The Amex Platinum charge card offers a very plain vanilla rewards program, which we discuss below.  The real question that comes attached to this card: do the rewards and benefits justify the steep $450 annual fee.  The remainder of this post is dedicated to arming you with enough information to make that call.

Earning Rewards with The American Express Platinum Card

The Amex Platinum card provides you with 1 Membership Reward point per dollar of spend, and 2 MR points per dollar spent at amextravel.com (excluding car rentals and non-prepaid hotels).  PIQ values MR points at just slightly north of $0.01 (you can read our analysis of the value of Amex MR points here).

Amex Platinum Sign Up Bonus

You’ll receive 25,000 Membership Rewards points when you spend $2,000 within the first 3 months of card membership (with just a touch over $250). However, if you’ve had the Platinum Card in the last 12 months, or any consumer Zync, Green or Gold Card within last 90 days, you won’t be eligible for the sign-up bonus.

The Power of Amex Platinum’s Benefits

Platinum’s muscle really comes from a number of unique benefits that we’ll cover below.  Quantifying these benefits can be quite challenging, making for a difficult apples-to-apples comparison with more traditional rewards cards, so in the end you’ll need to judge whether the myriad benefits justify the steep $450 annual fee.  The game here is for us to call out all the “gotchas” of each perk, and then for you to figure out how many of these benefits you can actually take advantage of.  Only then can you make a smart decision.

The Amex Platinum Card comes with a number of benefits listed below, many of which we cover in greater detail below.

• No pre-set spending limit
• 24-hour concierge service
• Flying without black-out dates
• Early notice about hot events
• By Invitation Only: access to extraordinary events not available to the general public.
• Airport Club Access
• $200 airline fee credit
• Fine hotel and resort benefits
• Companion offer via International Airline Program
• Fraud Protection

No Pre-Set Spending Limit

Unlike a typical credit card, which comes with a fixed credit limit, the spending limit for the American Express Platinum card adjusts as you use the card, factoring in your payment history, credit record, and any other relevant financial information that American Express has access to.

24-Hour Concierge Service

This is an interesting benefit, and ties into the hot trend of having a “virtual assistant” at your beck-and-call.  So, the main questions you are likely to have are “What things can I use the concierge for?” and “Is the concierge actually useful?”.

Based on our own analysis of the Amex Platinum Concierge Program, I’d say that it definitely can offer value for certain types of requests, especially restaurant and event bookings.  For more complex tasks (such as trip itineraries, finding a great nanny or an honest, good contractor) it’s much less dependable.

Flying Without Black-Out Dates

You can use Membership Rewards points to pay for all or part of a flight, hotel stay, vacation or cruise booking.  Amex calls this their “pay with points” program.  Amex’s prices generally seem in line with the industry (according to my research, Amex was formerly powered by Travelocity, but now Orbitz powers their site).  There are no black-out dates simply because Amex is actually buying the ticket for you, and then debiting points from your rewards total.  The nice thing about this is that, unlike a normal award ticket, you can still earn bonus mileage.

$200 Airline Fee Credit

The devil is really in the details on this one.  And, lo and behold, here are the details:

• You get $200 in credit each year that you can use to offset specific incidental airline charges.
• Charges that you cannot offset (as they are not deemed “incidental”) include: wireless internet, fees incurred with airline alliance partners, airline ticket upgrades, mileage point transfer fees, gift cards, duty free purchases, and award tickets.  I guess they really want you to buy the food on the airplane, huh?
• Another rub: you need to select a specific airline to which you can get the credit.  While you can make the selection at any time during the year, once made, you can only change it once per year, in January.  If you don’t change it, whatever you chose the prior year will be your default new selection.

I’ve also heard, though haven’t confirmed, that you can use the credit towards airport lounges (obviously, it would need to be a lounge associated with the airline you selected).

Companion offer via International Airline Program

Again, there are a lot of details here that need to be called out.  The basic premise is that anytime you purchase a qualifying business or first class international ticket on over 20 participating airlines, you can get a complimentary companion ticket.

