Craziest Companion Credit Card We Ever Bought

Welcome to the first credit card posts you wouldn’t expect to get in Singapore. Yes! You read the title correctly. We paid for a charge card and we almost went mad doing this. If you are interested in credit cards, you would think that American Express should give us benefits instead of the customer paying for a “credit card” no? You do not need an introduction to the American Express® Platinum Charge Card if you want a miles card. You would have researched a lot before getting this and must have stumbled upon Mile Lion’s posts and we all have learned a lot from him.

There is one thing you should know about this credit card, it has a lot of benefits that come with it but it would be thrown into the dump if you do not use it. With this comes the faith that you will get more benefits than you would have paid for the upfront annual fee. In this post, I would like to go through all the benefits we got from this card and whether this is worth our time and money.

Payment

Now if you are thinking of getting this card, there are a few considerations you should think about in my opinion. I would list the items below, you should be making sure you will get the welcome bonus minimum spend if you are getting this card to get the maximum benefits from the card. If you are wondering, the annual fee does not count as part of this qualifying spending. Yes, I asked Amex too.

• S$1744 Annual Fee
• S$8000 qualifying spend within 2 months (ENets Top Up qualifies!)
• S$600 spent on Scoot & Singapore Airlines ($200 credit return)
• S$204 entertainment credits
• S$600 on Lifestyle stores ($200 credit return)
• S$150 Fashion Credit ($150 credit return)
• S$200 Singapore Dining
• S$200 Foreign Dining

Rewards

With a small shop and other additional in-app offers, you could get back a little more benefits than you would usually get. We have documented our method to hit the minimum spending benefit below.

Our Expenditure

Now let us go through the table above. Any amount labeled redemption is the amount we spent on the annual fee and have received as benefits for the expenditure. It may look like a lot of benefits but it is already money out of your pocket and they are just returning you the amount spent on the annual fee.

We spent on Ikea gift vouchers to hit our minimum spend of $8000 and it was so much easier to ensure we hit this amount. We are frequent visitors to Ikea so it made sense for us to buy vouchers to use at a later date, we are also planning on a big ticket purchase at Ikea for our home so it was the most viable decision.

With the minimum spent achieved, we now head to how many points we received!

Amex Points & Lounge Benefits

We received 141,000 membership points only after 1 month from achieving this minimum spend and I shall share how we utilized the points in the next article. Ultimately, you should make a judgment if the credit card annual fee is worth your pocket.

Other benefits we received throughout the year were minimal. For example, we used the priority pass to enter the lounge during our travels, fulfilling our dinner or lunch meals. This saved us $55 per person, as a family each lounge visit cost us $220 per lounge visit. We visited the lounge 2 times so far in the year and we saved approximately $440 on lounge visits.

Status Bonus and Usage Update

This card gives you quick access to limited hotel benefits. You may not think about using these benefits, but we used two of them during our first year, which surprised us as it wasn’t expected. Do not forget to enroll to get the benefits!

We used Hilton and Marriot Bonvoy benefits which made the stay a little bit sweeter but these benefits are subtle doesn’t seem to justify the annual card fee. You may start to spend more money on hotels using their service instead of choosing other hotels nearby. The benefits will make your stay at these hotels much more comfortable but do not give any monetary value.

Hilton

Marriot Bonvoy

Travel Perks

We only used the travel credits flying on Scoot and Singapore Airlines, we couldn’t make use of the foreign restaurant benefits and ultimately wasted that $200. Other travel benefits include the lounge benefit which we use a couple of times and the free 1 night stay at a hotel. It was really difficult to use the 1-night stay as there were limited options to choose from and there was no travel plans to visit any of the countries on the list. We find that the only way to use the hotel stay was to stay in Singapore which would be a waste of money in my opinion. Even though it seems like the hotel is worth the cost of the annual fee, plan around this if you can.