topic Re: How was your AMEX return? in Credit Cards

How was your AMEX return?

Anonymous — Tue, 04 Feb 2020 03:13:36 GMT

So I just went and checked my year end summaries and AMEX was by far the most profitable lender in my wallet.

Total spend including AUs - $3,204.67

Total spend not including AUs - $2,540.01

Cash Magnet SUB - $200

Blue Cash Preferred SUB - $300 minus $95 AF = $205

AMEX offers - $140

Cash back - $85

Total: $630 (19.7% of total spend, 24.8% of personal spend since AUs counted towards cash back without actually costing me anything)

I have to say those numbers surprise me in a good way.

How did everyone else make out?

Re: How was your AMEX return?

Anonymous — Tue, 04 Feb 2020 03:19:12 GMT

Haven't looked.... but based on my Reserve alone with sky club/free bags/upgrades, I racked up.

Re: How was your AMEX return?

wasCB14 — Tue, 04 Feb 2020 03:40:25 GMT

Approximately...

130k MRs from regular spend

75k Delta miles (and $100) SUB, plus a few thousand more from regular spend

$250 BCP upgrade, plus another $100 from regular spend

I missed the second half of the Saks credit, but used all the others on Schwab.

Negligible spend offers. Most of the interesting ones were not conveniently timed.

Lots of no-fee Plan It spend.

Some free Delta bags and various lounge visits.

Marriott renewal night worth ~$280

$300 regular + $25 targeted Marriott credits

2020 looks roughly similar in terms of Amex spend, with BofA PR picking up much of the spend that CSR/CFU had in 2018/2019.

Re: How was your AMEX return?

JNA1 — Tue, 04 Feb 2020 03:48:48 GMT

I received my card Nov 22 last year, so my returns are limited, but still very nice for a short period of time:

Total spend - $2243.33

SUB - $300

Cash back - $67.07 AF - $95

Total earned - $272.07

Re: How was your AMEX return?

simplynoir — Tue, 04 Feb 2020 04:02:08 GMT

Value TBD for now

Don't think I did as well as others and too lazy to check but just on personal cards alone maxed Gold card grocery cap plus dining when possible, Platinum 5X for flights for work and leisure not to mention lounge benefits, and Marriott points and certficate redemption again for work/leisure. I can't AMEX math that poop but should be a lot depending on how one values Marriott/MR points

Add my fiancee's biz spending and woo boy...

Re: How was your AMEX return?

Anonymous — Tue, 04 Feb 2020 04:07:13 GMT

@simplynoir wrote:
Value TBD for now

I can't AMEX math that poop but should be a lot depending on how one values Marriott/MR points

Add my fiancee's biz spending and woo boy...

@simplynoir , I no longer even try....so this is where @K-in-Boston comes in. Honestly, if he sent me a bill for any of my hard Amex/Delta math, I'd feel guilty if I didn't pay it lol.

Re: How was your AMEX return?

simplynoir — Tue, 04 Feb 2020 04:11:14 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
@simplynoir wrote:
Value TBD for now

I can't AMEX math that poop but should be a lot depending on how one values Marriott/MR points

Add my fiancee's biz spending and woo boy...
@simplynoir , I no longer even try....so this is where @K-in-Boston comes in. Honestly, if he sent me a bill for any of my hard Amex/Delta math, I'd feel guilty if I didn't pay it lol.

Just buy him some Tim Hortons if you ever go to Canada he loves that stuff

Re: How was your AMEX return?

Anonymous — Tue, 04 Feb 2020 04:16:41 GMT

@simplynoir wrote:
@Anonymous wrote:
@simplynoir wrote:
Value TBD for now

I can't AMEX math that poop but should be a lot depending on how one values Marriott/MR points

Add my fiancee's biz spending and woo boy...
@simplynoir , I no longer even try....so this is where @K-in-Boston comes in. Honestly, if he sent me a bill for any of my hard Amex/Delta math, I'd feel guilty if I didn't pay it lol.
Just buy him some Tim Hortons if you ever go to Canada he loves that stuff

Score.....I saw one of them a few months ago in Niagara Falls/Buffalo 😊

Re: How was your AMEX return?

Anonymous — Tue, 04 Feb 2020 13:08:45 GMT

I have no cash back cards from amex, lol

Total spending was about 14k on amex cards (excl. bbp, it was mainly a BT card until now). Among I already redeemed, the values are:

1. 310 from amex offers (discounted bad price comes with the offer)

2. 100 from moving to delta (half of a trip)

3. 900 from moving to BA (two RT, this is quite exciting, one trip was literally booked on the same day of departure)

4. 1000 from delta (3 RT, edited, I forgot the 2020 trips I booked in 2019)

I probably had 30k MR at the beginning of the year (about 450), 27k Avios (from MR, about 350), and 15k skymiles (excl. delay "gesture miles", about 220).

So approximately 3330, or ~24%.

Some of these are not sustainable, since they are SUBs. Without those, I am looking at (guesstimate) about 1500 return on 8000 spending (~18%).

btw, my return on chase is 2010 from 22,000 spending (personal cards), my Chase cards (personal and biz) are still being optimized, but 10% is probably close to the max what I can get from them.

Re: How was your AMEX return?

redpat — Tue, 04 Feb 2020 12:45:54 GMT

Forgot about that those year end summary reports. I really never look at statements anymore since everything online or on the app, anyway tallied all 6 cards and spend was a little over $285K. Thank god for business spend to get me most of my points and miles.