• Like most companion and award tickets, you’re still on the hook for taxes and fuel surcharges.  According to Amex, taxes range from $50-$250, but it’s the fuel surcharges that can really wipe you out (these charges can hit upwards of $1,300 and are especially prominent for flights to, from and within Europe).
• There is also an additional fee of $39 per ticket charged by Amex (non-refundable).
• Bookings must be made through Amex Travel using your Platinum Card.

Needless to say, first class and business class full fare tickets can be extraordinarily expensive.  If you’re routinely flying those routes on your own dime, then the $450 annual fee on this card is probably not even on your financial radar.  However, if you are flying on business, then this could be an amazing way to bring along your significant other in style without (completely) breaking the bank!

Traveling Abroad Just Got A Little Cheaper With the American Express Platinum Card

One nice call-out, and something quite unusual for American Express, is that there’s no foreign transaction fee on the Platinum Card.  While that’s certainly nice, and used to be quite rare, it’s not that hard to find such cards anymore (basically all of Capital One’s credit cards have no foreign transaction fee, for example).

Concluding Thoughts on the Legendary Amex Platinum Card

As a pure-play rewards card, the Platinum Amex doesn’t have a leg to stand on due to very average rewards coupled with a jaw-dropping $450 annual fee.  However, if you can take good advantage of the Platinum’s wide suite of benefits, it may make more sense.  The one benefit that really jumps out at me as a game-changer (if you can truly take advantage of it) is the free international 1^st/business class tickets.  If you put together just one of these deals, you’ll more than break-even on the annual fee.

The Platinum Card® From American Express

Disclaimer: This content is not provided or commissioned by American Express. Opinions expressed here are author’s alone, not those of American Express, and have not been reviewed, approved or otherwise endorsed by American Express. This site may be compensated through American Express Affiliate Program.

Firstly, just to fully outline, American Express actually outsources its concierge service to Circles.

On the American Express website, Amex emphasizes using the concierge for activities like restaurant reservations, event planning, gift suggestions, and of course travel bookings.  However, they also call out some more “unusual” examples, such as having the concierge locate a contractor to paint your house, or find a specific bracelet you had seen while shopping in a store in Greece.

Now, me, I tend to fall on the more skeptical side of the scale when it comes to this sort of thing.  I’m very price and quality conscious (yes, I want to have my cake and eat it too), and I am also generally believe that if you want something done right, best to do it yourself.

Certainly for things like reservations and simple purchases, the concept of a helper, personal assistant, or concierge makes good sense to me.  But finding a contractor to do work on your house?  That’s a whole different story.

So the goal of this post is to look beyond American Express’ marketing material, to see what real (albeit digital) people are saying, to gain a broader picture of what to expect from American Express Concierge.

To be sure, this isn’t a particularly scientific analysis, but I do believe you’ll find the insights valuable.

Summary of the Amex Platinum Concierge Service

• The card’s biggest strength may be in restaurant and event bookings. While the Concierge definitely doesn’t come through all the time, as long as you have a contingency plan in place, there’s no downside to trying.
• Not surprisingly, for complex tasks (like vacation planning) the Platinum Concierge comes up short.
• Surprisingly, for seemingly basic tasks, like finding baby sitters and ordering flowers, there were a large number of negative comments.

PlasticIQ’s Method for Evaluating the Amex Platinum Concierge Program

Firstly, we relied exclusively on Flyertalk forums for our insights.  We realize this may introduce its own set of biases (often complainers tend to take to the message board more than praisers, for example), but we found it overall to be the best and most efficient source of independent opinions from generally credible folks.

Secondly, we broke out the analysis into 5 categories: events, restaurants/reservations, basic tasks, complex tasks, and general comments.

Finally, we stuck to comments that had been published within the last year or so, as the quality of the program may have changed over a longer period of time.

PlasticIQ’s Detailed Findings Regarding the Amex Concierge Service

Amex Platinum Concierge’s Usefulness For Booking Restaurant Reservations

As the table below demonstrates, the majority of comments were focused on the ability of the Concierge to help book restaurant reservations.  With 20 positive comments and only 7 negatives, overall I’d mark this as a success for the program. Here are a couple of interesting quotes:

Negative: “Asked them to try and get reservations at a few high-end restuarants in London, and was told they were all full.  Got one of the girls at work to call…she got reservations at 2 of them…Makes me wonder if Amex even bothered contacting those ones at all…”

Positive: “Called concierge to see if they could help me make a reservation for Saturday night at 8pm at Tao in NYC.   Tao is one of the most popular restaurants in the city, and is ALWAYS booked up all night on Saturday. Received an email at 1pm today (Friday) confirming my 8pm reservation. I’m a very happy camper.”

