AMEX Corporate Platinum card

[lovepoints]

Hi to all

I am a Newbie to this forum

I am considering signing up for the Corporate Platinum card (via my company) and would appreciate tips on what I may get away with when negotiating the card

I envisage I will spend around 500K to 700K per year on travel, ATO payments general suppliers (where the surcharge is less than 1%)

My personal cards (9 of them) give me 200K limit on and I cap out a lot on some of them

I do hold a CBA Diamond AMEX but with only a 40K limit

I prefer flying singapore airlines

I am not fixated on AMEX as I read some negative comments

so any other corporate card suggests would be appreciated

I love my points

regards

Point Man

 

[wafliron]

More info needed, please:

- Do you actually need a true "business" card for some reason, as opposed to using personal cards (in your name) for business purposes?

- How much of that $500k - $700k is on travel, what sub-set of that amount is directly with airlines, and with which airlines?

- How much of that $500k - $700k is chargeable to Amex with 1% of less surcharge? Or were you saying $500k-$700k is the amount which meets this criteria? I'm not 100% clear. If it was the latter, approx how much additional spend per annum do you have (which go onto Visa or Mastercards)?

- Do you only want SQ points? If not, what other airlines and approx what ratio?

- I note you said you have 9 personal cards with a $200k - what is your priority, max limit or max SQ point earn?

Sorry for the 20 (well, 5) questions, but it's hard to give the best answer without this additional info. Also, please note, so you don't fall into this trap: Amex Plat (business or personal), and all other Amex-issued cards which earn Membership Rewards points, are not good for ATO payments - the surcharge is 1.45% and you only earn 0.5pts per $1.

All of that asked/said, as a starting point, you can probably consolidate your plethora of cards down to just a couple, assuming the banks involved give you sufficient limits for your purposes:

- Amex Plat (either personal or business) for travel spend, at 2pts per $1 for the first couple of hundred thousand per year. This card will be useful if you want big limits too, as you can work the "soft limit" up to $187k over the course of a couple of months (higher is possible, but requires them deep-diving into your financial situation).
- Westpac Altitude Platinum Plus for 1.5 SQ points per $1 spent (or 1.5 MH/CX/VA points, if you ever desire them) on all non-travel Amex spend.
- Citibank Select for 1.33 SQ points per $1 spent on all non-Amex spend.

On top of that, you may be best to supplement / swap-out a few of those with a couple of other cards, but it will depend upon your specific spend patterns - hence the questions above.

 

[lovepoints]

Thanks Wafliron

our Auditor and some other shareholders would prefer the company to operate with a corporate card (even though they know I personally love the points)

Having one single card certainly has advantages to my book keepers

The single cards whilst a pain have saved us money especially for example the Jetstar card saving on fees when flying Jetstar and 5 staff all fly to Melbourne for the day.

of the 500 to 700 annual spend 150K is travel and that is booked 50% via third party websites like Orbitz or hipmunk or cheaptickets and balance via US airlines at present 20% of all my spend is on AMEX (CBA Diamond) of which as it is linked with my master card with a 40K monthly limit so it always maxes out (and I am in a holding cycle waiting for the next letter off CBA for an increase)

I hold substantial points with both QF and Sing my preference is always maximum points earn not maximum card limit

I have so far not seen any material that states Amex Corporate Business allocates 2 points

For me its all about maximum points without my company incurring any additional credit card fees to obtain the points I am hoping to achieve 700K to 1 million points build up each year,.

You mentioned the Citibank card... used to have one of them in the days when you could have your picture on the card... my picture faded so fast (so did the card)

Appreciate the tips.. sounds like you have been there before

 

[wafliron]

Thanks Wafliron

No probs.

our Auditor and some other shareholders would prefer the company to operate with a corporate card (even though they know I personally love the points)

Having one single card certainly has advantages to my book keepers

As I mentioned in my previous post, if you can go down the personal card route you should be able to consolidate your 9 current cards down to just a couple - maybe you can use that as leverage to try and convince the auditor and other shareholders to let you keep using personal cards? i.e. "sell" the simplicity?

of the 500 to 700 annual spend 150K is travel and that is booked 50% via third party websites like Orbitz or hipmunk or cheaptickets and balance via US airlines at present 20% of all my spend is on AMEX (CBA Diamond) of which as it is linked with my master card with a 40K monthly limit so it always maxes out (and I am in a holding cycle waiting for the next letter off CBA for an increase)

Thanks. I'm going to assume there was meant to be a full stop between the "...via US airlines" and "at present 20%..." - as in, overall, 20% of your $500k-$700k per annum is on Amex, the rest on Visa/Master. Let me know if that's wrong.

I have so far not seen any material that states Amex Corporate Business allocates 2 points

Sorry, you are correct: I was getting confused with the personal card, which awards 2 points per $1 for travel spend.

For me its all about maximum points without my company incurring any additional credit card fees to obtain the points

You could use this as another "selling point" on them continuing to let you use personal cards? i.e. that way you pay the fees, not the company?

Appreciate the tips.. sounds like you have been there before

To some extent, yes


OK, all that aside, here's what I'd recommend. I'll give you two sets of recommendations, depending on whether you end up having to go down the true corporate card route or not.

First, if you can only go down the corporate card route:
- Amex Platinum Business Charge Card. Use for any "restaurants, airlines, accommodation, spend in foreign currency, advertising, couriers and computer equipment", where you will earn 2 points per $1 for the first 375k points earned per annum, and for any other category of Amex spend after you've maxed out the bonus points on the Business Accelerator card (see below). Do not use for any "utilities, insurance providers and government" as these only earn 0.5pts per $1.
- Amex Business Accelerator Credit Card. Earns 2 Membership Rewards points per $1 for the first $50k of spend per annum. Do not use for any "utilities, insurance providers and government" as these only earn 0.5pts per $1.
- NAB Qantas Business Card (Mastercard). Earns 0.75 QFF pts per $1 spent, uncapped. Use for any non-Amexable spend, and also Amex-able spend that shouldn't go on the above two Amex cards (e.g. "utilities, insurance providers and government").

That's about the best I can recommend for true corporate cards - I don't know the options here nearly as well as personal cards, but I think the above is the best combo you will find. It's a pretty cough combo compared to the personal card combo below, mainly because of no "good" corporate Visa/Mastercard option (to the best of my knowledge) - unfortunately there just aren't many good "proper" business cards in Australia.


Second, if it turns out that you can go down the personal card route:
- Amex Platinum Charge Card or Amex Platinum Business Charge Card -1-to-3 Membership Rewards points per $1 spent, depending upon card and category of spend. As per above, do not use for any "utilities, insurance providers and government" as these only earn 0.5pts per $1 - and/or -
- Westpac Altitude Platinum Plus (Amex - comes with a Mastercard or Visa as well, but don't ever use that) - 1.5 SQ points per $1 spent everywhere (or 1.5 MH/CX/VA points, if you ever desire them).

The reason for the three and/or possibilities here is that it's a YMMV situation - you will need to look at the bonus categories for each of the two Amex cards and consider how much of your spend falls into them, and then make a decision on which one of these three cards (or perhaps two of these three cards) stacks up best for you, also taking into account annual fees. I do suspect you may be best off just going for the Westpac Altitude Platinum Plus though.

- Citibank Select (Visa) - 1.33 SQ points per $1 spent, for us where you can't use an Amex.
- If you want some QF points (or want more QF points, if you go for one of the Amexes above), any of the 1 QF pt per $1 spent Visa/Mastercard options - e.g. Woolworths Qantas card, Jetstar card, HSBC Qantas card, Qantas Credit Union card, etc.