Plat Travel Upgrade Offered

[baran12]

Hey Guys,

Just received an email from amex to upgrade to plat. travel from mrcc. Upon upgrading i get some gift, 10k points I guess as it says so as welcome gift and 1k amazon voucher. First year fee is 3.5k and then 5k as next year.

Should I upgrade? I see monthly expenses being around 25-50k for 9-10 months our of 12 in a year. Spread across restaurant payments, zomato/swiggy, online portals. I used to make use of 1500*4 amazon gv atleast on mrcc till december last year but didn't have any significant spends on amazon so stopped that for now until i have planned purchases via amazon.

Confused if i should be upgrading? Or applying tbrough someone else's referral is a better idea at first year free and then fees from 2nd year.

My mrcc has a 100% fee waiver if i spend 1.5L in a year. And 50% if i spend 90k.

1k fees for mrcc as first year and 4.5k from 2nd year? Seems too expensive in 2nd year if incase I don't spend that much on this card. Then wouldn't i be better off upgrading to plat. Travel and pay 5k in fees plus i get lounge benefits as well.

Can mrcc be companion to plat. Travel? If yes then as of this offer applicable until tomorrow, should i upgrade to plat travel considering the welcome benefits and then apply again for mrcc as companion? Or should i apply for plat travel separately and ask amex to keep my mrcc as companion?

Like i have fee waiver in mrcc as stated above? Does plat travel offer spend based fee waiver?

 

[drsel]

Remember that with Platinum travel you will get 48000 points on spending 4 lakhs (after calling customer care).
But its just enough for two room nights in a Marriott Hotel.
10000 Taj voucher (worth 10000 x 8000/14000 = 5714) is not enough for one night stay

 

[baran12]

Remember that with Platinum travel you will get 48000 points on spending 4 lakhs (after calling customer care).
But its just enough for two room nights in a Marriott Hotel.
10000 Taj voucher (worth max 6500) is not enough for one night stay

So irrespective of any accelerated points, incase i reach 4lakh spends the cc guys can make my points 48k?

 

[drsel]

So irrespective of any accelerated points, incase i reach 4lakh spends the cc guys can make my points 48k?

Accelerated spends is not a normal feature of platinum travel card.
maybe sometimes there are offers.

Target spends of 4 lakhs will get you the bonus points, without which this card is meaningless.
You need to phone them to credit the points.

40000 + 8000 points earned on this card cannot buy the Amazon pay voucher and it is not entitled to the Gold collection rewards

 

[the_collector]

Hey Guys,

Just received an email from amex to upgrade to plat. travel from mrcc. Upon upgrading i get some gift, 10k points I guess as it says so as welcome gift and 1k amazon voucher. First year fee is 3.5k and then 5k as next year.

Should I upgrade? I see monthly expenses being around 25-50k for 9-10 months our of 12 in a year. Spread across restaurant payments, zomato/swiggy, online portals. I used to make use of 1500*4 amazon gv atleast on mrcc till december last year but didn't have any significant spends on amazon so stopped that for now until i have planned purchases via amazon.

Confused if i should be upgrading? Or applying tbrough someone else's referral is a better idea at first year free and then fees from 2nd year.

My mrcc has a 100% fee waiver if i spend 1.5L in a year. And 50% if i spend 90k.

1k fees for mrcc as first year and 4.5k from 2nd year? Seems too expensive in 2nd year if incase I don't spend that much on this card. Then wouldn't i be better off upgrading to plat. Travel and pay 5k in fees plus i get lounge benefits as well.

Can mrcc be companion to plat. Travel? If yes then as of this offer applicable until tomorrow, should i upgrade to plat travel considering the welcome benefits and then apply again for mrcc as companion? Or should i apply for plat travel separately and ask amex to keep my mrcc as companion?

Like i have fee waiver in mrcc as stated above? Does plat travel offer spend based fee waiver?

It would depend on how you like your rewards.

