topic Re: Maximizing Amex Plat & Gold Combo in Credit Cards

Maximizing Amex Plat & Gold Combo

Vash1 — Wed, 13 Mar 2024 23:26:35 GMT

For those of you that use Amex Plat and Gold, how are you optimizing getting MR rewards? Do you utilize any additional cards to gain more MR based on your regular spend?

I just got both and plan on using them as my primary combo for maximizing travel benefits and rewards (the AF is effectively $50 combined for me). Grocery and dining out are my biggest MR earners with flights getting in soon. Any advise on another card to better capture everyday spend beyond just 1x MR?

Re: Maximizing Amex Plat & Gold Combo

redpat — Wed, 13 Mar 2024 23:55:34 GMT

You could add EDP and use Rakuten shopping and dining for additional MR points.

Had EDP and Gold but since closed both and because I became tired trying to squeezing every MR point out of spend.

Plat has just become a perk card for me, saks, uber, sirius, peacock and FHR $200 is about all the spend it gets to net the AF.

Biz card gets me more than enough MR points.

Re: Maximizing Amex Plat & Gold Combo

Vash1 — Thu, 14 Mar 2024 00:35:07 GMT

@redpat thanks. I'm looking into EDP and Rakuten isn't something I thought about but that seems super interesting. Give it a try I think.

Re: Maximizing Amex Plat & Gold Combo

xenon3030 — Thu, 14 Mar 2024 05:09:41 GMT

Since last summer, Rakuten barely tracks/honors CB. There are lots of complaints by various users and at different forums. So, it might not be straightforward to count on it to accumulate more MR points.

Re: Maximizing Amex Plat & Gold Combo

K-in-Boston — Thu, 14 Mar 2024 05:24:35 GMT

@xenon3030 wrote:
Since last summer, Rakuten barely tracks/honors CB. There are lots of complaints by various users and at different forums. So, it might not be straightforward to count on it to accumulate more MR points.

I've not experienced that. I think there have been maybe 3 times the entire time I've used them that I needed to ask for credit, and I always got it. Most likely it's either user error (like using coupon codes that invalidate the earnings) or privacy settings are too high and they're unable to track through to the completion of the order. I have made "slight" use of Rakuten. (I've seen some screenshots with much more than me.)

If you are up for business cards, Blue Business Plus is my default non-category card since it earns 2x on everything. EDP or ED as mentioned can be decent catch-all cards for everything else, although I'd certainly do the math to see if EDP made sense for you since you'd need to make a lot of purchases on the card to get the 50% bonus each month and with groceries you'd basically only earn 3,000 MR points a year more than Gold on groceries for the maximum $6k cap on EDP.

Re: Maximizing Amex Plat & Gold Combo

xenon3030 — Thu, 14 Mar 2024 05:41:05 GMT

Since last summer, Rakuten tracked only a handful of purchases (including Black Friday and Christmas). Only some ticket submissions were honored.

I moved all my groceries to Instacart to get 32% CB (20% Instacart GC from Costco, 5% cashback from a CC for shopping at Costco, 2% Costco executive discount, 5% discount for Instacart pickup). The portal CB might not stack here, if I pay by Instacart credit instead of a CC. So, this configuration might work better than Amex Gold. Anyway, it depends on the amount of groceries per year, since adding 10k GC to Instacart might be an awkward thing to do .

Re: Maximizing Amex Plat & Gold Combo

Anonymous — Thu, 14 Mar 2024 15:04:17 GMT

@xenon3030 wrote:

I moved all my groceries to Instacart to get 32% CB (20% Instacart GC from Costco, 5% cashback from a CC for shopping at Costco, 2% Costco executive discount, 5% discount for Instacart pickup).

Do the percentages really additively stack like that? For example, do you pay full price on the gift card, thus getting the full 5% on the credit card and the 20% discount comes later?

Re: Maximizing Amex Plat & Gold Combo

Vash1 — Thu, 14 Mar 2024 15:27:07 GMT

@K-in-Boston wrote:
@xenon3030 wrote:
Since last summer, Rakuten barely tracks/honors CB. There are lots of complaints by various users and at different forums. So, it might not be straightforward to count on it to accumulate more MR points.
I've not experienced that. I think there have been maybe 3 times the entire time I've used them that I needed to ask for credit, and I always got it. Most likely it's either user error (like using coupon codes that invalidate the earnings) or privacy settings are too high and they're unable to track through to the completion of the order. I have made "slight" use of Rakuten. (I've seen some screenshots with much more than me.)

If you are up for business cards, Blue Business Plus is my default non-category card since it earns 2x on everything. EDP or ED as mentioned can be decent catch-all cards for everything else, although I'd certainly do the math to see if EDP made sense for you since you'd need to make a lot of purchases on the card to get the 50% bonus each month and with groceries you'd basically only earn 3,000 MR points a year more than Gold on groceries for the maximum $6k cap on EDP.

I was waiting on someone with a few Amex cards under their belt. That screenshot definitely showed what's possible. I just signed up for Rakuten after reading the responses. Definitely some opportunity their.

So the blue business plus earns uncapped MR on ALL spend? If so that may be a good option. I do have a small consulting business so I can get a business card if that is the case.

Re: Maximizing Amex Plat & Gold Combo

Vash1 — Thu, 14 Mar 2024 15:31:24 GMT

That's interesting. And what cc are you purchasing the gift card with? Grocery spend is above 10k a year.

