American Express New Zealand are offering 20,000 bonus Membership Rewards points for new Platinum Edge Card Members.
The American Express Platinum Edge is an invaluable card for the avid New Zealand points collector and earns points into the American Express Membership Rewards programme.
The card offers triple points at major supermarkets and double points at major petrol stations – so there are plenty of opportunities to fast track your points earn through your everyday spend.
20,000 Membership Rewards points are transferrable to 10,000 Velocity Points, 10,000 KrisFlyer Miles, 10,000 Qantas Points, or just over $114 Airpoints Dollars.
There’s a minimum spend criteria of $750 within the first 3 months to trigger the bonus points.
Also included as a regular feature of the card is a free annual return Air New Zealand domestic seat and bag flight, along with complimentary domestic and international travel insurance for travel paid with the card – both of which can easily cover the $149 annual fee.
Digging into the details of the American Express Platinum Edge card
Card Details
| Card | American Express Platinum Edge |
| Loyalty Program | American Express Membership Rewards |
| Points earned from spend | 3 Membership Rewards points per $1 at supermarkets 2 Membership Rewards points per $1 at petrol 1 Membership Rewards point on all other purchases |
| Travel benefits | Annual complimentary Air New Zealand Domestic return flight, access to Amex Offers |
| Minimum income | $50,000 p.a. |
| Included Insurances | Travel Insurance cover Medical Insurance Personal Liability cover Travel cancellation cover (PDF) |
| Annual fee | $149 p.a. |
The points earn on the American Express Platinum Edge is one of the best in a limited NZ market, particularly when utilised with supermarket and fuel spend.
The Platinum Edge credit card accrues points in the American Express Membership Rewards programme through everyday spend. Being a flexible points earning programme, the ability to transfer Membership Rewards points to a number of travel partners such as Air New Zealand, Qantas and Virgin Australia provides a truly flexible points earn and burn combination which makes it one of the most valuable and flexible points for a variety of travel redemptions from New Zealand.
One of the best features of the Platinum Edge is the ability to collect triple Membership Rewards Points, just by doing your shopping at your local supermarket. The official wording is “Major Supermarkets”, however from American Express’ definitions in terms & conditions here and the table below, you’ll see that means effectively all of them.
| 'Major Supermarkets' qualifying for triple bonus points with American Express |
|---|
| Countdown (in-store and online) |
| Farro Fresh |
| Fresh Choice |
| New World |
| Nosh |
| PAK n SAVE |
| Super Value |
Not to be outdone, with fuel for the family car being possibly the second biggest weekly expense, you can also earn double Membership Rewards Points when purchasing fuel from a “Major Petrol Station”. Also available at effectively all, as seen below.
| 'Major Petrol Stations' qualifying for double bonus points with American Express |
|---|
| BP |
| Caltex |
| GAS (Gasoline Alley Services) |
| Gull |
| Mobil |
| Shell |
| Z |
The standard Platinum Edge card earn of one point per dollar spent will apply for all other general purchases. While this is fine in itself, you can also capitalise on the triple point supermarket earn for purchases at a number of other retailers.
How so? I’m sure everyone has seen the gift card stands in your local supermarket – well, as part of your shopping spend, purchasing these gift cards also delivers you triple membership rewards points.
Now it may not be worth the effort heading over to the supermarket to purchase a $20 gift card for making a purchase at your local bookstore. However making a $500 or $1000 purchase for electronic goods or renovation materials can net you an extra 1,000 to 2,000 points just by picking up gift cards for the purchase while you do your weekly grocery shop.
| Some useful big purchase Gift Cards available in local Supermarkets |
|---|
| Farmers |
| JB Hi-Fi |
| Kathmandu |
| Mitre 10 Mega |
| Noel Leeming |
| Restaurant Association NZ |
| Stirling Sports |
| The Warehouse |
| Warehouse Stationary |
There are a number of ways to utilise Membership Rewards points, some worthwhile – some maybe not so much. Possibly the most worthwhile depending on your own requirements would be the ability to transfer those points to one of the 7 Airline and 2 Hotel transfer partner programmes.
Transfer rates to partners from American Express Membership Rewards New Zealand is now on par with the Australian Membership Rewards Programme – in fact, we do slightly better here with transfers to the Marriott Bonvoy programme.
Card Benefits – Free Flight
Possibly the most useful, and most valuable perk of the Platinum Edge credit card would be the free annual domestic return flight with Air New Zealand. The flight is in seat and bag class and can be utilised for any direct flight within New Zealand’s domestic network.
The free flight benefit renews annually on your membership anniversary and can be booked easily through the American Express travel number found on the back of the card.
You can book anytime between 9.00am and 5.30pm, by calling 0800 332 268, or +64 9 583 8287.