If you use your MR points to redeem it for gift vouchers or anything but travel, I would recommend sticking to the MRCC and use other cards post the monthly bonus spends

On the other hand , if you stay at marriott properties, I would say take the upgrade. You'll get more value out of your spends that way. More importantly with your spends you don't have to worry about calculating and splitting the transaction, all spends on the play travel get consideration for milestone.

As for if you should take the upgrade or go through referral. I would personally recommend referral for first year free. I say this because you would know if you're able to hit the milestones and if you can use the card wherever your spends are.

Lastly, no spend based waiver on plat travel like MRCC. Although, you can get in touch with the customer care and negotiate with them based on your spends in the previous year. Typically you'd get points against fees or if you have points accrued, you can use them against the fees.

 

[coolguy1]

Depending on your spends, you can keep both MRCC and then get Plat Travel as a second card.

This will give you the freedom to maximise your rewards and also if you get invited by a member, your first-year Plat Travel fee becomes zero!

If your expenses are between 6K-20K per month, MRCC is great.
If your expenses are above 25K-30K per month, Plat Travel works better!

 

[abhiver]

Don't upgrade because you will loose the Gold Collection of reward. Even after devaluation that Gold collection is much valuable in comparison to the regular voucher redemption.

That 10K MR point , you can buy through their chat support by paying 4K fee, which is equal to your current benefit. Only the 1K Amazon voucher will be the difference.

Amex has stopped pooling of the MR points as it use to do earlier.

Instead apply through referral, you can use mine if you want.

 

[AyushJaju]

I only use MRCC to buy 20K gift voucher of amazon and add the same in amazon balance, which I use for utilities, insurance, buy other gift cards like Domino's and even of some jewellers (if accumulated balance is high).

20K though following manner of amazon voucher :1.5K x 4 + 6K x1 + 10K x 1, this gives me :
1000 Points on 1.5k x 4
1000 Points on 20K spend
400 Points earned on total 20K spend
Total 2400 points, which can get you 7-8kof Myntra Vouchers for 18K gold collection on every 7.5 months.
Myntra voucher are better for me than Amazon as they are of Rs 1000 more than Amazon voucher which immediately gives me kind of ~15% discount on Myntra.

I have used Plat Travel earlier as well, but for me it's not of that much use as my travel is usually cheap hotels and offers based (Garib Aadmi).

 

[abhiver]

Can you buy Gift Card through Amazon pay balance

 

[helloworld]

Remember that with Platinum travel you will get 48000 points on spending 4 lakhs (after calling customer care).
But its just enough for two room nights in a Marriott Hotel.
10000 Taj voucher (worth max 6500) is not enough for one night stay

@baran12 , Adding to @drsel post here ..

you may not get enough benefits with plat. travel needs 33k per month (on avg. for whole year).

MRCC:
- Provides Gold collection (in other words, able to redeem for vouchers which you can purchase anything and multiple options),
- able to achieve fee waiver by spending 12k per month (on avg. for whole year).
- Can spend 2.4L in a year to get good return value with bonus points.

Plat. Travel:
- Need to redeem for travel or hotels which may provide more value than Gold collection but need that specific requirement and sometimes you may have to spend more to redeem them in terms of taxes or extra for those rooms/flights.
- no fee waiver, so based on negotiation it may increase or decrease overall earning %.
- must have to spend 4L in a year to get good return value with bonus vouchers.

For your existing card (MRCC - I believe you're ok with Gold collection) and spend requirement of 25k-50k (which is vague, you shouldn't include unexpected that too double range, so considered frequently 25k min. for each month) satisfies with MRCC only considering limited acceptance of AMEX its easy to spend 20k (little difficult since no amzn for you) than 35k with plat. travel.

Note: For 4130rs. you're getting 10k points which means 1 MR = 0.41p which is not acceptable unless you go for Taj 5* properties or Marriot random values on dry days.

I won't go for it but its upto you and your money.

