Doctor of Credit recently put up a really good post wherein he asked a bunch of bloggers (including yours truly) to name the most undervalued credit card. There was a wide variety of responses and some good discussion for those of you who are into discussing credit cards, and I recommend you go check it out.
One response, from Chuck Sithe, had an interesting nomination for most undervalued:
Fee-free Amex cards in general. Some of them may not have much value to use for regular spend, but they’re great for Amex Offers. If you have a couple authorized-users to add, you can get real value from them. I’m also constantly on the search for fee-free Amex cards from third-party issuers, which are eligible for Amex Offers via Twitter. For example, there’s a Macy’s American Express card that most people never heard of.
Amex has had some great deals lately. I’m sure you’ve heard about the Staples and AT&T offers, and Frequent Miler just had a nice post on the DirecTV offer. Small Business Saturday was worth $30 per Amex this past year.
Which brings me to the title of the post: how much are those deals worth? Is it worth signing up for a no-annual-fee card from a non-Amex bank just to get in on the deals?
Everybody has their sweet spot for what a sign-up bonus ought to be worth–maybe it’s $100, maybe it’s $500. If the expected revenue stream from Amex offers exceeds that number, then an Amex card would be worth it. But of course there is a lot of uncertainty around those Amex offers, plus you have to take into account the hassle factor of getting the deals. Maybe they won’t be as good in the future, or maybe Amex will stop them completely.
I have a few sock-drawered no-fee Amexes right now. I take them out for Small Business Saturday and for a very occasional Amex offer (and for Costco trips), but aside from that they stay in the sock drawer. For me personally, Amex deals aren’t enough to get me to sign up for a card, but they are an incentive not to cancel a card. As always, your mileage may vary.
That reminds me… I have a Mastercard that I was intending to convert to the Amex version of the card, precisely to take advantage of the Sync/small biz Saturday/etc offers.
Good points, I’ve never actually signed up for a card just for Amex offers, but I’d probably go for one if I could do it with the shopping cart trick or with a TU pull.
I would say zero since you can always generate no-fee AMEX cards via AUs.
Good point.
Too many AUs on a single account can lead to financial reviews, so tread lightly.
The Macy’s AmEx is a good example. I opened it many years ago when I needed to make a large purchase and it gave an extra % off, plus allowed card holder only coupons to be used. It was years ago, but I think my “sign up offer” was around $200.
Since then I’ve taken advantage of a few of the extra 10% off for card holders offers, so even without the AmEx sync offers the card has paid off. But the best part about these cards is that they help increase your ‘average age of accounts.’
Haha yeah, I am paranoid about MS on Amex issued cards.
Diamonds are forever, and so is an Amex blacklist.
You could do this on a third party issued AMEX. Personally I would run out of patience before I ran out of supportable AUs to add to all my AMEX cards. For the average joe debating how much a no-fee AMEX is worth from the standpoint of generating AMEX offers the answer is zero relative to adding legit AUs.
Actually, I take that back, you probably can’t do this on a third party issued AMEX as the card numbers are usually the same for AUs. Still, I would say for the average Joe the value of a no-fee AMEX is zero relative to adding an AU to one of your AMEX cards. If you can’t survive a FR you probably have bigger things to worry about.
This post seems to imply you can get the Amex deals with a non-Amex issued, Amex-branded card. This is definitely NOT the case. Fidelity doesn’t give you any type of promo or bill credits fordeals offered by AmEx.
Small Biz Saturday? Sync?
ummm not sure what you’re talking about, but I have both Citi-issued and FIA-issued Amex cards and I use them for Amex Sync offers all the time (registering via Twitter) and SBS every year for at least the past three. Credits take a day or two longer to post than Amex-issued cards, but do so reliably.
For non AU cards, issued by Amex keep in mind Amex limits some of us to 4 “credit” cards. Unlimited charge cards. Coupled with the once per card member sign on bonus (for personal) it may be kind of a moot point.
Sync and Small Business Saturday work on my AAdvantage Amex from Citi…