How Does Platinum Concierge Fare with Complex Tasks

Not surprisingly, the success ratio drops as you move to more complex tasks, such as booking complex travel itineraries, finding contractors to paint your house, etc.  But still we found about a 50-50 split in positive versus negative comments.  My position here is that this isn’t so good, since complex tasks also often involve higher stakes (the cost of getting a bad contractor can be pretty huge) and you probably don’t want to leave the probability of a successful outcome to a coin-flip.

Furthermore, for travel related requests, its probably better to use Amex’s Platinum Travel Services, as they are specifically set up and organized to handle these types of complex requests.

Platinum Concierge Falls Flat On Basic Tasks

Most surprising of all was the poor performance of the Platinum Concierge on such basic tasks as ordering flowers, finding a baby sitter, etc.  Out of 9 comments in this area, all 9 were negative.  Ouch!

Negative: “Asked Amex France for baby sitting and they provided contact details of a company who charged almost double than the other.”

The Concierge Comes Through For Events

To end on a more positive note, Amex Platinum Concierge seemed to do quite well for obtaining tickets to events, with 4 comments and 4 positive outcomes (although the number of overall comments in this area was sparse, so take this with a grain of salt).

PIQ’s Closing Thoughts On The American Express Platinum Concierge Service

Well, one things is for sure, there’s definitely a lot of debate in the blogosphere about whether the Amex Platinum Concierge program is worth the money ($450 per year to be exact), or in fact whether it’s any good at all.  There are definitely shining examples of successes, as well as plentiful stories of abject failure.

I’d say, if you plan on using it to make reservations, then it definitely makes sense, since even if they fail, as long as you pursue alternate options in parallel, you’ve lost nothing.  And there are definitely some examples of spectacular successes on this front (ditto for events).

But if you’re banking on the Amex Platinum Concierge to handle more complex tasks, I’d probably steer clear of it.  Complex tasks generally take a lot of time, patience, skill and judgment to pull of (have you ever tried finding a good contractor!), and leaving that up to a complete stranger who is likely swamped with many other requests, is quite risky.

Overview of the American Express® Green Card

Charge card vs Credit Card

A charge card looks exactly like a credit card and swipes the same way, but the difference is that the entire balance is due at the end of every month. Charge cards also don’t have a strict credit limit. So while theoretically you can charge as much as you want, American Express® has a “shadow limit” that is based on your FICO® score. An important factor to your FICO® score is utilization. Because charge cards have no specific limit, most credit and insurance credit models will use your “high balance” as a substitute. The impact of the lack of a real credit limit and the model’s reliance on your high balance can negatively affect your credit score especially if you have a young credit report with only a few accounts.

On the upside, its much more difficult to get into serious debt with a charge card because you are severely punished for carrying a balance from one month to the next. In fact, if you carry a balance for more than two billing periods in a row, you will be charged a $35 late fee or 2.99% of the past due amount, whichever is greater. Converting that to an annual interest rate, you’re looking at roughly 36% APR per year or more! We never recommend carrying a balance from one month to the next because the costs quickly outweigh any rewards or benefits a card can provide, especially with the American Express charge cards.

Value of the American Express® Perks and Benefits

This card offers some great benefits as well as access to the American Express® Membership Rewards program. First, let’s start with a breakdown of the benefits.

Extended Warranty Benefit: This benefit comes in handy whenever you buy a product and consider the extended warranty package. Any eligible purchase made with the AmEx Green Card that has an original U.S. manufacturer’s warranty will be doubled by up to one extra year (during that second year, AmEx will cover your losses directly). So say you buy a keyboard with a one year warranty, but it broke after a year and a half. Since American Express® extended the warranty by an additional year, you call up American Express® and they will take care of it for free.

Purchase Protection Benefit: This benefit protects all eligible purchases made with the American Express® Green card for the first ninety days. During that time, if these items are stolen or accidentally damaged, American Express® will repair or reimburse them for you, up to a thousand dollars per claim.

