Dieuwer

Lucky you.

knopfler

Don't forget that BA is also a UR partner, and that UA also recently had a devaluation. MR works better for some, UR works better for others. I like to have both.

mia

No, but if you shop at Whole Foods Markets you can buy their gift cards at some office supply stores where Chase Ink awards 5 points per dollar. I typically check-out with a stack of $50 giftcards, and put the balance on American Express Everyday.

dakid23

SPG needs to cut the foreign transaction fee ��

trouble747

Man I'm really not optimizing my ink card (I typically don't do the MS thing except for meeting minimums but I always forget about GCs).

mia

Buying merchant gift cards isn't really Manufactured Spending, if you are redeeming the giftcards for goods or services. I think of it as Category Shifting, which even my 87 year old mother figured out on her own. In this example we are converting a supermarket purchase into an office supply purchase. (I also buy Whole Foods giftcards from Amazon, earning five points per dollar with a Citi Forward card, but that card is no longer offered.)

flyaxa

I think diversification is the key here. Amex BGR is the only card I know of that offers bonus for the shipping category. With my wife's card and mine, we will max out the bonus. Given a FedEx spend of 200K we'll get 600K MRs and an OPEN savings of $2,000. I'm not sure there is another card that can touch that. Having said that, however, the FedEx spend is the only thing we really put on the BGR. Everything else goes on CSP or Ink...unless we're on a new-card bonus spend.

With a family of five we easily spend $1000/month at the grocery store. We could probably maximize that spend too, but there is only so far my wife will go in this game. "Use this card for gas and office supplies, this card for restaurants and travel....this card for groceries" etc. Not to mention, I'm sticking a new card in her wallet every other month to hit a bonus spend. "Use this one on any of the non-bonus categories...until I take it away and replace it with a new one..."

trouble747

Oh that's what I mean, I don't have my mind on the GCs so I forget about the non-MS ways to utilize the Ink card!

Exterous

Great - thanks for posting that! I had no idea that was an option. Looks like a lot of the hotels from FHR show up there as well - or at least the ones in DC i just looked at. They had 6 of the same hotels between the two programs and only 1 varied on price (The Hay Adams was $50 less on FHR) and I believe they all offer the same benefits between the two programs.

Chase's website is far far better than the FHR page with its clunky, slow interface and lack of pricing information

Edit: Looking at some more cities the $100 credit is not the near automatic that it is with FHR but there is more variety in price ranges

I'll be honest - it has started bugging me that with the disparity in annual fees I am still unable to get a human answering the phone instead of a phone tree with Amex

robertw477

Where do you think Jamie Dimon and the Chase executives are? Im sure a higher floor than the AMEX guys because generally speaking they are the most arrogant company in the financial world.

KRSW

$6k = ~$115/week, which isn't all that much these days with inflation. That said, for many people on this forum who find themselves on the road vs. at home, $6k in groceries would be unattainable without some serious alcohol consumption, if their state allows buying booze from a grocery store.

The 30 transaction deal seems like a raw deal, both for Amex and cardholders. Amex is loathed by many retailers for its higher transaction fees and they won't be happy when you've got Mr. Amex Customer trying to pay for a $5 item with an Amex. Or wanting to do multiple $5 transactions. Similarly, some people may very well not be buying/spending every day, especially those who aren't traveling.

Keep in mind that this thread is talking about BIG spenders, not the peons like myself (high 5-figure / low 6-figures spent a year). So really, we should be focused on the traditional Amex products, like Plat.

I'm curious to see how Amex and Costco are going to handle the orphans from their fallout. I've liked the Costco Amex thus far...but we'll see what Amex and Costco come up with for replacement products. If Amex decides to throw a $50-100 annual fee on the card, I can see many people jumping ship. Hell, here I've been tonight reading through FT to see what to possibly replace my Costco Amex with.

eajusa

Since I don't have a Chase Ink card with which to buy grocery store GC, I don't want rotating categories. As a result, I prefer 6% off groceries 12 months a year. Perhaps I could obtain the Ink Card by lowering some CL on my other Chase cards.

BOA has yet to produce a single compelling travel card, unless you fly Alaska.

Haven't we beaten this topic to death here on FT ?

mia

OR Virgin Atlantic.

jalm1

I was some what concerned about the 30 transactions when the card came out. I spent some time looking at my transaction history to see how plausible it would be and thought i would really have to watch the transaction count. In practice for me, hitting the 30x a month has been never been an issue, and i have not found myself trying to find ways to generate more transactions. YMMV.

EDP has become my go-to card for everything non-bonus (e.g., not: travel, dining, chase 5x cats, and other vendor specific). Before this card i had shifted nearly all my spend away from amex, as i always felt like i was wasting spend with the few changes that i wanted to put on the plat (for insurance, FHR, etc.). Now not so much, between the 50% bonus on EDP, 2x promos (e.g., Uber), and small business spend bonus AMEX MR now has a large share of my spend. Now, if only more places in Seattle took AMEX.

Dieuwer

Admiddedly, 6% off is pretty good is you spend $$$ on groceries.


I do