VA Amex Black Card- Worth it?

Just got a black card, really for the 2 miles per £.

The companion ticket looks pretty useless as 2xZ > 1xJ. The PE upgrades look useful though.

That about right?






edit by mod to clarify topic heading......... Nick

[Nottingham Nick]

I haven't used either the companion or the upgrade vouchers, but I still think that the black Amex card represents excellent value for money.

The downsides are well documented in these forums - mainly the fact that a lot of places don't accept Amex. Secondly when things go wrong, MBNA's customer service has been known to be found wanting.

Having said that, reading the card forums over on FT (especially the Amex one) poor customer service and call centre staff are problems that are by no means unique to MBNA.

For rapid points earning, there isn't another card to touch it IMHO.
(And believe me, I have certainly looked for alternatives:D[8D])

Nick

I wouldn't be without the black card, if we didn't each have one there's no way Steve & I would be in a position to fly UC! We pay for near on everything with AMEX so the miles rack up pretty quickly, plus for the last 10 months or so so we've been earning 4 miles per pound spent as we transitioned over from Virgin Mastercard [y]

Like Nick we haven't as yet used the Companion or T-U upgrade vouchers but we certainly intend to use the upgrade vouchers next year for a family trip to the east coast. I had originally thought the upgrade vouchers meant paying cash for an EC ticket with the voucher then upgrading you to PE, however IMO it's better than that as the voucher comes into force if you've used miles to buy an EC flight. In other words you end up in PE having only paid tax and parting with 45K miles - can't be bad! Appreciate though that you need luck on your side with T and then U fares needing to be available for the "scheme" to work.

Cheers
James

Do you pay economy taxes or PE?

Originally posted by jimbob247
Do you pay economy taxes or PE?

Good point, not sure. Someone on here will know though

Originally posted by Vegascrazy
Appreciate though that you need luck on your side with T and then U fares needing to be available for the "scheme" to work.

I think the scheme has best value for those with flexibility around dates and destinations of travel. There's not much point in accumulating a huge number of miles if you can't spend them.

Paul

Originally posted by pjh
[I think the scheme has best value for those with flexibility around dates and destinations of travel. There's not much point in accumulating a huge number of miles if you can't spend them.

Paul

Agree, with these EC-PE vouchers I think flexibility has to be the name of the game. However when using miles outright for UC G's we've never had a problem. In fact with only exception our first choice dates have always been available.