Travel Benefits: There are a few travel benefits that come with this card. They have an emergency assistance hotline that can arrange for legal, medical, or financial help when you’re away from home, wherever you are in the world. The second benefit is travel accident insurance, which covers you if accidental death or dismemberment happens when you travel on a plane, ship, train, or bus and you purchased the full fare with the American Express® card.

Value of American Express® Membership Rewards Points

Membership rewards points can be redeemed for cash, airfare, gift cards and more. The biggest benefit are the extensive 22 airline and hotel transfer partners that utilize American Express® points.  To get a better idea of redemption options and associated value, I suggest you check out our post discussing the value of AmEx Membership Rewards Points.

Subtle difference between the Green and the Gold

The Gold card is one tier above the Green and offers very similar benefits for a slightly higher fee per year. On paper, the Green card seems to be the same card minus exclusive access to Gold card events. However, the fine print tells a different story. One of the biggest differences is in the roadside assistance. The Green card requires you to be at least 50 miles away from home to receive roadside assistance while the Gold card has no mileage restrictions. If your current car insurance offers roadside assistance and you don’t care much about exclusive access to concerts, shows, and major sporting events, then the Green card is just a cheaper version of the Gold card that we reviewed earlier last year .

PlasticIQ’s Final Word on the American Express® Gold Card

The Green card is a staple in American Express® offerings that’s been around since the company began in the 1950’s. When it first came out, it was offering perks and benefits that were unheard of in the industry. Now, many of the other credit card companies as well as American Express® offerings are beating out the value provided by the Green card. While it’s still a solid card, it isn’t spectacular by any means. You should utilize our Card Rank system (on our homepage) to see if this card is the right fit for your lifestyle.

You can apply for the American Express Green card here.

Disclaimer: This content is not provided or commissioned by American Express. Opinions expressed here are author’s alone, not those of American Express, and have not been reviewed, approved or otherwise endorsed by American Express. This site may be compensated through American Express Affiliate Program.

This is one of the few students cards around that offers compelling-enough rewards to tempt even us workin’ folk.  You can find out below how life-long learners (even those not necessarily still in their student days!) can get hold of this gem.

Summary of the City Forward® Credit Card for College Students Rewards and Fees

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Earning Citi ThankYou Points from the Citi Forward®Credit Card for Students

The Citi Forward® for College Students has a few spend categories that focus specifically on what students spend on: restaurants for all the times students eat out, movie theaters/video rental shops for entertainment, music stores for parties, and book stores for all of the school supplies. These niche categories give you 5 points per dollar spent while everything else gives you one point per dollar spent. It’s not often (like, never) that such a comprehensive rewards system is even offered on student cards, let alone tailored specifically to student spending habits.

Earning 5 Points at Amazon??

Sounds too good to be true? Well…yes, in fact, you earn a whopping 5 Thankyou points per dollar spent on Amazon. Apparently, since Amazon was originally incarnated as an online bookseller, that old DNA is still around somewhere, and causes them to fall under the category of “bookseller” from Citi’s perspective.

Redeeming Your ThankYou Points with the Citi Forward® Credit Card

The ThankYou Points rewards redemption is the same as other Citi cards, so it would be wise to know which redemption methods are traps and which ones give you the most bang for your buck. To get the inside information, you can check out our evaluation here, “What is the Value of Citi’s ThankYou Points Rewards Program?”

The short version is that the best value for ThankYou Points is $.01 per point through either travel purchases on Expedia or through a loophole on student loans. If you decide to skip the work, a statement credit is worth $0.0070 per point while cash back is only worth $0.0063 per point. Do yourself a favor, read our article and get the most out of your rewards!

Citi Forward® for Students Fees

There’s no annual fee for the Citi Forward® for Students Credit Card. The international transaction fee is 3%, which is standard fare for Citi cards. If you’re a student who is thinking of studying abroad, you should take a closer look at some of the Capital One cards, as they have no international fees.