Travel Insurance Benefits
The other key benefits that come with the Platinum Edge credit card are:
- Domestic and International Travel Insurance Cover
- Overseas Medical Emergency Expenses and Repatriation Cover
- Personal Liability Cover
- Travel Cancellation Cover
- Baggage Cover
- Travel Inconvenience Cover
The Travel Insurance Cover that accompanies the American Express Platinum Edge card requires the pre-purchase of some travel expenses to be made prior to the commencement of travel in order to be eligible for the benefits.
The coverage and benefits conditions available from the Platinum Edge Travel Insurance may not suit everyone’s requirements. The individual would be advised to read the Travel Insurance terms and conditions, and seek appropriate independent advice if this feature is important to you.
Amex Offers with the Platinum Edge
Platinum Edge Card Members can also access ‘Amex Offers‘, which are immediate statement credits for hitting a spend target with a specific retailer – just like an instant cashback offer without having to deal with any paperwork.
These offers are saved to your card account online or in the American Express app and are worth keeping an eye on in case they hit the mark for any retailers you happen to shop with.
Other benefits
Aside from all the benefits mentioned, holding this card and other American Express cards also lets you enjoy other perks like American Express Invites, Dining, discounts at select shopping partners and access to other offers around the world through Amex Selects.
Summing up – American Express Platinum Edge Credit Card
If you’re not tied to Air New Zealand Airpoints because of work/business travel then earning points from credit card spend in a flexible rewards programme provides independence from being locked in with one airline.
In combination with the Platinum Edge, the American Express Membership Rewards programme can provide the ideal combination for your needs if optimised properly.
As the value of the free flight award alone can easily cover the cost of the annual fee, the opportunity to earn points including bonuses on grocery and fuel spend becomes effectively a free benefit.
This is a card to be considered by anyone looking to earn a flexible points currency and ‘level up’ their points collecting with more advanced strategies for earn and redemption across a range of different frequent flyer and hotel loyalty programmes.
What are some of the best ways you have used your Platinum Edge to earn points? Let us know in the comments below.
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Daniel Kinnoch
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Looks like the nz conversion rate is only half the Australian rate. This as you say is pretty poor. I read another of your articles on international transfers yearly. Could you collect points on the NZ card and then transfer them to the Australian platinum edge each year before converting them to airline rewards? . Having an edge card in each country for those of us with addresses in each country seems a sensible way of avoiding forex fees.
Hi Murray
Totally agree if you qualified for a Platinum edge card in each country that would be extremely useful.
As far as the international transfer option goes, I know it is possible when applying for an Amex in the country you are immigrating to, however I’m not sure how American Express would react to trying to transfer internationally on a continual basis, would be an interesting test though 🙂
Hi Clayton,
I have been sent an offer for an AMEX Platinum edge card as part of an association I belong to, so the introductory fee and bonus points are slightly better than the standard offer on the website. I am wanting to know if you have ever booked travel using rewards points on Webjet or the AMEX travel site? If so, how many rewards points are needed for $1 of travel?
Hi Graeme
Apologies for missing your comment earlier.
While yes you can use MR points for purchasing travel via AMEX travel or Webjet, and even Helloworld, it is not something we would actively recommend due to the poor redemption value.
Via AMEX travel each MR point will equate to 0.75 cents NZ, therefore to answer your question NZ$1 of travel credit requires 133.33…. NZ MR points.
We value NZ MR points at 1.0 NZ cents and given the raft of transfer options to various airline partner programmes, would be targeting a redemption value of double that.
Of course there are always caveats to pure redemption value, i.e purchasing travel, particularly flights through AMEX travel or others is not an award booking, therefore will still earn point, miles, status credits with the applicable airline.
If you are chasing status with a particular airline that you can credit these flights to, or they are running an exceptionally good bonus points/miles earning promotion for the chosen sectors then you may place more value on the direct booking MR points vs transfer award bookings.
Hope that helps and is useful to you.
Just applied for my edge card today. Would have used point hacks but accountants get 27,000 instead of 20,000 points – sorry. I will use point hacks for my next card hopefully.
Never brought a voucher from the supermarket before but our dryer stopped on the weekend so went to New World put $849 on a store card with kiwi bank platinum and brought the dryer with that from a 100% store. No problems at all. Did not have my AmEx edge of course so this was more of a trial run. However I also got 33 Flyboys at new world I would have missed out on otherwise so still a win. If Noel lemmings stocked the dryer I wanted I guess I could have got flyboys there as well.
Really looking forward to a card that allows me to use multiple airlines instead of the really really poor Air New Zealand rewards programme. Even at the low NZ transfer rate I can get a transtasam Virgin upgrade to business for every $6500 spent at 3x points versus around 80 air points which is only some 40% of an upgrade based on the old 220 points used before One-up ruined air points totally.
PS can you do a review of the Westpac MasterCard world I just came across it the other day and the priority pass and best earning air points in new Zealand plus Gold Starwood and Hertz makes it really attractive for regular international travellers. The $350? Fee means I will stick to kiwibank plat as I do not travel enough but once the children travel more with us outside tasman trips I will take it on.
