Strategy to obtain US Amex

[GDale]

I only just found out that if you hold a Chase Marriott card, you can product change after 1 year to the now grandfathered Ritz-Carlton Card: $450 AF, $300 in annual travel credit, free 85K Marriott night each year, unlimited priority pass plus two guests (no restaurant benefit). Seems like a keeper to me! Has anyone gone down this path? This requires a bit of planning - I think the ideal path is to get the Marriott Boundless on a good SUB then waiting the 12 months out after that.

 

[albyd]

I just got an email notification from one of my billers they are moving to direct payment only. I think the ATO is just the start of this. I suspect more will move to this. All our high cost outlays like Land tax, Strata (changes already made with DEFT), etc will move to no CC acceptance and we'll only be able to use our fancy US cards at retail outlets (until they figure out a way - I hear Chemist warehouse is working on a QR code system to use bank accounts - similar to what is in place in many parts of Asia already). Many of the big ticket items we used to leverage to earn SUBs will go (unless we use NBilling intermediaries at crushing cost - I got quoted 3.3% to use my foreign VISA by payment logic).

Am I just panicking here or am I onto something? I don't want to dismantle my US credit setup which was established over many years but it seems this party may be over for those of us like me who live in AU and predominantly spend in $A.