Gioventu

Thanks for your quick reply Goliath!

When do you mainly use the German one and when the Swiss ones? What is your experience here?

Would it make sense to get the Amex Gold as well?

goliath

Amex Gold, yes. It's free for SEN and you get more miles per CHF compared to the Amex Silver.

You can also get the Corner cards (Visa and Diners) for free as SEN, even if only to get the sign-up bonus.

I use:
DKB card for purchases in EUR within the EU,

Swisscard Amex / Corner Diners for purchases in CHF (both generate 1 mile/CHF, the Diners has an annual spend bonus as well and allows 5 lounge visits/year after some spend) and

Corner Visa Gold for purchases in all other currencies (only 0.5 miles/CHF, but better exchange rates).

Gioventu

Thanks for info.

I actually meant the „normal“ Amex Gold in order to generate Rewards points and not the Amex from MM...

Does it make sense to have this one as well next to all others you just described?

GVA

Also worth noting that as a Swiss resident you can easily obtain a French Amex. The only requirement is to have a French domiciled bank account and have said French bank confirm your address to Amex (which was the trickiest part for me as my banker is lazy and took 3 months to reply to Amex, despite me calling at least 1-2x per week).

Once you've had that Amex for 3+ months you can apply for a global transfer to other more lucrative countries who issue Amex cards with high sign-up bonuses and many with no foreign transaction fees. This is something you can't do with the Swiss issued Amex as they are not directly issued by Amex but AECS (Swiss JV between Amex and Credit Suisse).

goliath

I don't have any personal experience with the regular Amex, but the transfer ratio to M&M is quite bad (except for the one-off 1:1 promo just a couple of days ago). I don't know much about transfer to other FFPs from Amex Reward points.

GVA

The platinum amex is back down to 50k sign-up bonus and half year fee. Still some value to be had but obviously not as much as when it was at 100k.

Concerto

I still have the invitation offering me 15,000 more MRs if I apply, therefore making 115,000 points. Maybe I should get on and see if it's still valid. Wonder how long it will be good for.

GVA

Cornercard have a 20k SUB on the BA mastercard/diners duo and annual fee of 220 instead of 440.

Weirdly enough no mention of excluding people who had a card in the last 6 months or having to keep the card for 13 months like on the M&M cards.

Concerto

There was a recent promotion for the conversion of UBS KeyClub points to miles, part of a black Friday thing I think. The deal was that 20 KeyClub points could be converted to 1,500 miles, making it a 30% bonus (rather than 50%). Anyone other than me do this? How long does it take for the miles to post?

I always have expiring KeyClub points and always struggle to find a decent redemption. In the past I have used them for rail vouchers, book tokens, a hiking book, preloaded cards for COOP and MIGROS, and an assortment of teas from Teemondo.

flyasia

since a french address is needed in France to open a bank account, how do you go around that?

GVA

There's no legal obligation to have a French address to open a bank account. It's mainly down to the policy of the individual bank. BNP, HSBC, SG amongst others open accounts for foreigners or non residents or foreign residents.

I haven't verified personally, but was told by one member that if you fill out a paper application form Amex France will accept a EU based Sepa bank account. Probably worth calling them to check this last point out (and it might be problematic once they ask your bank to verify your foreign address).

Concerto

I have an account at the French post office, La Poste, a bank I can only recommend. It has been very good over the years. However, it is a Livret A rather than a current account. Could I use that as an account with which to open a credit card in France? (Thinking of the AF AMEX at the moment)

GVA

I don't think a Livret A would work. Amex in France is very different to Switzerland (or any other country for that matter). The cards debit from your account automatically on a certain date, so your account always needs to have sufficient funds on it. You could always call them up and ask.

LoungeLizzard

The latest example of poor customer service from AECS: I got a credit from Swiss for an un-used service, which went to the original form of payment, which is an AMEX card from Swisscard / AECS which I had cancelled because I was fed up with them.

AECS sent a statement to my bank account and advised a balance in my favour.
So I thought it was fine, and waited for the payment to arrive in my bank account.
Nothing happened.

Since AECS appears to live in stone age and ignores at least my electronic communication, I eventually called them up - waited 17 minutes on hold, only to be told that they need a written request by regular mail, or they won't do anything.
Adding a bit of "I can't change the rule" bureaucracy and it was enough to remind me why I don't want to do business with that company.


Of course I don't expect to be treated like a king when I've terminated my contract with them - but the part of the customer service and the poor way to deal with anything that does not go according to standard procedure will affect everyone, regardless of the issue one might have, and it just seems that they enjoy to annoy their customers as much as possible.

airoli

For reference, I had the exact same issue (refund to credit card no longer in use) with Cornercard a few months ago. And the process was exactly the same as LoungeLizzard describes. Phone call, then written request with my account details for them to transfer the balance owned.