Callout: Citi Forward’s® 0.25% Interest Reduction Game

At first sight this offer sounds great. For every 3 months when you pay at least your minimum balance on time and don’t exceed your credit limit, Citi will drop your purchase APR by 0.25%. This is a cumulative effect, and the most you can drop your rate by is 2.0% (which would be after 8 quarters of excellent behavior).

However, after you think about it, there isn’t much value to this benefit. If you are carrying any balances, it’s almost a foregone conclusion that interest expense will far outweigh any rewards you earn. If you think you will be carrying a balance from month to month, you should probably consider a credit card with a lower interest rate than what this card offers.

Can I get the Citi Forward® Card for Students if I’m Not Currently a Student?

As far as I can tell, Citi only requires your enrollment status, current class year, and your school’s state, city, and name. They don’t require any verification beyond that. Even if you are not currently enrolled as a college student, it wouldn’t be difficult for you to enter in some data and still apply. So go ahead and give it the ol’ college try;)

I’ve also read on some forums that folks have been successful at converting other Citi cards (such as the Citi Platinum card) over to the Citi Forward for Students. This may be another option. If you have an old Citi card you don’t use (and who doesn’t!), then this could be another fruitful avenue.

PlasticIQ’s Final Word on the Citi Forward® Credit Card for College Students

While Citi Forward® is clearly a fantastic niche card for students (great rewards, no co-signer required, credit builder), we’re fairly confident that even non-students can find a way to get hold of this card. The big downside from an “all grown up” point of view is that you don’t get any sort of sign-up bonus with this card–but the 5 points at restaurants should more than make up for this over the long run.

Citi Forward® for College Students Credit Card

Key Differences between Blue Sky and Blue Sky Preferred

The Blue Sky® has no annual fee, and the Blue Sky Preferred® has an annual fee of $75.

The two cards have a different setup for rewards. The Blue Sky card offers 1 point for each dollar spent on general purchases. The Preferred version of the card offers 2 points for each dollar spent on restaurants, hotels, and car rentals (and 1 point for each dollar spent on other purchases).

The Preferred offers a $100 Annual Airline Allowance that is not offered by the Blue Sky. The Preferred’s airline allowance allows you to be reimbursed up to $100 per year for flight incidental fees such as baggage fees, in-flight movie costs, and in-flight internet access costs.

The two cards have different welcome offers. The Blue Sky has a welcome offer of 7,500 points (a $100 value) if you spend $1,000 on eligible purchases in the first 3 months of owning the card. The Preferred has a welcome offer of 15,000 points (a $200 value) if you spend $1,000 on eligible purchases in the first 3 months of owning the card.

Key Similarities between Blue Sky and Blue Sky Preferred

The reward points for both cards can be redeemed as statement credits that can be applied toward travel expenses for airlines, hotels, car rental companies, cruise lines, and travel agencies. Also, both cards have these benefits in common: Emergency Card Replacement, a Global Assist Hotline, Return Protection, Roadside Assistance, Car Rental Loss and Damage Insurance, an Extended Warranty, Purchase Protection, and Travel Accident Insurance. To sweeten the deal, both cards have a 0% introductory APR for the first 12 months.

Which Card Will Give You the Most?

At the end of the day, you’ll want to go with the credit card that gives you the better value. Depending on your expenses for airline incidental fees, restaurants, hotels, and car rentals, one of these cards will outperform the other.

If you spend over $75 dollar each year on airline incidental fees, the Blue Sky Preferred® will always have a better value for you than the Blue Sky®. With the Preferred, you would regain more than the cost of the $75 annual fee through up to $100 in airline incidental fee reimbursements, and you would get twice as many reward points for expenses at restaurants, hotels, and car rental agencies.

Now, let’s look at a different situation. What if you have no airline incidental fees each year? As outlined in the table below, if you spend more than $5,625 on restaurants, hotels, and car rentals in a year, you would still get a better value with the Preferred card. However, if you spend less than $5,625 in those three areas, then you would get a better value with the Blue Sky. These figures do not take into account the one-time-only welcome offers of the two cards.

Conclusion

The Blue Sky Preferred® offers some extra perks and a more attractive rewards system than the Blue Sky® in exchange for a $75 annual fee. It is in your favor to pay the extra $75 per year for the Preferred if you spend greater than $75 each year on airline incidental fees or greater than $5,625 per year on restaurants, hotels, and car rentals. If airline incidental fees aren’t a part of your life and you spend less than $5,625 per year on restaurants, hotels, and car rentals, the normal Blue Sky would have a better value.