The only SUBS last year was 70k delta miles from reserve card and 150,000 hilton points for asend upgrade card. I'll be looking for another 150,000 hilton points for an aspire upgrade in june then downgrade to 0 AF card before the next AF.

So return is always good for me with amex and chase.

Lol, there are probally not enough zeros on the calculator for k-boston or finstar to calculate theirs.

Re: How was your AMEX return?

AverageJoesCredit — Tue, 04 Feb 2020 14:32:33 GMT

Lol, im a 1% ......but on the other end of the MyFico spectrum.

My spend is so abysmal i dont think there are any calculations to be made. Lets just say my Amex's swipe

Re: How was your AMEX return?

iced — Tue, 04 Feb 2020 12:55:39 GMT

My statement tells me nothing about how many points I earned, so I'll eyeball it and say somewhere around 57k MRs. None were redeemed last year.

Total spend (all on Platinum) was $17,758, of which just under $10,000 was airfare. The biggest takeaways for me is that:

1. My gym membership apparently codes as entertainment. Who knew?

2. I apparently guessed wrong on a few purchases that should have gone on CSR instead. $96.39 in restaurant spend made its way on the Platinum somehow as did $1,067 in transportation, of which none was gas. That was likely parking fees and other misc. transport services that might have coded as travel for 3x on CSR instead.

If I'm nickling and diming this, I used $200 travel credit, Saks credit, all of my Uber credits, and the SkyClub around a dozen times. I also spent 3 months not traveling due to paternity leave so I should get more visits this year.

The good news is I am finally allowed to put work travel spend on personal cards instead of using a corporate card, so my airfare spend on Platinum should at least double this year. I'm already over $5,000 on airfare spend this year after just 1 month so it's looking better already.

Re: How was your AMEX return?

Caught750 — Tue, 04 Feb 2020 14:13:57 GMT

400k Hilton points
230k Marriott points
Maybe 150k MR Points

I easily get 2cpp on MR so I value BBP at 4% and Gold at 8%. Those are my DD cards and I use Rakuten as much as I’m able.

Re: How was your AMEX return?

K-in-Boston — Tue, 04 Feb 2020 15:06:55 GMT

I don't want to brag.

Let's just say the nearly $4,000 in annual fees for Amex pays off in multiples. I ended up with over $14,000 in value just on the Delta side of my Amex relationship, which is a key reason why Delta Reserve will continue to be my non-category card for 2020 (right after I finish this huge spend requirement for Business Platinum).

Re: How was your AMEX return?

M_Smart007 — Tue, 04 Feb 2020 15:58:13 GMT

I can't brag, I am less than K-in-Boston

Re: How was your AMEX return?

Andypanda — Tue, 04 Feb 2020 16:10:36 GMT

For 2019 only had the BCE

SUB $200

Cash Back 167.25

Offers $90 (already racked up $130 in 2020)

In 2020 will be more since I only got my bce in may of last year, and I got the amex Amzon Prime Biz card, so that is more rewards and another SUB.

Re: How was your AMEX return?

Anonymous — Tue, 04 Feb 2020 17:17:48 GMT

Spend = $4,067

Cash Back = $27

Offers = $258

==============

Total = $285

Re: How was your AMEX return?

Anonymous — Tue, 04 Feb 2020 18:31:08 GMT

Fun! But not quite as easy for me, as I'm mainly in the MR/Skymiles side of things.

On my Blue Cash Everyday, I had an SUB of 225 on a spend of 2187.14, so a bit over 10%, plus I guess eventually another 21.

On my three MR cards (Gold is closed), I can't get a total of MR earned, My spend was 22,102, so I'm going to conservatively say I got 25,000 MR from that, plus from SUBs and referrals and Rakuten another 108,133, for a total of 133,133

Valued at 1 to 2 cents, that's anywhere from 6-12%.

My primary uses for Amex though, are lounge access and baggage check. Secondary is 0% interest. I'll maximize the rewards I can get, of course, and will always use the platinum on 5% categories, but for normal stuff I use my 2% and 3% cashback cards. I did get both Saks credits. Probably only 4 Uber credits, and the $200 airline credit when gift cards still worked. I'll never get it again.

I didn't have a 2% on everything card last year, so Amex got a lot of my daily spend. This year my spend on Amex will be substantially less. Some airfares later on the platinum, and I charge my phone to the Blue Cash to make sure it's used regularly. I've done my Delta Gold SUB spend already.

Re: How was your AMEX return?

Cred4All — Wed, 05 Feb 2020 00:04:38 GMT

Total Spend:

Platinum: 6k

- $1,250 Offers

Aspire: 16k

- $510 Offers

Everyday: 1k

~~Green Corporate: Hidden~~

Makes you stop and think how much you chuck onto those pretty little pieces of metal and plastic. Luckily, think of all we could've lost had that all been spent on debit cards.

Re: How was your AMEX return?

Shadowfactor — Wed, 05 Feb 2020 00:23:07 GMT

@K-in-Boston wrote:
I don't want to brag.

Let's just say the nearly $4,000 in annual fees for Amex pays off in multiples. I ended up with over $14,000 in value just on the Delta side of my Amex relationship, which is a key reason why Delta Reserve will continue to be my non-category card for 2020 (right after I finish this huge spend requirement for Business Platinum).

Yikes, this is definitely going to feel like a brag then.

In 2019 between my fiancée's and I's Amex accounts we spent over 700K. I only started my reselling business in July too.

So far in 2020. I've spent over 300K and we aren't even two months in.

This is just amex spend, not accounting for any other banks.

The cards more then pay for themselves, I could have bought a Mercedes with just my amazon 5% cashback.