4. ALL credit cards are "charge cards" if paid in full every month.

5. "No pre-set spending limit" doesn't report a limit to the credit agencies, so therefore your high balance is your credit limit and if your charge the same amount every month it will seem that your card is maxed out!

Because the Plat Amex has lots of other goodies including lounge access :)

I think the charge card & credit card effect your credit score & report differently. ;)

The reason being: I always has the charge card under my name and my husband has a few credit card under his name. Our credit history, income level & spending has been the almost the same.

I am always >50point better in credit score than him. He has more inquiry on his credit report than me. And his debt listed on the report are higher even though he paid off his statement every month and doesn't carry balance ever.

When the platinum charge card offered 4 domestic companion tickets, I got the card, used the benefit for value greater than the annual fee, and charged only the relevant plane tickets to the card (I have better-earning cards for other expenses). Now that they've cancelled the domestic companion ticket benefit, I no longer have a charge card.

Amex charge cards have a history and a certain mystique for some. Could that be a part of the attraction?

1) 25k amex points after first purchase
2) no fee the first year
3) ability to use amex rewards to top off a variety of accts
4) ability to trade amex points as trade for other travel items needed, while topping off others accts

Answer to this would probably depend on exactly which AMEX product you hold.

Centurion has a lot of benefits (airline status, hotel status, etc. etc.) plus I think some try to get it and some carry it for the "image" of plopping down a black card.

Platinum has various bennies (SPG status, 2for1 BC, lounge access, FHR, etc.) that I personally take advantage of and thus the price of the card is worth it for me. They also offer the First Collection in MR but that IMHO isn't worth much. Platinum used to be hard to get but I think AMEX pretty much approves most people that apply for it now. Image appeal has thus decreased on the Platinum card. (isn't every card a "platinum" anyway nowadays?)

Gold has some advantages but I am not too familiar with them.

Overall I think the cardholder evaluates what they want out of the card and then decides which product to get.

I know the reason that caused me to get one initially: business travel. I was in my early 20's and working my first job after college, and several times a year would have a need to travel on business. The company I worked for paid for airline tickets directly but did not issue corporate credit cards - employees were expected to pay for hotel, car rental, food, etc on their own and then get reimbursed.

Let's say you're staying at a hotel for $250/night. Hotels, at least at the time, would typically authorize the credit card presented at check-in for twice the base room rate of the intended stay, to allow for taxes, room service and other incidentals. So, a $250/night hotel for 5 nights would authorize $2500. Let's say upon check-out the total bill came to $1800 - they'd submit that, but since the dollar amount of the charge didn't exactly match that of the authorization, the bank considered it (possibly) a separate transaction, and would keep the $2500 auth outstanding for 3 weeks. So, with just the 5-day hotel stay, it used up $4300 of available credit. The same thing happened at the car rental company. A week of travel that added up to $3000 in expenses could easily require close to $10,000 of available credit on a credit card, at least for a period of time before the extra authorizations expired.

At the time, I also carried a credit card balance, so adding business travel was really pushing it for me, and I ran into difficulties. That's why I got a charge card: all of the travel-related problems went away. The card is specifically designed for that sort of situation, and the "no pre-assigned spending limit" that they'd give you would be several times what you could get from a credit card, such that you'd never run into problems with hitting your limit because of the way travel providers authorize the charges. I know other people that got charge cards for exactly the same reason.

Speaking as far as Amex plat, premium benefits, premium service, options to pay now or pay over time (effectively makes it a charge card and a credit card)...

Those a few of my reasons. It's a night and day difference in quality of benefits and quality of service against competing non-Amex cards, IMO. If you use the benefits they greatly outweigh the annual fee.

It's sort of the difference between a 3 star hotel and a 4 or 5 star hotel. They both give you a room to sleep in, but Amex is just a nicer place to be all around.

All the talk about people getting financial reviews lately is concerning me, I would be crestfallen if my Amex got restricted. My entire life is run on my Amex plat.

My entire life is run on my Amex plat.
Mine used to be too but I found that other AMEX products like the SPG and HH cards offered better returns per $1 charged. Don't get me wrong I still carry a Platinum card and use the benefits it offers but I definitely do not charge nearly as much to it as I did in the past. I personally am not a huge fan of the MR program having followed its continued devaluation over the years.

I think the charge card & credit card effect your credit score & report differently. ;)


I believe this is true as well. Charge cards and credit cards are shown as different types of accounts on your credit report

I use my Amex Platinum mainly for the benefits it has to offer. However as above posters have mentioned, I also not using it as much for purchases. There are other Amex products that provide a more then 1% return on your purchase, like SPG and Hilton

- Lounge Access
- Can get a card billed in USD for the UK
- Can't get any other card in the UK since I just moved there recently
- No other card would let me charge a high xxx,xxx amount a month
- MR transfer to VS
- Good support (compared to other cards)

Mine used to be too but I found that other AMEX products like the SPG and HH cards offered better returns per $1 charged. Don't get me wrong I still carry a Platinum card and use the benefits it offers but I definitely do not charge nearly as much to it as I did in the past. I personally am not a huge fan of the MR program having followed its continued devaluation over the years.

An excellent point about the SPG card, and clearly true. The only thing I ever use MR points for is a parlay into an FFP, and I like having some flexibility there in my airline selection (granted their partner list is a little light.) I still feel like there's value in MR to FFP transfers. The SPG transfers with their generous bonuses would prove a large benefit in that case, and SPG also transfers directly to AA, which would be great.

However, the SPG card is a credit card as opposed to a charge card, and is missing a substantial amount of benefits that the Platinum card has (shown in part here (http://www201.americanexpress.com/getthecard/compare-cards/popular-cards)). I use these benefits frequently, so they have value to me. That keeps me on the Plat.

Sometimes I still don't get the difference between a charge card and a credit card, but for me, paying an annual fee is well worth it. The Platinum Card has far better protection benefits than any other card they offer (excluding Centurion), and things like the Fine Hotels and Resorts, Lounge Access, Concierge, and just the customer service I've had with Amex Plat has been terrific. I happily pay $450 a year (I look at it as roughly $40 a month) for this card. And frankly, even if they raised the fee another $100, even without the Domestic Companion benefits, I'd still keep the card.

In the latter half of 2008, I stayed at 5 FHR properties, each stay was at a lower rate through Amex Plat than I could find anywhere else online (including hotel's site and Expedia, etc.), and I received either $100 food credit or $100 massage credit. Right there the card has paid for itself. Plus the luxury of being able to use the airport lounges and deal with their friendly staff as opposed to standing in line for hours at the check-in counter made traveling a treat.

I feel like it's worth it for the lounge access and SPG status. I carry a platinum, blue and a backup Visa.

The lounge access was especially crucial when a plane I was on couldn't take off due to a mechanical problem. The line at the gate for people to rebook to a different flight was 100+ people deep. My wife and I strolled to the lounge, walked right up to the attendent and got booked on the next available flight. As an added bonus, the attendent bumped us up to first class.

Taste and see that Centurion is good.

Club access covers the cost of the card alone
SP Gold
Charge vs Credit
No limt - never been delcined - (note: on high limit purchases, i.e. US Bonds when you could, called ahead and had notation made that transaction was coming)
Was $10,000 in TC every 30 days w/no fees or cash advance + MR for trans - now $5,000 every 30 days
MR points are highly liquid