IncyWincy

Thank you, Percy and Psychiatrist!

Is this entitlement to purchase new or has ir always been there? I am asking cos I converted bundles of SC pts to miles over the past few years and would have bought had I known!

So good to know now as as I will from now on. Thanks again.

CanucksHKG

Haven't had the chance to do some serious calculations yet...

But while it seems to be a great deal to buy 1 AM each for $0.12.....
wouldn't it almost work out to be almost the same? (if not worse)

Cause the first 50% have to be earned through 1 AM per $15 spent....while ones like HSBC are only as low as $2.78...

Psychiatrist

I forgot when this came out - perhaps a little more than a year ago? I remember posting about this back then. I just did a quick search and percysmith posted on this thread back in March 2012.

Psychiatrist

For the SC Amex, the rate is local spending HK$7.50 for 1 AM and overseas spending (and CX Holidays) HK$2.50 for 1 AM.

The ability to buy miles basically means I get 2 AM for every HK$2.50 spent overseas (and paying HK$0.12 out of my own pocket). I find myself doing a 99,000 AM conversion (with 50% being purchased) every 2 months or so.

theworld

Hi

OK, so at present for foreign spending I use SCB AE (HK$2.5 per 1AM) or Fubon Visa (HK$3 per 1AM). Both AE and Fubon attract the respective AE / Visa forex charge + an additional c.2% charge from SCB / Fubon. However, you do get quite a lot of AM.

I'm looking at the Public Bank visa card: http://www.publicbank.com.hk/en/retail/card#2263, which waives their own charge (you are still charged the 1% visa forex charge) and you top of that you can get a 0.5% - 0.6% cashback.

Now is it better to get the AM or save on the various foreign fee charges?

I should add the vast majority of my normal spending is just in HK, and foreign spend makes up a very small portion of my total spend.

percysmith

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Re theworld

What you are asking is where it is worthwhile to trade approx 1% bank fee + 0.6% cash rebate for $2.5/mile

Working with $100 overseas transaction:

Public bank: $1.6 cash back (not considering the progressive 0.5 and 0.55% rebate rates)
SCB AE: 40AM (not considering the $300 fee)

So you're essentially "buying" 40AM with $1.6
Therefore each AM = $0.04

I suppose most of us have miles valuations higher than that. Give public bank a miss.

Psychiatrist

For me, I redeem AM on RTW tickets in F or J. This means I often get at least a 30-40%, if not 50% rebate on every dollar I spend on my card as overseas spending.

My calculations:
- RTW in F sells for around HK$130,000 which I can redeem for 190,000 AM.
- 190,000 AM means I only need to charge 95,000 AM worth to my SC Amex, which equates to HK$237,500 of overseas spending (and paying HK$11,400 for the top-up)
- 130,000 / 237,500 = 54.7% "rebate"

[This calculation could be flawed in many ways - the actual cost of a RTW may not be accurate and may be cheaper ex-TPE/KUL etc, you may need more than 190,000 AM depending on your distance travelled, and I did not include the cost of buying the miles.]

Of course, everybody's spending and redeeming pattern varies. But for me, with the huge rebate I don't really care how much the credit card company charges on foreign curency conversion.

percysmith

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/singa...il-2013-a.html

Kaka pls remove *** reference in V.v DBS Black entry in post #1 above.
Amex, Citibank, Standard Chartered and BoC (the SQ card) continue to earn KF Miles here.

CanucksHKG

Ah, I see. I didn't notice that as I thought its just 1AM per $15 spent.
Too bad the Amex isn't offered anymore...

yms901

$130,000 for 190,000 Asiamiles RTW F redemption is very attractive!!
I couldn't imagine it worths this much!

percysmith

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Last 3 days to get 154RC (2,310AM) per $1,000 mannings coupons purchased with HSBC card. Just bought a handful of 50s for truly self use.

percysmith

Started sending scary letters and phone calls http://www.hongkongcard.com/forum/fo...p?id=8690&p=44
http://www.hongkongcard.com/forum/fo...p?id=8690&p=45 449#, 450#

Shacom did not accuse us of money-laundering, but informing us of a bank "expectation" that cardholders do not run transactions in excess of their credit limit in any month. Seems like a rather clumsy attempt to shut us down to me.

toplayer

Their head of Credit Card promotions must have been chewed out by the board. They made 2 mistakes on a commercial level - firstly having this promotion without the proper analysis and secondly not taking the proper remedial measure (imposing a cap rather than cutting off new applications) when things got out of hand with market response. I wonder how much they lost on this and what this would mean for future promotions going forward.

nanirina

oh! Didn't realize that I could purchase coupons.... so the $50 coupons are like gift cards that you can use on any purchase right? damn should have done that before.

percysmith

nanirina - yes, except you can't get change in cash or coupon
(you can use a coupon (or coupons) for a purchase less than coupon worth, allow Mannings to earn shrinkage)