Big purchase on Amex - worth it?

[buddy03]

I'm about to make a $60k purchase and Amex is available as a payment method for a 1.04% surcharge which I thought is quite fair. I have a platinum charge card so I entered the amount in the spending power tool in the online portal and it gave the ok.

Do you think it's worthwhile to be paying ~$600 in surcharge to get 135k in Amex points? Just seems crazy to me because I've never paid such a huge amount of surcharge just to get points.

My endgame is to redeem the points for business class flights for the family. Based on a redemption rate of 3:1, I'd be getting 45k Krisflyer miles from this purchase which is worth ~$855 based on Pointhacks valuation of 1.9c per mile. So I think it's worthwhile to pay using Amex even with the surcharge. Am I missing anything?

 

[Doctore1003]

I'm about to make a $60k purchase and Amex is available as a payment method for a 1.04% surcharge which I thought is quite fair. I have a platinum charge card so I entered the amount in the spending power tool in the online portal and it gave the ok.

Do you think it's worthwhile to be paying ~$600 in surcharge to get 135k in Amex points? Just seems crazy to me because I've never paid such a huge amount of surcharge just to get points.

My endgame is to redeem the points for business class flights for the family. Based on a redemption rate of 3:1, I'd be getting 45k Krisflyer miles from this purchase which is worth ~$855 based on Pointhacks valuation of 1.9c per mile. So I think it's worthwhile to pay using Amex even with the surcharge. Am I missing anything?

If you're confident you can get SQ J seats for the fam (at Saver prices ideally), then it's an OK deal.
You should transfer the points to Velocity when they have one of their regular 15-20% bonus promos, then from there to SQ - you'll get slightly more KrisFlyer miles that way.

 

[Bell21]

I think it's a good deal if you need the points - you're paying approx 1.33c/pt re KF miles for a straight AMEX-KF transfer (or 0.9c/pt for Qantas/Virgin/BA/Qatar etc). My general threshold is around 1c/pt to purchase miles (YMMV), unless of course, I have a specific flight I need to book coming up in which case I might be prepared to pay more.

 

[Azro]

Is there any difference between paying $60k + $600 fee in one go and paying $60k + $600 fee throughout a year?
If you use your card regularly then you pay the same rate of fees for every purchase. 5 cents from a $5 cup of coffee is the same as $600 from $60k purchase. It's just 5c is much easier to ignore.

 

[Superhappykid]

Correct me if I’m wrong, but I did the math when I first got my card.

On Australian cards, 200,000 points equals $1,000 in value (since you can use points to pay down your balance).

If you spend $100,000 on the Platinum card, you’ll earn around 225,000 points. That’s worth about $1,125.

So as long as the surcharge on your purchases is less than 1.1%, you’re still coming out ahead because you can use the points to cover that surcharge.

If you are converting to tickets it should be even better value.

 

[Bell21]

Correct me if I’m wrong, but I did the math when I first got my card.

On Australian cards, 200,000 points equals $1,000 in value (since you can use points to pay down your balance).

If you spend $100,000 on the Platinum card, you’ll earn around 225,000 points. That’s worth about $1,125.

So as long as the surcharge on your purchases is less than 1.1%, you’re still coming out ahead because you can use the points to cover that surcharge.

If you are converting to tickets it should be even better value.

Interesting, and you're probably right, but I don't really value points like that --- you're basically valuing the earning of the points at the same value as using them (circa 1/pt), which is fine, but I tend to look at 200,000 AMEX points, as around $2,000 in value ($1,500 if I'm using them as QFF points and $2,500+ if I'm using them say as Qatar points), so if I'm paying circa $1,000 for 200,000 points, then that's the kind of value I'm looking for --- ie, paying half or less for the value of what I'll use the points for

 

[Tiki]

If you need any new credit cards, that would get you a lot of SUBs!

 

[drron]

If you're confident you can get SQ J seats for the fam (at Saver prices ideally), then it's an OK deal.
You should transfer the points to Velocity when they have one of their regular 15-20% bonus promos, then from there to SQ - you'll get slightly more KrisFlyer miles that way.

I think it's silly to transfer velocity points to KF. I redeem BNE-SIN or return 6-8 times a year. ON KF saver fare 68500. Which means you need to transfer 106175 VA points to get that number. But virtually always can get a saver fare on the desired flight for 74000 points on velocity. Twice I had to select another city - SYD and DRW. once I got a TG award to BKK which we always end up in anyway. On the return journey once I bought a SQ sale fare which assures me of retaining VA gold. And once we decided to come back via DRW as it's nice in July.

And usually 2 saver fares in J per flight as I usually notice the next day after I redeem the saver award has gone to waitlist. Of course I can only redeem 330 days out on VA so Other awards through KF may have reduced the number when I go to redeem.

 

[andye]

I think it's silly to transfer velocity points to KF. I redeem BNE-SIN or return 6-8 times a year. ON KF saver fare 68500. Which means you need to transfer 106175 VA points to get that number. But virtually always can get a saver fare on the desired flight for 74000 points on velocity. Twice I had to select another city - SYD and DRW. once I got a TG award to BKK which we always end up in anyway. On the return journey once I bought a SQ sale fare which assures me of retaining VA gold. And once we decided to come back via DRW as it's nice in July.

And usually 2 saver fares in J per flight as I usually notice the next day after I redeem the saver award has gone to waitlist. Of course I can only redeem 330 days out on VA so Other awards through KF may have reduced the number when I go to redeem.

It's mathematically marginally better to transfer from Amex to KF via VFF if there happens to be no VA availability for the SQ flights you want. Bonus transfer offers (Amex to VFF) also come up from time to time

Depending on where you want to go and availability, transferring to Asia Miles or QR Avios (or even Alaska via Hawaiian) might offer better value than KF

 

[buddy03]

Thanks for all the replies. Sounds like it's a pretty solid return and could be worth paying the surcharge to get the points. Usually I try to avoid surcharge when I can. Majority of my purchases on the card is usually grocery and online shopping where there is no surcharge so paying $600 surcharge in one transaction is very unusual.

I don't need the points now but I'm just thinking when it comes to the time where I really need the extra points, it would be difficult to come up with 100k+ points or the equivalent frequent flyer miles in a short time.