Miles8

Have to agree with Psychiatrist and Cardiology that the Amex deal ($4=1 mile) is the best in town. I use to put all my spending on the Starwood Amex card but no more. The Starwood program however has a lot more airlines in the program.

cardiology

I disagree with Christep:
Why not you apply for a DBS Platinum (free annual fee) and also the same $4 for 1 mile for oversea charges AND 2 months interest free payment!
They only charge you once for every mileage conversion (I think is $150). Much better than paying the $900 annual fee.
Note: I have just cancelled my CX Citibank VISA green card. I use my AMEX most of the time and the DBS or AMEX for overseas charges.



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Cathay Marco Polo Gold, Hilton Gold VIP, Hyatt Gold Passport, Hertz Gold, PP Gold, AMEX Centurion

tedhl

agree...and, the best thing is, with DBS Platinum you get $4 = 1 mile for spending in mainland China as well (CX-Citibank doesn't consider mainland China as part of "overseas spending" in terms of giving double miles). Sometimes the merchant / mainland banks would charge DBS in HKD instead and 3x points won't post automatically - if that's the case, you just need to fax your original charge slip to DBS to show that you were charged RMB originally and they will give you the 3x points.

and, I think DBS Plat comes with Priority Pass too, and CX-Citibank doesn't. I think it's completely free for the first year, and for the 2nd year onward you need to spend a certain amount each month to maintain this benefit (otherwise you need to pay the per-visit fee).

christep

I wasn't actually trying to address the question "which is the best card for miles in HK". I was answering the narrower question "is a Citibank CX Platinum card worth the annual fee, compared to other Citibank CX cards".

But I've just looked at the DBS card, and unless I am misunderstanding something, it is only 1AM/HK$12 of expenditure in HK and 1MA/HK$4 for overseas expenditure. The Citi CX Platinum is 1AM/HK$8 in HK, so again, the cost per extra mile on the CX Platinum card comes below US$0.01 at annual expenditure of about HK$290K in HK.

I still think the CX Platinum card makes more sense for me if I am happy to buy AsiaMiles at US$0.01 each.

Very roughly, I spend about HK$400,000 per year in HK on my credit card, and about HK$120,000 overseas. On my Citi CX Platinum this gets me about 80,000 AsiaMiles, which cost me HK$900.

As I understand the DBS card I would get 63,333 AsiaMiles, so I am in effect paying about 0.7 US cents for the extra 16,667 AsiaMiles, which I believe is a good price.

I'd be happy if anyone can show me how to get a better miles/$ return overall with that spend pattern.

[This message has been edited by christep (edited Mar 23, 2004).]

tedhl

if you don't mind carrying two credit cards with you, you can apply for an AmEx card and pay HKD 240, move HKD 312,000 of your HK spending to this AmEx card, and earn roughly 40,000 more miles...(and of course there's a charge to convert AmEx points to Asia Miles too, maybe HKD 200 max I think)...so for ~HKD 400 you get ~40,000 extra miles...roughly HKD 0.1 per mile...

and when you apply now, you get annual fee waiver + 100,000 bonus points (=8333 Asia Miles) for the Gold card...

actually one thing I haven't tried/clarified...can I have both an AmEx charge card and an AmEx credit card, and pay HKD 240 on each, so that I have a combined limit of HKD 624,000 for 3x points?