Tag Archives: American Express

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Keep, Cancel or Convert? American Express Business Platinum Charge Card ($595 Annual Fee)

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Good afternoon everyone.  As part of my “Keep, Cancel or Convert?” series, I like to evaluate and reevaluate credit (and charge) cards to make sure they still deserve a spot in my wallet.  Last month, the $595 annual fee posted on my American Express Business Platinum Charge Card.  I have read a few recent blog posts about whether to keep or cancel the AMEX Platinum Card (from Frequent Miler and Your Mileage May Vary), so I wanted to share my view on this card.

First things first, I added my brother as an authorized user so he could access the Centurion Lounges, Escape Lounges, and Priority Pass Lounges (no more restaurants).  He used the card a few times, but he decided that the $300 annual fee was not worth it to him.  My statement closed on December 2, I called AMEX on December 2 or 3, and said I would like to downgrade my brother’s AMEX Business Platinum to a no annual fee AMEX Business Green (which comes with no perks, other than the $100 Global Entry credit).  AMEX processed the downgrade request right away, but did not provide a full refund (I was charged $1.64 for those 2 days).  Seems kind of petty to me, but let’s see if I decided to keep, cancel, or convert my AMEX Business Platinum.

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American Express Business Platinum Airline Credit Used for 2 $99 JetBlue Seat Assignments

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Good morning everyone, I hope your week is going well.  As part of My 5 New Year’s Travel Resolutions for 2020, I said that I would “Use American Express Airline Fee Credits (Without Buying Airline GCs / eGCs).”  So far in 2020, I am following through on my resolution.  Last month, I used my JetBlue True Blue Points to book flights for Laura and I to fly from SFO to BOS.  It is a 5.5 hour red eye flight, so I looked at how much the Even More Space seats cost and found out the seats I wanted were $99 each.  Instead of purchasing those seats with cash in 2019, I decided to use the $200 airline fee credit that comes with my American Express Business Platinum Charge Card to cover the charges.  I selected JetBlue as my airline for 2020 and paid for the 2 seats with my AMEX Business Platinum.  The pending charge looked like a single $198 JetBlue purchase…

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Ask Me Anything (AMA): Credit Card Edition

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Good morning everyone, I hope your weekend is off to a great start.  I love talking about credit cards and recently wrote I Paid $4,588 in Credit Card Annual Fees in 2019 & Was it Worth it? and Why Do We Keep 16 No Annual Fee Credit Cards?  I also do a series called “Keep, Cancel, or Convert?” where I explain why a credit card is worth keeping or why it should be converted or closed.

Today, I want to answer your reader questions.  If they are short and simple questions, I can answer them directly in the comments section.  If they are longer and more complicated questions, I might write a blog post about that topic. So without further ado, what questions do you have about credit cards?  Have a great weekend everyone!

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How to View or Hide AwardWallet Airline Credits, Dining Credits & Hotel Free Night Certificates

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Good morning everyone, happy Friday!  Yesterday, I received an interesting comment on my post: My 5 New Year’s Travel Resolutions for 2020.  The commenter, MrDioji, asked: “How do you get Award Wallet to display airline and dining credits? Or do you manually add them?”  He was referring to this screenshot of my American Express balances in my AwardWallet account.  Instead of answering the question in the comments section, I thought it would be helpful to write a post about this topic to help other readers.  In this post, I will show you how to view or hide airline credits, dining credits, hotel free night certificates, and many other pieces of information.

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My 5 New Year’s Travel Resolutions for 2020

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Good afternoon everyone, I hope you all had a great New Years!  With the beginning of the new year, I wanted to make a few travel resolutions for the coming year.  Here are my 5 New Year’s travel resolutions for 2020.  Feel free to share your own travel resolutions in the comments section.

1. Travel Somewhere Every Month

For the last several years, this has been my only travel resolution.  It could be a short weekend trip, a road trip, a cross country trip, or a long international trip.  I love to travel and take advantage of the 52 weekends every year (it helps that I work in San Francisco and can easily get to SFO or OAK in less than an hour).  I’ve got the first 3 months of the year covered:

  • January: Laura and I will do a short road trip down to Carmel / Monterey for a long weekend and use our Hyatt Free Night Certificates.
  • February: I will fly down to Orange County for Super Bowl Weekend with my family and then we will make a second trip to Orange County for my cousin’s wedding.
  • March: Laura and I are flying to Ireland for her Spring Break (she is an assistant principal).  Check out my post How to Book Aer Lingus Award Tickets with British Airways Avios (Call BA to Save $100+ on Taxes & Fees).

There are a few other trips planned the rest of the year, so my first travel resolution should be accomplished.  Here are the 4 other travel resolutions I have in mind for 2020:

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