Fidelity American Express without banking relationship

[csryang]

Anyone care to share their experience with Fidelity American Express card?

I dont have BoA or Fidelity relationship at all.... wondering if that will affect anything?

[svtthis]

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@csryang wrote:

Anyone care to share their experience with Fidelity American Express card?

I dont have BoA or Fidelity relationship at all.... wondering if that will affect anything?

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You need an account to get the rewards deposited. I just signed up for the amex and got a cash management account at the same time. Only requires one hard pull for the cc. So far so good.  You can redeem in $50 increments  

[Anonymous]

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@csryang wrote:

Anyone care to share their experience with Fidelity American Express card?

I dont have BoA or Fidelity relationship at all.... wondering if that will affect anything?

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You don't need a BOA relationship but you need a Fidentity account for the rewards. A CMA account is free.

[csryang]

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@svtthis wrote:

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@csryang wrote:

Anyone care to share their experience with Fidelity American Express card?

I dont have BoA or Fidelity relationship at all.... wondering if that will affect anything?

---

You need an account to get the rewards deposited. I just signed up for the amex and got a cash management account at the same time. Only requires one hard pull for the cc. So far so good.  You can redeem in $50 increments  

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Without any relationships with BoA or Fidelity, is it harder to get approved?

It seems that CMA account is mandatory? Do we need to pay tax on that account? How do I transfer or change it into world points?

[vwgrrc]

Also want to ask, if statement credit is all i want, do i need to have the CMA? What's the minimal for statement credit redeem? $50 sounds a bit hign sice I only plan to use it for costco shopping! 

[Anonymous]

To get the full 2% it needs to be deposited into a Fidelity account. There are other redemption options but at a worse conversion rate. (I can't seem to find it at the moment though last time I looked at the info on Fidelity's site I think it was effectively 1% back or so.)

You don't need a Fidelity account to get rewards but without one there's really no point in getting it.

[Anonymous]

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@Anonymous wrote:
To get the full 2% it needs to be deposited into a Fidelity account. There are other redemption options but at a worse conversion rate. (I can't seem to find it at the moment though last time I looked at the info on Fidelity's site I think it was effectively 1% back or so.)

You don't need a Fidelity account to get rewards but without one there's really no point in getting it.

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I can't find the table but I think if you redeem enough (maybe $200) you get 2% if you redeem into non-Fidelity as well, but that is a lot to build up.   You mention Costco, isn't that moving to Visa anyway next year?

[FinStar]

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@Anonymous wrote:

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@Anonymous wrote:
To get the full 2% it needs to be deposited into a Fidelity account. There are other redemption options but at a worse conversion rate. (I can't seem to find it at the moment though last time I looked at the info on Fidelity's site I think it was effectively 1% back or so.)

You don't need a Fidelity account to get rewards but without one there's really no point in getting it.

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I can't find the table but I think if you redeem enough (maybe $200) you get 2% if you redeem into non-Fidelity as well, but that is a lot to build up.   You mention Costco, isn't that moving to Visa anyway next year?

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Yes, AMEX will no longer have the Costco relationship so it will be Visa issued by Citi (April 2016 IIRC).

[Anonymous]

That's definitely possible. Seems like quite a few hoops to jump through unless you have a Fidelity account already. There's better cards out there.

[Anonymous]

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@Anonymous wrote:

That's definitely possible. Seems like quite a few hoops to jump through unless you have a Fidelity account already. There's better cards out there.

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While I don't think getting a CMA is a big deal, I agree that since the DC, the Fidelity Amex has lost a lot of its appeal.  It has slightly less acceptance (being an Amex), and double the minimum redemption, and you can't (at least for smaller values) get full value for redeeming into a bank account (or getting sent a check).   It does have a smaller FTF (but you probably want to use a card wthout any) and while you get 2% rather than 1%-1%, the  higher redemption threshold counters this.

Also, CLIs are always HP rather than Citi's potential SP.

I have both and use both, but if I didn't have any, or just the DC, don't think I would bother with the Fid Amex.