Doesn't Amex card trumps cards like ICICI Apay or Axis Flipkart

Keeping the accuracy of all your math aside, I have been struggling to find acceptance for Amex cards in general. Many online and offline merchants don’t accept Amex and reaching spend targets is such a pain.

I get the point.

But there are many other things to consider.

1, Annual charges for these cards

2, Acceptance (as above comment pointed many times I face embarrassing situation of not Acceptance, as well as some good smiles for AMEX card)

3, If you need to buy something in 3-4K range or above you cannot split the bill to 1500 or 1000 as you calculated.

4, Adding from Credit cards to wallet has been a pain from many days and this will continue. + Add acceptance on top of it

your are under mining all your efforts to keep the track of amex transactions per month. this is unnecessary burden where as amazon/fk are pretty much simple : whenever you use you will get the cb.

wackophant wrote:

I get the point.

But there are many other things to consider.

1, Annual charges for these cards

2, Acceptance (as above comment pointed many times I face embarrassing situation of not Acceptance, as well as some good smiles for AMEX card)

3, If you need to buy something in 3-4K range or above you cannot split the bill to 1500 or 1000 as you calculated.

4, Adding from Credit cards to wallet has been a pain from many days and this will continue. + Add acceptance on top of it

2nd point ✨

What is the charges paid for gold card?? And is the MRCC complimentary with gold card??

Since you hold both card and combined spend of ₹1.2L giving you annual fees waiver? I mean 1.2L is easily achieved using 2 cards 1.5*4*12*2(cards) = ₹144000.

What's the fee for Amex Gold? I dont think? 1000 for first year, and 4950 from second year. @sobirvs How are you able to nullify fees and at what annual spends ?

Manitian wrote:
What's the fee for Amex Gold? I dont think? 1000 for first year, and 4950 from second year. @sobirvs How are you able to nullify fees and at what annual spends ?

+1

1. If you spend Rs.1500*4 times *12 months, it will be 72,000 which is not enough to waive off your annual charges.
2. The moment you increase your spending beyond 6000 per month, the cashback percentage will go down for u.
3. Most importantly, as another dimer mentioned, you can not make every transaction to be Rs. 1500.

I believe, It can only be beneficial if you make remaining 78k spends as artificial spend in order to avoid renewal charges. 

Manitian wrote:
What's the fee for Amex Gold? I dont think? 1000 for first year, and 4950 from second year. @sobirvs How are you able to nullify fees and at what annual spends ?

MRCC is free with Gold. So fee is applicable only and only for GOLD. 

2nd I hold gold card from last 4 yrs. Never have I ever paid fees for it. 

Usually CS will give you few options, let me list it for you. If you spending less, then - 

* They will tell you they can nullify the fees if you let them take fees from the points u gathered which I never opt for. 
* They will give you a specific target (50k or 30k or 70k) to spend more within few months and they will void the fees - I have gone for this if I have some big trxn to make.
* Lastly, classic begging. I did this last year, told them i can't afford the fees. I want to cancel my card, they gave me tons of options but I didn't opt for any, hence they finally said alright we will NIL the fees for you.

veteran-hunter wrote:
1. If you spend Rs.1500*4 times *12 months, it will be 72,000 which is not enough to waive off your annual charges.
2. The moment you increase your spending beyond 6000 per month, the cashback percentage will go down for u.
3. Most importantly, as another dimer mentioned, you can not make every transaction to be Rs. 1500.

I believe, It can only be beneficial if you make remaining 78k spends as artificial spend in order to avoid renewal charges. 

From PayTM , in multiple acc's, u can spend 3k(1k each) + 3k(1.5k each) in wallet loading. I load wallet in paytm via zomato for this. So 72k is easily repaid via paytm wallet itself which allows CC payments thru wallet. 

Manitian wrote:
What's the fee for Amex Gold? I dont think? 1000 for first year, and 4950 from second year. @sobirvs How are you able to nullify fees and at what annual spends ?

see my above post, I have clarified what works for me.

akki.akki wrote:
your are under mining all your efforts to keep the track of amex transactions per month. this is unnecessary burden where as amazon/fk are pretty much simple : whenever you use you will get the cb.

burden for a day or 2 honestly. 

raghupro wrote:

Keeping the accuracy of all your math aside, I have been struggling to find acceptance for Amex cards in general. Many online and offline merchants don’t accept Amex and reaching spend targets is such a pain.

