Gold Charge Retention - Is it worth it?

[username_x]

Hello all!

My first thread! I know this question has been asked a lot, but stay with me on this one.
I have a Gold Charge Card, and like many people reported, AMEX is not offering me any renewal offers.
So if I renew it, I will spend 5,310/- (Rs. 4,500/- + GST). Here is what I get back, as I spend it only on Gyftr.
Rs. 20k APay Vouchers through Gyftr (10k on main + 10k on add-on) = 2k points per month
6 x 1,000/- Transactions milestone = 1k points (By breaking down purchase of 20k APay into 6 transactions)
Expense: 1.5% of 20k + GST = Rs. 540/-

So Annual Math is this:
Expense = Rs. 2,49,558/- (Including renewal fee & Gyftr Fee)
Points = 36,648 (including points on Gyftr Convenience Fee)

Considering 50p per 1 MB Point, this is a return of 7.34%.

Now my questions on this:

1. Is 7.26% good?
2. Is 50p/ MB Point a fair assessment?
3. I am not really partial towards Marriott only. I like Accor equally, and have Axis Atlas as well (but NOT Infinia or Magnus or Emerald etc.). Can I get better return elsewhere?

Thank you for reading, and looking forward to your replies!

 

[malavkarkar]

Were you buying an iPhone every other month or what?

Yes

Now that Amazon Pay doesn't accept Gift Vouchers for insurance premium payments of more than 25k the use case for bulk APay GV purchase is essentially dead. Before that devaluation I used to purchase 5L worth of APay GVs every year. Now it is hardly 75K.

You can still make your health insurance payment using Amazon Pay if there's an option to pay using Amazon Pay on their website.

 

[rogerthat]

Yes

well, not feasible for most...

You can still make your health insurance payment using Amazon Pay if there's an option to pay using Amazon Pay on their website.

premium is 32k. apparently even external requests above 25k are being rejected.

 

[malavkarkar]

well, not feasible for most...

Not with that attitude mate.

premium is 32k. apparently even external requests above 25k are being rejected.

It works if you use the payment gateway on third party website. I'm with ICICI Lombard and limits don't apply there.

 

[username_x]

Computing Reward Rate

Expense = Rs. 2,49,558/- (Including renewal fee & Gyftr Fee)
Reward Points = 36,648 (including points on Gyftr Convenience Fee) => Rs 18,324 (@ 0.5 Rs/point)
Goods received from the Expense = Rs 2,40,000 (Apay Vouchers)

Net Rewards = Goods + Rewards - Expense = 2,40,000 + 18,324 - 2,49,558 = Rs 8766

Net Reward Rate = Net Rewards / Expense * 100 = (8,766 / 2,49,558)*100 = 3.5%

Is it worth it? No, there are other cards that does better than this.

The only way you can make this better:
1. Buy vouchers that dont have convenience fees - but whether it is useful is upto your use case
2. Get annual fee waiver
3. Hunt for deals in Marriott Bonvoy to improve your reward conversion rate from Rs 0.5/point to Rs 1 or more per point

I thought long and hard on this, did my own research as well. There is no denying that the logic "Net Rewards = Goods + Rewards - Expense" is absolutely correct. And by that logic, Gold Card does not make sense.

So, thank you everyone for your enlightening posts. I have decided that I will close the Gold Card. Maybe I will take out a 14k Taj Voucher before that.