topic Re: I have the Amex Blue Cash Everday and Amex Everyday in Credit Cards

I have the Amex Blue Cash Everday and Amex Everyday

Anonymous — Fri, 25 Sep 2015 17:44:05 GMT

But I want to know how to make the most of my grocery rewards. Is it better on BCE or ED?

Re: I have the Amex Blue Cash Everday and Amex Everyday

Anonymous — Fri, 25 Sep 2015 17:46:42 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
But I want to know how to make the most of my grocery rewards. Is it better on BCE or ED?

First question is whether you make (or can make) 20 purchases a month on the ED. If so, grocery purchases gives you 2.4MR vs 3% on BCE. So then the question is whether you can use MRs "correctly" for travel. If so, they are worth much more than 3%. If you can't they are worth less.

Re: I have the Amex Blue Cash Everday and Amex Everyday

Anonymous — Fri, 25 Sep 2015 18:07:09 GMT

I definitely have use for the MR points since I travel but I wasn't sure where to allocate my grocery spending.

gas and shopping are definitely going on my BCE but the grocery rewards confuse in terms of points vs. percentage.

I'm very new to the Amex family

Re: I have the Amex Blue Cash Everday and Amex Everyday

Anonymous — Sat, 26 Sep 2015 13:33:34 GMT

My wife is AU on my BCE and has her own ED and we're both using BCE for groceries, for us the 3% is a no-brainer.

Yes, you travel, as do I, but do you travel often? Do you travel with travel partners that Amex partners with on their MR? From what I've seen their best value has been British Airways, but they are even nerfing those benefits. I've found the options for me personally with ED to be limited in terms of travel partners I'll actually use, but YMMV.

The poster above me may be using his MR's "correctly" to gain more than 3% value, but for the vast, vast majority of users they are not worth $0.03 apiece. Most of the major points-gaming sites value them at around $0.02, and in my opinion that's a bit generous. You just have to consider if you are the outlier or not.

Re: I have the Amex Blue Cash Everday and Amex Everyday

Anonymous — Sat, 26 Sep 2015 19:08:26 GMT

I travel every 1-2 months and I use Hilton HHonors which are partners with Amex and the MR points would go to that.

so $0.03 per 1 MR point is what you're saying? Apologies for my ignorance, I've seen conversions a lot and I'm still trying to understand the cents to points aspect.

Re: I have the Amex Blue Cash Everday and Amex Everyday

Anonymous — Sat, 26 Sep 2015 19:14:01 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
My wife is AU on my BCE and has her own ED and we're both using BCE for groceries, for us the 3% is a no-brainer.

Yes, you travel, as do I, but do you travel often? Do you travel with travel partners that Amex partners with on their MR? From what I've seen their best value has been British Airways, but they are even nerfing those benefits. I've found the options for me personally with ED to be limited in terms of travel partners I'll actually use, but YMMV.

The poster above me may be using his MR's "correctly" to gain more than 3% value, but for the vast, vast majority of users they are not worth $0.03 apiece. Most of the major points-gaming sites value them at around $0.02, and in my opinion that's a bit generous. You just have to consider if you are the outlier or not.

No one here has been saying that a MR is worth 3c. The question is whether 2.4MR (2 + 20% bonus) is worth more than 3% as that is the ED vs BCE comparison on grocery spending. You don't need great redemptions for that to be the case, anything abouve 1.25c per MR.

Re: I have the Amex Blue Cash Everday and Amex Everyday

Anonymous — Sun, 27 Sep 2015 00:58:28 GMT

If you're going to use the MRs at Hilton, why didn't you just get one of the two Amex Hilton cards and earn HHonors points directly? It would be far more efficient.

Re: I have the Amex Blue Cash Everday and Amex Everyday

9CLINE — Sun, 27 Sep 2015 01:07:06 GMT

Op I think you asked a great question as I also have both the BCE and the EDP,,,so far I have used the EDP as my everything card but was looking into more defined spending to get the most benefit of the cards.....Enjoyed the replies so far hope they keep coming.........

Re: I have the Amex Blue Cash Everday and Amex Everyday

NRB525 — Sun, 27 Sep 2015 14:55:18 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
If you're going to use the MRs at Hilton, why didn't you just get one of the two Amex Hilton cards and earn HHonors points directly? It would be far more efficient.

OP, if you use the ED to earn MR points, and route those to your Hilton account, you end up with 2.4 HHonors points for each dollar of grocery spend.

if you app for the no AF AMEX Hilton card, and use that for groceries, and gas, and dining, you get a sign up bonus in your Hiiton account, and you earn 5 Hilton points per dollar spend, straight up, in each of those three categories (though some merchants do not code in these categories, but since both are AMEX, there is no difference) no other games, that go directly to your Hilton HHonors account each month.

5 points looks better to me than 2.4 points, leaving aside the low value of Hilton points.

The other alternative with the ED is to store up those points, then transfer 50,000 of them to Flying Blue to get a round trip economy ticket to Europe. This values the MR points at about 2.4c each, taking a round trip cost of about $1,200 and 50,000 points to pay for them. If you max the swipes, 2.4 MR points per dollar spend, times 2.4c per point on redemption, is just over 5% on the grocery spend. As Hilton points, each MR point is worth .5c if you really work hard to get that, which is why the Hilton HHonors card can give them away 5 at a time (or 3 for basic spend everywhere else, which is the other factor to consider). Often HHonors points show as .4c or .3c. This is why it's not considered a good redemption option from MR points, when other alternatives exist at higher per-point value.

But if you really use Hiltons a lot, then you should have one of the Hilton no AF cards anyway.

Re: I have the Amex Blue Cash Everday and Amex Everyday

Anonymous — Sun, 27 Sep 2015 15:21:25 GMT

I might in the future but I just received the BCE and ED almost within two weeks of each other through a mailer offer and I want to know how to make the most of those being that they're my first Amex cards ever. I like my BCE but with the ED 20 swipes = 20% I can achieve every cycle I like the benefits I can use from getting all those points.

Re: I have the Amex Blue Cash Everday and Amex Everyday

kdm31091 — Sun, 27 Sep 2015 15:26:12 GMT

I tend to favor cash. Points get devalued all the time, and the "maximization" of points requires time, trip flexibility, etc that sometimes you aren't going to have.

If you are loyal to Hilton only the Hilton Amex is probably a better deal than earning MRs and transferring them to Hilton.

Redeeming MRs for anything other than the transfers is pretty much always a sub-1% value and not worth it.