Can your credit card portfolio be complete without an Amex?

But with heavyweights such as HDFC Infinia, Axis Atlas and Axis Magnus Burgundy serving up stiff competition, do you really need an Amex card?

Ashwin, a credit card enthusiast who tweets as @drgrudge, said given how elusive Infinia and Magnus Burgundy are, credit card users could consider getting an Amex card. “Both Infinia and Magnus Burgundy are hard to get. HDFC bank doesn’t give Infinia easily, whereas Magnus Burgundy requires you to maintain a ₹30 lakh fixed deposit or ₹10 lakh savings account balance with Axis Bank. Moreover, only high spenders can get meaningful rewards on these cards. In comparison, Amex cards are easily accessible and, in my opinion, more rewarding at lower spending levels,” he said.

“HDFC bank doesn’t give Infinia easily, whereas Magnus Burgundy requires you to maintain a ₹30 lakh fixed deposit or ₹10 lakh savings account balance.”

Sumanta Mandal, founder of TechnoFino, a platform specialising in credit card reviews, agreed. “The base reward rate of both Infinia at 3.33% and Magnus Burgundy at 4.8% works out lower than those of Amex cards,” he said.

What does Amex offer?

Amex credit cards are most rewarding for miles transfers and lifestyle benefits in the super-premium category, which includes cards such as Amex Platinum Charge and Centurion. Amex doesn’t offer any cashback credit cards.

Both Mandal and Ashwin advised those keen on travel rewards to consider three cards – Platinum Travel, MRCC and Gold Charge. MRCC and Gold Charge are entry-level cards with joining a fee of ₹1,180 and an annual fee ₹5,310 from the second year onwards. Both these fees include 18% GST.

These cards earn you two Membership Rewards (MR) points for every ₹100 you spend. However, for both MRCC and Gold charge, the main rewards come in the form of bonus points for certain monthly spends. On MRCC, you get 1,000 points each month for making four transactions of ₹1,500 each. You can earn an additional 1,000 points each month by spending at least ₹20,000.

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Similarly, on Gold Charge, six payments of ₹1,000 each earn you 1,000 bonus points. “One can easily spend ₹6,000 every month just on utilities, so these milestones can be completed by buying vouchers or on wallet loads. You earn 13,440 points annually just by spending ₹6,000 each month from any of these two cards,” said Mandal.

For Gold charge, you don’t need to buy Amazon Pay vouchers to pay bills as the card earns you rewards on utilities, fuel, insurance and other categories that are exempted on MRCC. Note that Amex doesn’t allow a ‘minimum payment due’ option on its Charge cards.

With Amex Platinum Travel, the reward rate is the same at 2 MR points for every ₹100 spent. With this card too, the main benefits come from two milestone benefits. On spending ₹1.9 lakh during the year, you get a bonus of 15,000 MR points, and on spending ₹4 lakh, you get 25,000 MR points and Taj vouchers worth ₹10,000. Essentially, on spending ₹4 lakh a year you earn 48,000 MR points. Amex Platinum travel is a mid-level card with joining fee of ₹4,130 and an annual renewal fee of ₹5,900.

With all three cards you get a welcome bonus that helps you recoup the joining fee. However, there are no rewards to help recoup the annual fee, though the fee may be waived on spending ₹2 lakh in a year on Gold Charge and MRCC, and ₹7 lakh on Platinum Travel. However, there is no official waiver condition so you need to call Amex support and ask for it.

Marriott the most rewarding transfer

American Express has nine transfer partners – two hotels and seven airlines. Mandal said transferring Amex MR points to Marriott Bonvoy offers the best value.

“The transfer rate is 1:1, which is better than that of the other transfer partners, which allow transfers at a 2 MR points:1 airmiles ratio. If you compare this to other banks’ credit card transfer programmes, the transfer ratio to airlines is better than Marriott, so it makes sense to use Amex MR points for Marriott points and reward points from other credit cards for airlines,” he said.

“It makes sense to use Amex MR points for Marriott points and reward points from other credit cards for airlines.”

On transferring to Marriott, the value of one MR point can vary from ₹0.5 to ₹1. At ₹0.50 per MR point, the MRCC card earns 6.3% rewards on annual spends of ₹2.4 lakh, whereas Gold Charge earns a 9.3% reward rate on ₹72,000 annual spends. Both these annual spending amounts are the milestone limits that earn you bonus rewards.

The alternative is to buy Taj vouchers that get you ₹0.50 per MR point. So, for the Platinum Travel card, the 48,000 MR points earned on spending ₹4 lakh become ₹24,000 and on adding the bonus ₹10,000 Taj voucher, you get a 8.5% reward rate on spending ₹4 lakh.

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“HDFC Infinia yields a high reward rate only when you transact on its Smartbuy platform. In comparison, Amex cards offer a much higher reward rate,” said Ashwin. Smartbuy is HDFC bank’s online platform that can be used to book flights or buy vouchers using the bank’s credit cards. “However, this doesn’t mean users should not get Infinia if they are getting Amex. The former offers better airmiles transfer compared to Amex. The two cards offer different types of rewards and users should use both,” he added.

Other than airmiles transfers, MR points can also be used to get vouchers from Flipkart or other e-commerce platforms and to adjust against credit card bills. However, the reward rate is much lower on these redemptions.

The big downsides of Amex

An Amex credit card can’t be the only credit card you use. This is because Amex’s acceptability for point-of-sale payments is a major issue. “Acceptability of Amex cards for offline transactions is on the lower side compared to industry standards. This is true both in India and abroad,” said Ashwin.

Mandal added the problem is worse with smaller merchants, who refuse to accept Amex Cards as it charges a higher merchant discount rate (MDR) than other card networks.

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Responding to Mint’s queries on this, Anurag Gupta, VP and head of global merchant & network services at American Express India said, “Our merchant pricing is designed to reflect the unique value we bring to our partners, including access to high-spending card members, secure and reliable payment processing, data-driven insights to support informed business decisions, and world-class customer service.”

He added that American Express has more than tripled the number of locations that accept its cards since the launch of the company’s International Coverage Strategy in 2017. “In 2023 alone, we added over a million new merchant locations in India. Our efforts have been focused on expanding acceptance in everyday categories where our card members live, work, and travel most, such as retail, dining, travel, gas stations, and health & wellness,” Gupta said.

Ashwin said the other issue with Amex is that it mainly services customers in tier-1 cities, so people in smaller cities find it difficult to get a card. “While I would say a credit card portfolio can’t be complete without an Amex card, it’s not a complete no-brainer because of these two major issues,” he said.

“Acceptability of Amex cards for offline transactions is on the lower side compared to industry standards.”