My spending usually is on amazon/fk/myntra/swiggy/zomato/blinkit. Offline spending is only in case of fuel and some misc. My spending is 90% online. 

wackophant wrote:

I get the point.

But there are many other things to consider.

1, Annual charges for these cards

2, Acceptance (as above comment pointed many times I face embarrassing situation of not Acceptance, as well as some good smiles for AMEX card)

3, If you need to buy something in 3-4K range or above you cannot split the bill to 1500 or 1000 as you calculated.

4, Adding from Credit cards to wallet has been a pain from many days and this will continue. + Add acceptance on top of it

1. Clarified on above post.

2. Acceptance - honestly I make this in a way that it's not embarrassing for me but for the merchant who doesn't accept Amex. 

3. True but 4k on gold and 3k on MRCC can easily be reached via paytm wallet and paid via paytm wallet to amex back. So I have only 2k(1k each gold) and 3k(1.5k each on mrcc) to worry about. 

4. True, but I am doing this since I own MRCC frm 6 yrs and Gold frm 4 yrs. 

Also, if I am not wrong, Amex Gold card has no fee waiver/reversal policy irrespective of spends.

MRCC reverses 100% fee upon reaching a spend target of Rs. 150000 in previous year.

raghupro wrote:

Also, if I am not wrong, Amex Gold card has no fee waiver/reversal policy irrespective of spends.

MRCC reverses 100% fee upon reaching a spend target of Rs. 150000 in previous year.

MRCC is free with Gold combined. Gold has no policy, it's usually internally approved. Usually they waive it off if you press them. They do give target spend option too.

Guys the most important thing here is. 

Apay/FK gives you 5% in select retailers online. 

Amex gives you 7% anywhere and everywhere , where-ever it is accepted.

sobirvs wrote:

Guys the most important thing here is. 

Apay/FK gives you 5% in select retailers online. 

Amex gives you 7% anywhere and everywhere , where-ever it is accepted.

7% with lot of Ifs and buts and u waste time also
Paytm+zomato is very unreliable, worked just one time for me, the end
offline Amex is no merchants simply deny saying it won't work
online there are always easy discount or CB offers so Amex is not a priority/beneficial
-my exp

Amex MRCC 1.5k * 4, needs no spends if you have a supplementary amex card. Easy via PayTM and paying CC bills. There are other ways too which doesn't need spending, but I won't advise them as it might get questioned.

You can anyways get this 4-5K points without any effort.

So now if you remove this 6k spend & point valuation aside, how can one get 5% on amazon/ FK. One will need Apay or FK axis or SBI CB card.

I for one, would use apay / fk axis card and be happy .

Seinfeld wrote:

Amex MRCC 1.5k * 4, needs no spends if you have a supplementary amex card. Easy via PayTM and paying CC bills. There are other ways too which doesn't need spending, but I won't advise them as it might get questioned.

You can anyways get this 4-5K points without any effort.

So now if you remove this 6k spend & point valuation aside, how can one get 5% on amazon/ FK. One will need Apay or FK axis or SBI CB card.

What you mean if you have supplimentary cards? Paytm paying cc bill ?

sobirvs wrote:

Guys the most important thing here is. 

Apay/FK gives you 5% in select retailers online. 

Amex gives you 7% anywhere and everywhere , where-ever it is accepted.

It's not 7% everywhere. Its 7% if you only use Amex to spend min required for bonus points and then don't use it till next month. The bigger the amount you spend on Amex over the min required for bonus points the smaller the reward percentage goes. I have mmrc and I just use it for 1500x4 as after that the reward return drops. I'll rather use my other cards for any other spends to reach their milestone benefits which will give me greater overall return.

Manitian wrote:
What you mean if you have supplimentary cards? Paytm paying cc bill ?

PayTM lets you add 4K max per month per cc via zomato/ Uber . If you use 2 cc in 2 PayTM accounts you can do 4*1.5k txn on primary and supplementary Amex cc. Say me and my spouse can do this in our accounts.

