Friday, 28 September 2007

Platinum Ho Hum

Through my workplace I have access to a "special deal" whereby I could get a "Platinum" card from one of the major banks for 'only' $200 per annum membership fee - which is a slight discount to the normal $250 annual fee. The only trouble is that I can't for the life of me see how this card would be worth even $200 a year to me. It does have a "free" rewards program which earns 1.25 pts per dollar spent on the card, and up to 55 days interest free on purchases, but I already earn FlyBuys points on my normal NAB VISA card (which I redeem for a cash credit on the account), so that would be of no net benefit. It also has a 0% balance transfer offer, but only for 6 months, so I wouldn't earn enough interest through CC arbitrage to pay for more than a couple of years worth of membership fee. That leaves me just a plastic "status symbol" costing about $4.00 a week - and even the "status" of a Platinum card has been devalued on the years, so that these days only a Black Amex or similar will make any impression. Overall I think I'd rather put an extra $100 a year into DS1 and DS2's bank accounts at Christmas time.

Copyright Enough Wealth 2007


3 comments:

mOOm said...

Most cards in the US are "platinum cards". These high fees here in Australia are ridiculous.

Olive Zeng said...

If u do not mind bro, would like to hear which bank and the deal..

Would show u how to do the advanced cc arbitrage if u want..

Thanks!

-------------------------
Oliver

enoughwealth@yahoo.com said...

The bank is Macquarie - you can apply to become a "Foundation Member" and pay $200 pa membership fee.

It turns out we're NOT getting a discounted member fee via work - I'd looked up the standard fee ($250) for the Citibank platinum card by mistake ;)