10 Reasons Why We Love Amex Frequent Flyer Credit Cards!

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At Flight Hacks it’s no secret we love our American Express Credit Cards for a number of good reasons. This article will give you some insight into why we think owning an American Express Credit Card is the best option for serious points collectors.

10 Reasons Amex Offers The Best Frequent Flyer Credit Cards

Strong Points Earn – American Express Credit Cards have some of the strongest Points earn rates in market. Our American Express Qantas Ultimate and American Express Velocity Platinum earns us up to 2.5 Qantas or Velocity Points per $1 spent. That’s more than double of what you can get on a bank issued Visa or Mastercard. Our favourite card, the Amex Platinum Edge earns a whopping 3 frequent flyer points per dollar spend at the supermarket and therefore is a must in anyone’s wallet. The Amex Explorer on the other hand earn a sold 2 points per dollar spend so it’s our go-to everyday Amex.
Points earn protection – American Express Credit Cards that are issued by American Express and not your Bank (i.e. Westpac, ANZ) are not subject to the interchange regulation which came into effect on July 1th. This means that you will continue to earn strong Points on your spend.
True to their word – When you sign up for an American Express Credit Card and you want to take advantage of their bonus offers, the Points appear in your account straight away when you’ve met the spend criteria. Some other Banks take up to 6 months to credit your account and we’ve even had to call them up multiple times to remind them. Their customer service team is also one of the best out there.
Promotions – American Express Credit Cards offer their customers some really great promotions. Our favourite is Shop Small, where you get $10 statement credit when you spend over $20 at thousands of participating merchants. This is a really great campaign to help support local communities and you also get a nice reward for yourself. This is where supplementary cards come in handy since you can register the deal across multiple cards for some great savings.
Free Flights or Travel Credit – American Express Credit Cards come with some amazing benefits. The American Express Qantas Ultimate and American Express Velocity Platinum Cards come with a free return economy flight on Qantas or Velocity in Australia. We generally “gift” 😉 these flights to our friends for a small donation which is great value for East to West routes or at peak travel times. Travel credits are more flexible and can be used for hotel bookings as well.
Product offering – American Express Credit Cards also have some great additional product benefits such as comprehensive travel insurances, mobile phone screen insurance and other great benefits.
Offers – With the American Express App, you’re delivered personalised offers tailored to your spend behaviour. We have used some great offers including discounts at Harvey Norman ($100 credit when spending $300 or more) and many others. All these offers pop up in your online account and can be used across multiple cards including supplementary cards.
Acceptance – Historically, it can be said that it’s been difficult to find places that accept American Express. The business has been heavily focused on increasing its acceptance footprint and is now accepted in most locations including supermarkets, restaurants, online merchants and overseas. We rarely have to use our Visa Credit Card to make a purchase. This maximises your points earn! Further, merchants are starting not to charge a differential surcharge for using an American Express over another type of Credit Card. Amex only recently announced it was looking to double the amount of Australian merchants on its network by slashing the fees.
Apple Pay/Android Pay – Other than ANZ and a few others, American Express is the only Credit Card provider that enables you to use Apple and Android Pay. We use it all the time on our Phone and Macbook Pro with touch ID. It’s great technology, particularly when you’re out for a run or forget your wallet at home! We love it!
The Online Account & App – We love the American Express online account and App. It’s simple, intuitive and gives you immediate spend alert notifications which is great. The online account gives you a clear overview of your spend, points balance and outstanding balance. Unlike some other credit cards Amex doesn’t try to hide these details to trick you into debt, it clearly says what the full amount is and due date. The App also provides live transaction spend data and Points earn. You can see your Points balance grow right in front of your eyes.

So there you have it. We love our American Express products. Sure, some of them are a little more expensive due to a higher annual fee but when you consider the value of a free return domestic flight per year, stronger points earn and free airline lounge passes you can’t deny the value and the total benefits always offset the cost of the fee. This is very clear with the Explorer and Edge for example where the Travel credit is $5 more than the annual fee, this means you’re technically paying zero because let’s face it, everyone spends more than $400 or $200 on travel each year!

American Express have some really great offers on at the moment.