Re: Maximizing Amex Plat & Gold Combo

K-in-Boston — Thu, 14 Mar 2024 15:41:39 GMT

@Vash1 wrote:
@K-in-Boston wrote:
@xenon3030 wrote:
Since last summer, Rakuten barely tracks/honors CB. There are lots of complaints by various users and at different forums. So, it might not be straightforward to count on it to accumulate more MR points.
I've not experienced that. I think there have been maybe 3 times the entire time I've used them that I needed to ask for credit, and I always got it. Most likely it's either user error (like using coupon codes that invalidate the earnings) or privacy settings are too high and they're unable to track through to the completion of the order. I have made "slight" use of Rakuten. (I've seen some screenshots with much more than me.)

If you are up for business cards, Blue Business Plus is my default non-category card since it earns 2x on everything. EDP or ED as mentioned can be decent catch-all cards for everything else, although I'd certainly do the math to see if EDP made sense for you since you'd need to make a lot of purchases on the card to get the 50% bonus each month and with groceries you'd basically only earn 3,000 MR points a year more than Gold on groceries for the maximum $6k cap on EDP.
I was waiting on someone with a few Amex cards under their belt. That screenshot definitely showed what's possible. I just signed up for Rakuten after reading the responses. Definitely some opportunity their.

So the blue business plus earns uncapped MR on ALL spend? If so that may be a good option. I do have a small consulting business so I can get a business card if that is the case.

Unfortunately it's capped to $50,000 per calendar year, but it does earn 2x for everything and has a modest Welcome Offer. For household non-category expenses (Amex really doesn't seem to care; I only report $1500 in gross annual revenues selling on eBay when applying but have numerous business cards with them including one that had a $30k spend requirement for the Welcome Offer) that's fine for a lot of people.

Re: Maximizing Amex Plat & Gold Combo

xenon3030 — Thu, 14 Mar 2024 15:58:01 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
@xenon3030 wrote:

I moved all my groceries to Instacart to get 32% CB (20% Instacart GC from Costco, 5% cashback from a CC for shopping at Costco, 2% Costco executive discount, 5% discount for Instacart pickup).
Do the percentages really additively stack like that? For example, do you pay full price on the gift card, thus getting the full 5% on the credit card and the 20% discount comes later?

They stacked like that. Sometimes, Costco sells $100 Instacart GCs at the price of $80. The last time that I purchased was at the end of Q4 last year. I purchased some GCs using CFF (5% on wholesale club category in Q4). They may sell such GCs in-store but I did not check (for Costco in-store, US Bank AR gives 4.5%)

I do the majority of my groceries at Sprouts and Instacart offers in-store price with a pick-up option for it. It gives 5% credit after pick-up and the credit gets applied to my next purchase.

At Instacart, not all grociers have in-store prices and not all provide in-store pickup. The examples are Safeway and Target. For these two stores, I use one of my 5%-6% CB cards and I do either in-store shopping or I use their websites and do a pickup.

Rakuten regularly gives 1-5% CB on Instacart. Since last summer, it never tracked any purchases at Instacart. It did not make any difference if I use a credit card to do the transaction or use Instacart credit. Since there are several groceries per month, I cannot spend time to submit ticket for each.

To bypass fees, it is better to have Instacart+ (AF=$99). Costco members can get $20 discount on AF. Sometime ago, Paypal was running such a discount and the total price got dropped to $40. I do not know whether it was a public offer, but I received the offer by email from Paypal.

Re: Maximizing Amex Plat & Gold Combo

Vash1 — Thu, 14 Mar 2024 15:58:07 GMT

@K-in-Boston wrote:
@Vash1 wrote:
@K-in-Boston wrote:
@xenon3030 wrote:
Since last summer, Rakuten barely tracks/honors CB. There are lots of complaints by various users and at different forums. So, it might not be straightforward to count on it to accumulate more MR points.
I've not experienced that. I think there have been maybe 3 times the entire time I've used them that I needed to ask for credit, and I always got it. Most likely it's either user error (like using coupon codes that invalidate the earnings) or privacy settings are too high and they're unable to track through to the completion of the order. I have made "slight" use of Rakuten. (I've seen some screenshots with much more than me.)

If you are up for business cards, Blue Business Plus is my default non-category card since it earns 2x on everything. EDP or ED as mentioned can be decent catch-all cards for everything else, although I'd certainly do the math to see if EDP made sense for you since you'd need to make a lot of purchases on the card to get the 50% bonus each month and with groceries you'd basically only earn 3,000 MR points a year more than Gold on groceries for the maximum $6k cap on EDP.
I was waiting on someone with a few Amex cards under their belt. That screenshot definitely showed what's possible. I just signed up for Rakuten after reading the responses. Definitely some opportunity their.

So the blue business plus earns uncapped MR on ALL spend? If so that may be a good option. I do have a small consulting business so I can get a business card if that is the case.
Unfortunately it's capped to $50,000 per calendar year, but it does earn 2x for everything and has a modest Welcome Offer. For household non-category expenses (Amex really doesn't seem to care; I only report $1500 in gross annual revenues selling on eBay when applying but have numerous business cards with them including one that had a $30k spend requirement for the Welcome Offer) that's fine for a lot of people.

Ok thanks for clarifying I can work with a 50k cap. My operating costs only consist of software and subscription purchases with occasional paid ads through facebook. But if Amex doesn't really discriminate against non business cost that's a plus any easy way to capitalize on all my spend.

You already had other business credit line with them but think I can still squeeze in with the data point you gave.