I like to hedge my bets. I took up the AX Platinum CC and I have had nothing but good experiences with them. They rang me a few weeks after I received the card to make sure all was happy, told them my credit limit was not high enough and they doubled it right then and there. I have called them a few times and never had an indian call centre, the staff have always been super helpful and willing to do anything they can to accomodate any request I have. The $395 fee is totally offset by the free MEL-PER flight i'm going to get out of it every year, and most of the big places (bar Ikea!) take AX with no or minimal surcharge. I'm happy to pay up to 1% for it cause it's not adding a huge amount to the price, and the 1.5 points per dollar is good.

I have the Citibank VC for all else. All in all, the Citibank service is shocking. Same card fee, less benefits and lots of Indian call centres. I'm probably going to ditch it in favour of the Gold card.

Drew