Tag Archives: American Express

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I Paid $4,588 in Credit Card Annual Fees in 2019 – Was it Worth it?

Good morning everyone.  As we approach the end of the year, I decided to take a look at my credit card spreadsheet and see how much my wife and I paid in annual fees this year.  I removed all the no annual fee credit cards and here are the 26 credit cards that have annual fees (sorted alphabetically).  I will break down this list into cards that I am 99% sure that I will cancel, 99% sure that I will keep, and the 50/50 cards that I might keep or cancel.  Read through this post and let me know if you agree or disagree with my thinking.

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New AMEX App Feature: Split Purchases & Request Venmo or PayPal Payments from Others

Good morning everyone.  I was checking my American Express credit cards on the AMEX App and was shown a new feature where you can split purchases with friends and family members.  You make the purchase on your American Express credit / charge card and then you can request payment from your Venmo or PayPal account.  Supposedly, this is a “seamless way to split payments.”  In this post, I will show you how the process works.

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5 Things to Buy with $100 Away Credit from AMEX Green Card

Good afternoon everyone, I hope you had a great weekend.  If you recently applied for the newly revamped American Express Green Card, you may have seen that a $100 Away credit is part of the sign up bonus.  In this post, I will show you 5 things to buy with your $100 Away credit (even if you do not have / want an Away suitcase).

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American Express Card Changes: Trip Delay Insurance; Corporate Card Lower Annual Fees & Earning Rates [Updated 11/4]

Updated 8:30am PT on 11/4: I just reviewed my American Express Business Platinum Charge Card statement and noticed changes to trip cancellation / interruption insurance, trip delay insurance, Boingo Preferred Plan, and Gogo Preferred Plan.  Please scroll to the bottom of the post to see those updates.


Good afternoon everyone, I hope your weekend is going well.  I was just reviewing my recent American Express credit card statements and spotted a few announcements / changes.  None of these changes seem that important to me, but they do cover Gold Card trip delay insurance, corporate card annual fees, corporate card earning rates, Green Card bonus categories, and mediation / arbitration.  This statement came from my American Express Gold Card, but I saw most of the same announcements / changes listed on my other American Express credit card statements too.

Effective January 1, 2020, the American Express Gold Card is introducing trip delay insurance.  This insurance only kicks in when you book a roundtrip flight and your flight is more than 12 hours delayed.  If that happens, you are covered for up to $300 in reimbursements for meals and accommodations.  It says this coverage is secondary, so it must kick in after the airline’s coverage (primary coverage).  I’m not sure how competitive that is with other premium travel rewards credit cards.

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My Failed Experiment to Cut the Comcast Xfinity Cable Cord

Good morning everyone.  My wife and I have Comcast Xfinity internet and cable TV at home and I was considering cutting the cord to save money on our cable TV subscription.  I don’t really watch live TV (news or sports), but I do love watching recorded TV shows from our DVR (mostly reality TV and sitcoms).  I have the Comcast Xfinity Stream app on my iPhone and love that I can download any show from our DVR onto the app (also works great on our iPad).  I can watch TV shows on my commute to work (on the train and ferry) and when I travel on a plane.  Having the shows pre-downloaded vs. streaming to my iPhone is really important to me since I do not have unlimited 4G/5G data, WiFi on my commute and on planes is slow, and some spots have no cell or WiFi signal at all.

In my experiment, I tried to replace Comcast Xfinity cable TV with Sling TV, Hulu, and CBS All Access.  My experiment did not go as smoothly as I had hoped, but I will show you what I learned from these 3 streaming services and apps (and their shortcomings, from my perspective).

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