Amex Blue - Looks and substance (American Express)

Member Name: steveuk

Product:	American Express
Date:	17/10/02 (1424 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: 1% MoneyBack, Fee free (if total annual spend > £500), Low balance transfer rate

Disadvantages: Not accepted everywhere

What can I say about this card ... it's absolutely brilliant. Not only is it the coolest looking credit card around but has great benefits too.

How to get one
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There are several ways to apply for a Blue American Express card. You can usually find an application form for the card in popular magazines. Quite frequently, there are advertising stands at motorway services areas or airports. I applied for mine over the internet at www.americanexpress.co.uk

Regardless of what method you use to apply for a Blue Amex, the process is fairly straightfoward and assuming you have all the necessary information available, it shouldn't take too long to complete. The sort of information you need are: your contact details, your employer's contact details, bank details and income details.

Compared to other credit/charge card companies, American Express have a strict credit checking procedure and depending on the amount of time it takes for all the relevant parties to respond with the information requested by Amex, it can take a while to find whether you have been approved or not. My card was approved within a month but was told that, as I was an Amex card holder already, they didn't need to complete all their checks.

Benefits
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One of the main reasons for getting the card is the 1% MoneyBack offerred. Essentially, for every pound you spend using the card you get 1p back at the end of the year (every 12 months from the anniversary of getting the card). In addition to this, American Express introduce special promotion every now and then, allowing you to earn more than 1% MoneyBack.

Currently (January 2004), anyone applying for a Blue American Express (and getting approved) will earn 2% MoneyBack for the first 3 months of being a Blue Amex cardholder. What does this mean in practical terms? Well, assuming a typical spend of £200 per month. It means that after a year of using this card you
would get £30 of MoneyBack.

I recently used my cool American Express Blue card to pay for a holiday, not only did I get 1% MoneyBack but the travel agent didn't charge me any credit card handling fee (usually 1.75% of the total holiday cost for Visa/MasterCard). As a result I saved just over £30 for using my cool American Express Blue card :-)

Another reason for getting the card was that it has no annual fee, if you spend more than £500 per year. If you don't manage to spend over £500 per year there is an "Account servicing charge" of £15.

Other advantages include the permanently low balance transfers. This is currently 2.9% for balances transferred within 6 months of getting the card and 9.9% for balances transferred after the initial 6 months. If you are considering transferring a balance into your Blue Amex account after the initial 6 months it may be worth waiting for a short while as, in my experience, American Express will send you every few months a ?Balance Transfer Application Form? with a promotional APR of 5.9%). Another advantage I have noticed is that when you transfer the balance from another credit card into your Blue card, Amex usually increase your credit limit.

Furthermore, as an American Express cardholder, you are entitled to a 1% discount on a loan from American Express.

So whether you are the type of person that pays off their balance at the end of the month, or are looking for a cheap balance transfer rate, the American Express Blue is a good card to have ... and looks cool too, if you are a fashion victim.

Other benefits include Online Fraud Guarantee, Refund Protection, Purchase Protection and Travel Accident Insurance but I have yet to take advantage of these facilities and can't comment on them.

Online Account Access. The online service of the American Express website looks quite basic but allows you ot see the current and previous statements, make ba
lance transfers and see any recent transactions. In addition to the online account access, telephone custome
r service is excellent.

Special offers
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In addition to the above, American Express introduce special offers for Blue cardmember on a regular basis. These range from travel and shopping offers advertised on their website to extra MoneyBack at certain times or places. Finally there are regular competitions ... for example, if you buy something online in December (2002) you can enter a prize draw to win a Sony VAIO laptop computer worth over £1500. A month or two before that, everytime the card was used (online as well as offline), the card holder was entered into a draw for a new car.

Disadvantages
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The only drawback of the American Express Blue card is that it is not accepted everywhere, it is however accepted by most major retailers (e.g. Tesco, Sainsbury's, Argos, amazon, WHSmith, HMV and more).

Copyright steveuk 2002
Updated January 2004

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