GUWonder

With the use of things like ApplePay/SamsungPay/GooglePlay and lots of online payment facilities, isn't it easy enough to switch between Amex cards for charges (to maximize return/benefits of card use) without physically carrying all the cards? Or does the use of those kind of phone pay tools invalidate some of the benefits that the card user gets from using a given Amex card account?

If Amex were to sort of do what you want, I would expect that they would hike the fees of all the cards even more than it needs for revenue growth management -- as there is also the concern of income/earnings growth management and the risk involved with being in the kind of position that Chase found itself in with the CSR being more expensive initially than it may have expected.

FT

If you read the ToS, AMEX indicates that it has the right to not award bonus points if you use something like Apple Pay rather than contactless. This isn't happening right now in my experience, but I recall reading AMEX reserves that right down the line.

FT

I have 5 AMEX MR cards. While I'd love to be able to carry one and reap the aggregate multipliers on my spend, I highly doubt AMEX will do this. This isn't even offered on the Centurion let along Cent-lite

GUWonder

Maybe Amex will come up with a specialized card that chooses which sub-card should be used for a given kind of expenditure among its portfolio of cards and charges a monthly or annual subscription fee to do that. For someone who is paying $1000+/year in card annual fees, maybe paying Amex $10-$20/month for such a card feature would fly for all interested in customer laziness?

Gasolin

Maybe not one single card that offers all, but could they at least offer a "technical" card, or allow for example the Platinum card to be "inked" to the other cards, even though you pay all the other cards?
I would like that idea.

PHLondoner

The 2 Cents i've met were similar - racking up crazy business spends on ad buys but ultimately had less personal purchasing power than I did. It's weird. I mean, how mass market is the Cent card? Can't they vet folks better - personally review applications to curate a clientele that's best for their brand?

I'm a member of a social club in PHL similar to Soho House called the Fitler Club. There's the whole waitlist/application/interview/invite only process to join - but they really made an effort to bring together a group of people from varied backgrounds - creative leaders, heads of agencies, tv personalities, radio hosts, social media influencers, minority business owners. Not just Bob Lawyer and Steve Banker. It cultivates a far more creative class/ interesting vibe than the suit class provides - and that's by design.

Why can't Amex do something similar? Review applications personally and choose black card types from varied backgrounds? Instead of some algorhythm green-lighting Bobby Business b/c he racked up $8mm in ad buys on his Platinum - even though his actual spending power is less than someone earning $200k a year. Even if the process took months to review - doesn't seem that hard.

FT

Agree... similar to an a la carte model where you choose your rewards and the yearly fee is dynamic based on your choices. Wishful thinking perhaps.

PHLondoner

In an a la carte model how much is the $120dining credit or the $200 Uber credit worth in terms of AF?

GUWonder

Of three of the few from recent year holders whom I know, they are substantially plugged into the music, sports and other arts/entertainment scene and are more of the cross-sector/cross-industry type than easily pigeon-holed by any measure. But their spending habits to qualify were just large and of the sort I noted earlier. They all are renewing the cards with the higher Centurion fees. Not sure why exactly, but they are.


An annual fee which Amex would want to pad for its risk of having all such customers fully utilizing the benefits selected a la carte?

steveholt

Just throwing a plausible mid-luxury tier card out there:

AMEX RESERVE ($2500/yr)
$1000 travel credit (a credit similar to the CSR as opposed to the current Plat airline credit)
$300 Uber credit ($25 per month)
$200 annual dining credit
$300 annual Saks credit (or insert other department store here)
Complimentary CLEAR access
$550 airport lounge credit (so no SkyClub-specific access built in, but the ability to purchase a club membership for DL, AA, UA)
Annual Travel Insurance
DL Gold, Marriott Platinum status
5x MR points on travel, 3x points on everyday spend (would probably require bumping up the Centurion to 3x spend too, which I'm surprised hasn't happened)

Plus the usual Precheck/Global Entry waiver, etc

jags86

I guarantee you those friends of yours are wealthy by any and all standards. Upper middle class doesn’t start at the top 1% or 0.5% of income earners. About $400k yearly income puts you in the top 1% of income earners in the United States.

I will give you thought that there is quite a gulf between top 1% and top 0.1%.

jags86

Ha good luck.

phant0m

Lol that's better than the Black Card.

steveholt

I suspect they'll probably need to bump up the benefits of the Black Card while introducing the mid-tier card.

GUWonder

My bet is that most individual Americans making $400k-500k per year are highly unlikely to swallow the idea of spending $1500-2500/year of post-tax income on bank card annual fees absent some ridiculously lucrative (and expensive for Amex) benefits that are extremely easy to use to offset most of the card fee expenses. Even people with high incomes aren’t necessarily able and willing to easily waste money on card fees, as savings/wealth accumulation and housing payments and even school payments matter too.