You can apply for the Blue Sky Preferred From American Express Card here, or follow the link below for the non-preferred version.

Disclaimer: This content is not provided or commissioned by American Express. Opinions expressed here are author’s alone, not those of American Express, and have not been reviewed, approved or otherwise endorsed by American Express. This site may be compensated through American Express Affiliate Program.

Like we say for all airline and hotel loyalty cards, while the value of the rewards you earn is important, it may very well take a back seat to your own brand and experience preferences.  If you’re a big fan of American Airlines, or find their routes convenient, then one of the Aadvantage loyalty cards may have a better chance of working for you.

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Summary Of Benefits Of CitiBusiness/Aadvantage Credit Card

• First bag checked free for you and up to 4 other travel companions
• Priority boarding with Group 1 privileges.
• Sign-up bonus: 30,000 American Airlines aadvantage miles after making $1,000 in purchases within first 3 months of card membership.
• Bonus points:
  • Earn 2 aadvantage miles for every dollar of eligible American Airlines purchases, as well as at certain office supply, telecommunications and and car rental companies.
  • You’ll earn 1 aadvantage mile for every dollar spent on all other purchases.
  • Receive a $99 companion certificate for domestic (US) travel when you make $30,000 or more in purchases in a given cardmember year.  Note that you will also have to pay ticket fees of $21.60 to $43.20.  The certificate is valid for 1 year from issue.
  • Points bonus: each cardmember year, you’ll receive a 5% American Airlines mileage bonus on all eligible purchases made during the prior cardmember year.
  • Get 25% savings on eligible in-flight food and beverage purchases when you make the purchases with your aadvantage credit card.
  • Annual fee of $95, waived for the first year.

More on the $99 Companion Certificate

If you are able to hit the $30K spent target for the cardmember year, then you’ll earn this nice little sweetener.  It’s reasonable to assume that a domestic (US) flight might price in around $350 or so on average, which makes this certificate worth between $200 and $250 (let’s split the difference and call it $225).

Quick Thought on the 5% Aadvantage Annual Bonus

This bonus is really nothing to get too excited about.  A 5% bonus on eligble won’t really put much money in your pocket.  Let’s say you spent $15K in a given year, of which $5K is on purchases qualifying for 2 Aadvantage points.  Your total points earned would be 10,000 ($10K spend @1 point per dollar) plus another 10,000 ($5K spend @ 2 points per dollar), for a total of 20,000 points.  A 5% bonus would amount to another 1,000 points, which at $0.0136 per mile, works out to around $13 extra bucks.  Not life-changing, I think you would agree.

We Like The Free First Checked Bag Benefit

Here’s a nice, potentially valuable bonus.  Within the US, the first checked bag costs $25.  If you’re traveling with a couple of other people, the savings quickly add up, and could easily offset the $95 annual fee.

PlasticIQ’s Closing Thoughts

Our favorite aspects of the CitiBusiness Aadvantage credit card are the sign-up bonus, the companion certificate, and the free first checked bag bonus.  The least impressive aspects of the card are the bonus mile categories (which aren’t bad per se, but you can do better), and the $95 annual fee (most airline loyalty cards come with some sort of annual fee, alas).

Summary of SimplyCash Business Credit Card Benefits

Earning Rewards

Clearly, for small businesses, earning 5% cash back at office supply stores can come in quite handy. Especially when you consider that some office supply purchases can be quite large (photocopiers, fax machines, computers, etc). The 3% cash back for gas purchases made at U.S. stand-alone gas stations is also a nice bonus.

The wireless bonus is excellent. A family of 3 or 4 folks can easily be spending $200 per month on wireless services, or $2,400 per year. At 5% cash back, that’s a cool $120 earned, with no annual fees on the card. Of course, if you actually own a small business, your wireless bill could be much higher.

Rewards Caps

Interestingly, the SimplyCash Business card does have rewards caps, but fortunately these caps are quite high. You are limited to $12K per year in spend in each reward category, after which you will only earn the standard 1% cash back in that given category.