 

[AyushJaju]

Can you buy Gift Card through Amazon pay balance

Not all the gift cards, but for some, answer is yes, check screenshot for e.g. Dominos gift card is available @ 11% discount, you can buy using Amazon Pay balance

 

[minhazuddin]

Don't upgrade because you will loose the Gold Collection of reward. Even after devaluation that Gold collection is much valuable in comparison to the regular voucher redemption.

That 10K MR point , you can buy through their chat support by paying 4K fee, which is equal to your current benefit. Only the 1K Amazon voucher will be the difference.

Amex has stopped pooling of the MR points as it use to do earlier.

Instead apply through referral, you can use mine if you want.

I can still confirm that Platinum Travel MR points are still pooled with MRCC nd Gold charge (atleast in my case). I hv got the Amex trifecta cards (Platinum Travel, Gold, MRCC) in Feb month and MR Points from all cards are pooled.

 

[abhiver]

I can still confirm that Platinum Travel MR points are still pooled with MRCC nd Gold charge (atleast in my case). I hv got the Amex trifecta cards (Platinum Travel, Gold, MRCC) in Feb month and MR Points from all cards are pooled.

How you got that done. I got the Amex in Jan and when I raise request pooling they declined stating that it is not possible

 

[minhazuddin]

How you got that done. I got the Amex in Jan and when I raise request pooling they declined stating that it is not possible

I didn't do anything extra. I just added all three cards to my Amex account as I received them and MR points for all cards started appearing after transaction settled. Just recently redeemed 18K Gold Collection from the points earned through all three cards.

 

[baran12]

@baran12 , Adding to @drsel post here ..

you may not get enough benefits with plat. travel needs 33k per month (on avg. for whole year).

MRCC:
- Provides Gold collection (in other words, able to redeem for vouchers which you can purchase anything and multiple options),
- able to achieve fee waiver by spending 12k per month (on avg. for whole year).
- Can spend 2.4L in a year to get good return value with bonus points.

Plat. Travel:
- Need to redeem for travel or hotels which may provide more value than Gold collection but need that specific requirement and sometimes you may have to spend more to redeem them in terms of taxes or extra for those rooms/flights.
- no fee waiver, so based on negotiation it may increase or decrease overall earning %.
- must have to spend 4L in a year to get good return value with bonus vouchers.

For your existing card (MRCC - I believe you're ok with Gold collection) and spend requirement of 25k-50k (which is vague, you shouldn't include unexpected that too double range, so considered frequently 25k min. for each month) satisfies with MRCC only considering limited acceptance of AMEX its easy to spend 20k (little difficult since no amzn for you) than 35k with plat. travel.

Note: For 4130rs. you're getting 10k points which means 1 MR = 0.41p which is not acceptable unless you go for Taj 5* properties or Marriot random values on dry days.

I won't go for it but its upto you and your money.

Thanks. So you're saying no point in upgrading as such considering the spends of 25-50k monthly? And keep using mrcc for now?

On some months I spend 50k vis amex other times it's usually 20-25k via amex, 5-10k via amazon icici and 10-15k via Hdfc millenia

 

[amitr29]

You can pool points. I have Gold, Reserve and Platinum travel. I can use all points for 24k collection, irrespective earned on which card

 

[CardGame]

Got this

 

[amitr29]

Got this

Just read T&C first

 

[CardGame]

Just read T&C first

I did already. It's the same offer everyone got

 

[abhiver]

I didn't do anything extra. I just added all three cards to my Amex account as I received them and MR points for all cards started appearing after transaction settled. Just recently redeemed 18K Gold Collection from the points earned through all three cards.

I have the same setup but my points are not getting pooled together, when I checked with customer care, they said they have stopped this facility.

You can pool points. I have Gold, Reserve and Platinum travel. I can use all points for 24k collection, irrespective earned on which card

It seems I am missing the Gold Card. I have only Plat Travel and MRCC and my points are calculated seperately