The same amount in PayTM wallet can be used to pay off any credit card bill. This helps by not taking the money in our bank accounts.

SnippierJoker wrote:
It's not 7% everywhere. Its 7% if you only use Amex to spend min required for bonus points and then don't use it till next month. The bigger the amount you spend on Amex over the min required for bonus points the smaller the reward percentage goes. I have mmrc and I just use it for 1500x4 as after that the reward return drops. I'll rather use my other cards for any other spends to reach their milestone benefits which will give me greater overall return.

Overall return is more with Amex cards where they are accepted. If there's a website, payment gateway, or card swipe machines where amex are accepted, then amex gives 7% if we go by "Overall" spending. Other card gives 5%. 

I use amex even after 1000 or 1500x4. Because u might get less points now but with milestone, overall number comes more than apay/fk

sobirvs wrote:
Overall return is more with Amex cards where they are accepted. If there's a website, payment gateway, or card swipe machines where amex are accepted, then amex gives 7% if we go by "Overall" spending. Other card gives 5%. 

I use amex even after 1000 or 1500x4. Because u might get less points now but with milestone, overall number comes more than apay/fk

Even if you spend 20k/month and hit both 4x1500 and 20k spend milestone in amex mmrc every month then the total point you get in a year is 28320 point for 2.4L which with 24k gold collection value for amazon voucher comes up to be only Rs 10478 (28320 * 0.37) which is a great 4.6% return.

BUT only if you exactly hit the milestone, if not then the returns are even less.

For 15k spend a month including 4x1500 you get 15,240 point for 1.8L spend which equates to only 3.1% return..

So just saying that 'Oh we get 7% on amex everywhere' is just misleading.

There needs to be a lot of effort that needs to be put be if to achieve that magical 7% you talk about in Amex.

Few month back I purchased a laptop offline worth 1.8L if I had used my Amex I would have gotten 3600+1000 points worth 1702Rs which is a pathetic 0.95% return.

Apay would be 1800 cashback and FK would be 2700. Both better deal then Amex.

I am not saying Amex is bad, but 7% cashback is not realistic on normal everyday regular spends.

you are spending 1 lakh of INR on amex a year to make 7%

while people using az and fk cards spend Lakhs in a day

Try doing this in amex and calculate the reward ratio 

SnippierJoker wrote:

Even if you spend 20k/month and hit both 4x1500 and 20k spend milestone in amex mmrc every month then the total point you get in a year is 28320 point for 2.4L which with 24k gold collection value for amazon voucher comes up to be only Rs 10478 (28320 * 0.37) which is a great 4.6% return.

BUT only if you exactly hit the milestone, if not then the returns are even less.

For 15k spend a month including 4x1500 you get 15,240 point for 1.8L spend which equates to only 3.1% return..

So just saying that 'Oh we get 7% on amex everywhere' is just misleading.

There needs to be a lot of effort that needs to be put be if to achieve that magical 7% you talk about in Amex.

Few month back I purchased a laptop offline worth 1.8L if I had used my Amex I would have gotten 3600+1000 points worth 1702Rs which is a pathetic 0.95% return.

Apay would be 1800 cashback and FK would be 2700. Both better deal then Amex.

I am not saying Amex is bad, but 7% cashback is not realistic on normal everyday regular spends.

umm, The example I gave you was for Gold charge card + mrcc(free with gold cg).

so in a year, it will be 6kx2(2 cards) = 12k/month and 12k*12 = 1.44L. 

So points would be 24000+2800(spending 1.44L)  = 26800 i.e 24carat = 9k+2800/4 = 700 (i suggest wait for next milestone but for temp basis i am doing this). 

sp i.e 9700. 

now 9700 in a year on spending of 1.44L i.e 6.7%. isn't that great? Again, we can use the extra 2800 for next milestone rather than straight away redeeming divided via 4. 

So it comes 7% only. 

and remember btw spending 20k+ in a month gives u extra 1k point if I remember feature of Gold card. 

plus remember, amex time to time 2-3 times a year gives schemes where they say spend x amount this much on email and u get more and more points or cashback.