If you are running a very small business, or just using the card for personal use, then you are unlikely to hit the $12K cap on any of the bonus categories. If you have several employees, then it is possible you’ll hit the caps. You can use the PIQ Ranking Engine (found from our homepage) to assess how your spending will impact rewards generated from this card.

Redeeming Your Cash Back

There’s not much to talk about here. Every month your rewards, in the form of cash back, are automatically applied to your credit card statement. That is simple.

Additional Benefits

True to form, the SImplyCash Business Credit Card from American Express comes with a suite of benefits:

• Purchase protection: protect eligible purchases for up to 90 days from date of purchase in case of theft or accidental damage.
• Extended warranty: can mirror original manufacturer’s warranty for up to 1 additional year.
• Car rental loss and damage insurance: provides coverage at no additional cost.

PIQ’s Final Thoughts On SimplyCash For Business

The high rewards in specific rewards categories, coupled with the $0 annual fee, make this card an excellent addition to an overall credit card portfolio. If you’re just using the card for personal use, or a very small business, you needn’t worry about the rewards caps either. SimplyCash for Business gets 2 thumbs up from the PIQ team. Rock on.

You can apply for the SimplyCash® Business Card From American Express here.

Disclaimer: This content is not provided or commissioned by American Express. Opinions expressed here are author’s alone, not those of American Express, and have not been reviewed, approved or otherwise endorsed by American Express. This site may be compensated through American Express Affiliate Program.

Firstly, it offers a 15 month 0% APR on both purchases and balance transfers.  There is a 3% balance transfer fee (minimum of $5), but that’s not uncommon.  And the 15-month term is pretty good.

Additionally, the standard purchase APR on the card tends to be on the low side (assuming you have excellent credit), but we never recommend you carry a balance on your credit cards, so honestly this shouldn’t even matter, except as an insurance policy in case you forget to make a payment or run into hard times all of a sudden.

Finally, in reading comments from users from around the web-o-sphere, it seems that folks are very happy with the customer service and overall banking operations of US Bank–never a bad thing.

So, to wrap it up, this isn’t a rewards card.  If you’re looking for 0% purchase/balance transfer offers, you should consider the US Bank Platinum Card, but also check out our post Best Balance Transfer Offers.

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How The Plum Card Works

The Plum card attempts to combine the best of both rewards: a low APR card and a rewards card through two features: Early Pay Discount and Extra Days to Pay. Here’s an explanation of how each works:

Early Pay Discount

Any amount you pay within 10 days of the statement closing date will receive a bonus of 1.5% (added to your next statement’s balance). So for those who can pay promptly, Plum looks and feels a lot like a 1.5% cash back card. Note that it’s vital that you pay within the 10 day window and not before (or after), as you won’t get the rebate otherwise. That’s a bit of a negative, as it’s another date to track.

Extra Days To Pay

As we mentioned above, if you don’t pay your balance at all, the Plum Card will severely penalize you (to the tune of 36%+ APRs). But then again, if you don’t pay your balances, you really shouldn’t be making use of plastic at all.

However, if you pay at least 10% of your new balance, plus the full amount of any deferred payments from the prior period, you are allowed to defer payment of the remaining unpaid amount until the following billing cycle, with no interest assessed. Here’s an example to make it more concrete.

Let’s say you have $10K in deferred balances from the prior month, and you spent another $15K on the card this month. For whatever reason you don’t have the cash on hand to pay down the balance fully. What you can instead do is pay off the $10K deferred balance, plus 10% of the $15K (i.e. $1,500), and defer the remaining $13,500 until the next billing statement, without paying any interest penalty.

Is the Plum Card Better Than A Low APR Card

While Plum’s “Early Days To Pay” feature may make it seem like a better solution than a low APR card, we have a couple of thoughts on that:

• Firstly, if you are finding yourself frequently in the position of not being able to pay off a card in full, red warning signs should be flashing. If that’s the case, sooner or later you’ll find yourself in the position of not being able to pay off the deferred balance, and Plum will hit you with some high penalties.
• Secondly, a low APR card lets you carry over balances month to month, paying just the minimum amount—which makes it much easier to avoid penalty APRs. Plum requires a full pay-down of any deferred balances, which is a higher bar.

