Opening a Morgan Stanley Account to Qualify for the Amex Platinum Card

[FullMoonMadness]

This is both a credit card and investment post:

I'm interested in applying for the Amex Platinum for Morgan Stanley card, and at the moment, not pursuing the annual fee reimbursement. I am not already a Morgan Stanley client, and my research on theirs and Amex's website has not yielded the answers to my questions.

1. Does an IRA meet the qualification as a brokerage account to apply for the Platinum card?
   1. If so, does Morgan Stanley offer the ability to open a Traditional IRA and backdoor into a Roth IRA?
2. They seem to be a business centered around managing you account (for a fee). Do they offer a Roth IRA that I can manage myself to reduce fees?
   1. If so, any idea what those fees are?

One of my interests in the Platinum card is the free AU, and if any fees on the Roth IRA reach a certain level, I will begin to question the savings I'm getting on the AU ($175). Not to mention that every dollar I give away to Morgan Stanley in fees is a dollar that could be growing year after year.

Thanks in advance for your response!

 

[FullMoonMadness]

I finally found an answer to my question on the fees here. Access investing comes with a 0.30% fee per month based on your account balance. If you put the minimum of $5K in to an account, that would be $180 per year, assuming you maintained the $5K value. Since the AU for the Platinum is $175, this is a no-go for my purposes.



Hopefully this helps someone out there.

 

[lochquel]

You can't use a Roth for the brokerage portion of fee-free MStanley Amex Plat. (myself as a dp). Just the Access Investing straight brokerage account.

Your fee calculation is off. I pay ~$1.30/month (on 5.1k) or ~$16/year. You APR is off. Should be about 0.3% yearly (not monthly).

The opportunity cost is if you go for fee free with 25k in cashplus account can be a larger question though.

Yes, the 1st AU with MStanley is free. There are quite a few Personal Plat perks to minimize the AF in general and I currently am on the fee-free MStanley Amex Plat plan myself. The Airline credit, Uber credit, enhanced hotel/car rental status and entertainment credit have more than a $0 value.

Check out FM for more breakdown: https://frequentmiler.com/morgan-stanley-platinum-card-fee-free-how-to-earn-the-550-annual-engagement-bonus/

 

[FullMoonMadness]

You can't use a Roth for the brokerage portion of fee-free MStanley Amex Plat. (myself as a dp). Just the Access Investing straight brokerage account.

Your fee calculation is off. I pay ~$1.30/month (on 5.1k) or ~$16/year. You APR is off. Should be about 0.3% yearly (not monthly).

The opportunity cost is if you go for fee free with 25k in cashplus account can be a larger question though.

Yes, the 1st AU with MStanley is free. There are quite a few Personal Plat perks to minimize the AF in general and I currently am on the fee-free MStanley Amex Plat plan myself. The Airline credit, Uber credit, enhanced hotel/car rental status and entertainment credit have more than a $0 value.

Check out FM for more breakdown: https://frequentmiler.com/morgan-stanley-platinum-card-fee-free-how-to-earn-the-550-annual-engagement-bonus/

Thanks for the reply. At the moment I'm not factoring in trying to get the full annual fee covered. I'm just looking for the bare minimum of getting my foot in the door to be eligible for the card. Would the Roth IRA meet the requirement for being eligible to have the Platinum card, or is the straight brokerage account still required?

It is definitely hard to get comfortable with placing $25K in a low interest yield account.

Regarding my calculation, I see the that I missed the word "annual" at the very beginning, and just focused on "monthly." That is definitely more palatable in the first year. As my investment (theoretically) grows, that number will become less appealing over time, but that would likely take a while.

I already have the plain Amex Platinum, and recognize the value of many of the perks, however the pandemic has impacted the value I'm getting enough to make holding the card a borderline decision. The MS version would provide a little more value.

 

[lochquel]

Yeah you have to be comfortable with the math for yourself. A main perk that swayed me was the 1st free AU which I can get value out of. Something else to consider would be that the SUB offset any year 1 costs, but after that you're correct to assume the investing opportunity cost might be debatable.

No the Roth won't work for the purposes of making this fee free. I inadvertently tried that, but was getting assessed monthly fees after the 3 month grace period for a Roth with them. Needed Access Investing straight brokerage account