Thanks for sticking with the discussion thus far! It’s healthy to see arguments from the other side, and dissect them!
Not in an easy access account, as far as I can see. We’re comparing apples with oranges again.
https://community.monzo.com/t/paypoint-shops-don-t-know-how-to-process-cash-deposits/53912/482
There are 449 posts talking about the problems people face when depositing cash with certain merchants in this thread alone - let alone the numerous others on the forum. I don’t deposit much cash, but I can’t let my personal situation ‘inform me’ about everyone else’s. I’ll gladly bow out if there are statistics to the contrary…
…but to compare your argument to, well, your own argument - not everyone will need a taxi every month, or a hire car, or a night at an OFS property.
And you assumed people would spend £4k on Amex (in addition to their membership fee) just to get 30,000 reward points, netting you £210 in returns.
It was a like-for-like comparison with your Amex outline, though - I used the same assumptions as you (I go back to Taxis, and airport lounges, and spending £4k).
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I do feel like we’re comparing totally different leagues here though. It’s a bit like comparing my local private member’s club, to somewhere like The Court in Soho where you’re going to pay ~£600 for membership. You can buy alcohol and food at both, and you also buy the same alcohol and food elsewhere without paying a membership fee. The people that use them, see value in different ways though and expect very different levels of quality (compare Airbnb to OneFineStay).
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@Brad1 - here’s some serious questions for you, to help progress the discussion rather than scrapping over the same points:
1 - Given the lockdown and the impact that Covid has had on travel, what ‘value’ did you get for 3 months? I see many travel-related bonuses, which are entirely dependent on you traveling.
2 - Assuming you are beyond your first year, do you find yourself actively checking whether you’ve “got enough” in returns each year, to exceed the value you paid?
3 - Following on from the above, do you find yourself using premium services, just to justify the American Express lifestyle? Taking OneFineStay for example - the $200 barely covers 1 night in most places. Is it a fallacy that doing so is ‘benefitting’ you when overall you’re spending more on the property, just to benefit from your Amex membership?
4 - How do you find Amex acceptance in the UK?