Plum’s High Annual Fee Versus Card Benefits

On the one hand, the Plum card’s annual fee of $250 (waived for the first year) is quite painful. On the other hand, Plum does come with a number of benefits, including:

• Global Assist Hotline
• Open Savings Benefit: Partner discounts ranging from 3-10%.
• 90 day Return Protection
• Roadside assistance
• Baggage Insurance
• Car Rental Insurance

PlasticIQ’s Closing Thoughts On Plum From American Express

I think the Plum Card is moderately successful in trying to combine both a rewards card and a flexible payment plan into one card. I say “moderately”, because in order to get the rewards, you need to pay within 10 days of the close of billing. And to avoid interest payments, you need to pay down any deferred charges in full (plus 10% of new charges). Furthermore, the annual fee is worrisome, though you do get many of American Express’ legendary benefits.

If you are not sure if Plum is right for you, I’d recommend using our PIQ Ranking Engine (found right from our home page), to help you hone in on the perfect card for your needs.

Disclaimer: This content is not provided or commissioned by American Express. Opinions expressed here are author’s alone, not those of American Express, and have not been reviewed, approved or otherwise endorsed by American Express. This site may be compensated through American Express Affiliate Program.

While we’ll provide you with some additional detail below, the annual fee version is definitely superior, and you’d still want to use it even with a broken arm!

If you’re unfamiliar with Virgin America’s loyalty program, you can check out our overview of the Virgin America Elevate Program here.

Earnings Rewards With The Virgin America Card

The annual fee version gives you 3 points per dollar of spend, and 1 point per dollar on all other spend. The non-annual fee version just gives you 1 point on all spend. In a separate post, we estimated the value of Virgin America points to be around $0.02, which is exceedingly high for an airline loyalty program. Couple this with the 3 points per dollar on Virgin America purchases, and it’s like getting a 6% discount on airline ticket purchases—not too shabby!

Why The Virgin America Credit Card With Annual Fee Always Beats Out The Non-Annual Fee Version

While it’s nice in theory to not pay an annual fee, in this case, the theory doesn’t hold up to the reality. The reason is that the fee version of the card gives you a number of superior bonuses, which in sum total easily compensate for the additional $49 per year.

To start, you’ll get a companion certificate which serves as a $150 discount off of the additional ticket. While some companion certificates have sneaky terms, this one is the real deal. The only conditions are you need to do a minimum 14-day advance purchase, and you need to be on the same itinerary as the person using the certificate. We assume since you are interested in Virgin America’s loyalty program, there’s a good chance you could make use of this voucher. If true, this will more than cover the annual fee!

Secondly, you get 10,000 bonus points with the annual fee version of the Virgin America credit card, versus just 2,500 points for the no-annual fee version. That works out to an incremental 7,500 points. At 2 cents per point, these incremental points are worth $150. That will cover your annual fee for 3 years!

Finally, if you think you’ll spend $25K or more on this credit card in a given calendar year, you’d earn an incremental 5K bonus points with the $49 version of the card (10K points versus only 5K points for the no-annual-fee version). At roughly 2 cents per point value, that’s another $100 per year incremental versus the no annual fee card, more than covering the annual fee.

Redeeming Points on Virgin America

Redeeming points is thankfully very straight-forward on Virgin America (not always the case with airline loyalty programs!). You simply price out the ticket you want, and their website automatically tells you how many points would be required to obtain it. There are no blackout dates or other carve-outs. If you have sufficient points, you get the ticket.

PlasticIQ’s Closing Thoughts on the Virgin America Visa Credit Card

Well, like all loyalty programs, they only make sense if you like the brand and can make good use of it. Virgin America specializes in East Coast to West Coast (and vice versa) flight routes, so if your primary need is for flights to Europe, you may want to broaden your search. But if those routes work, then we think this is a very solid rewards card. (personally, we also dig the comfort and amenities of Virgin Atlantic relative to some other US carriers!).

And of course, we definitely recommend the $49 annual fee version versus the no-annual fee version, given that the companion certificate alone more than covers the fee.

You can apply for the Virgin America Visa (both versions) here.. Note that the link to the no-annual-fee version is towards the bottom of the page.

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