Hi Murray
Great to see you’ve made the jump to a flexible points earning credit card. Nice work with extra 7,000 MR points too.
It is our hope that while the membership rewards programme in New Zealand is a mere shadow of its Australian counterpart, with more people realising the value to be had and numbers increasing, that Amex NZ in turn will start to invest more effort, hopefully bringing the return value closer to where it should be.
You may want to hold back on your fly buys celebration as Fly Buys have a specific rule on non earning of points for gift card purchases. Points are only earned when redeeming the gift card at a Fly Buys retailer, this is meant to stop double dipping where you earn points for the gift card purchase and again when it is redeemed. Still I’ve seen plenty of loop holes in rules so hopefully they turn up and prove me wrong.
We do have plans to start working our way through the other points earning credit cards available in New Zealand, hopefully in the near future. Spot lighting the options available and comparing the return values against each other will also hopefully encourage better benefits for all Kiwis.
Enjoy your new Platinum Edge.
Thanks Clayton on this useful write up. I’m a bit of a loyalty club junkie but it gets a bit disheartening reading the US sites and seeing all their offers. I’ve got the air NZ Amex card. Signed up when they had that 800 apd offer earlier this year. They just sent me a letter saying I could earn 1APD for every $59 spent. That seems to be effectively the same as getting 3:1 rewards rate on supermarket spend on the edge card and then transferring them to our airpoints account. But that’s on all my spends not just the supermarket.
We do a lot of travelling and you just about have no choice but to fly air NZ out of Wellington!! As my husband is an air NZ elite we’ve found most of the standby upgrades come through at the gate. So the air NZ airpoints account is used frequently for that.
Anyway your tip to get the gift cards at the supermarket is handy. I could have used that do many times if I’d known. I can see myself on your site the whole weekend!!
Just wondering does air NZ ever have points transfer bonus offers when transferring points from the edge card like Qantas do?
Hi Clayton, any word from Amex on improvement to MR transfers at all? Perhaps you could pose the question to them. I would have thought in particular with the growth of Emirates in NZ and with MR being the only way to earn skywards they may have promoted the transfer option a bit more. Cheers
There are no changes coming to NZ MR that we are aware of, as much as we would like to see some.
Is there any requirement that you haven’t held an amex card for a certain period of time or is new member defined as someone who doesn’t have an amex card presently?
Would I be correct in thinking that a conversion of MRP to, say, Qantas Frequent Flyer Points is considered an activity that keeps the Frequent Flyer Points from expiring?
Yep, any credit of QF points other than family transfer should push forward any expiry date.
I just saw some Caltex gift cards in Countdown today for $50. It says on the back for use at Caltex retailers. Just wondering if that includes petrol? I’ll try it next time. If it does that would mean that you could get 3x MR points for petrol and if they accepted your BP AA membership card when buying petrol that would mean you could get those accumlated petrol discounts as well. Will be interesting to see if this just includes items in the Caltex store or petrol purchases as well.
I saw these too, just yesterday! Providing it is an ePay gift card per this site:
https://www.giftstation.co.nz/caltex-starcash.html
(you can tell, by looking at the back of the card)
then yes, you will be able to earn 3x MR points for petrol, instead of the usual 2x.
Good value find!
Thanks for the article, any idea if fuel purchased from Pak’n’Save petrol stations (they have one in Christchurch @ their Moorhouse Ave location, not sure if they have them elsewhere nationwide) is at either the triple points or double points rate? I guess they’re not a major petrol station, so if they’re not included with standard grocery purchases, perhaps they’re only 1 point per $1 spent?
Hi David – PAK’nSAVE petrol stations don’t accept Amex. If you have found one that does, you’ll only earn 1 point per $1 spent, as they’re not a registered partner for the 2 points per $1 spent on this card.
Excellent news point hacks. 50k pts is serious stuff. Had my Edge card for three years and its brilliant for collecting points with the supermarket/gift card 3x route. note the Nosh no longer exists in supermarkets as has gone into receivership.
Amex have difficulty coding to the 2x and 3x categories correctly. I have to call them every thre months to correct my points as my local gas station hardly ever codes to 2x but the one a few km away always does. Last time they had to correct my account by 25,000 points as they miscoded most of the supermarket spending in a period I brought a lot of giftcards.
Does this card get you access to the American Express Lounge in the Sydney Airport?
Hi Chris, no it does not. Only the Amex Airpoints Platinum and Amex Platinum Charge cards will offer access to the Sydney Lounge.
Hey There
Recently signed up and received my card however there is no indication or hint that there is that bonus 50000 points once spending 750$, do you know if there is meant to be a sort of notice when you log in or will it just automatically apply once hitting that 750 target? Fairly new to this sort of thing.
Cheers!
Hi Casey, from my experience, the joining bonus hits your account as soon as you’ve reached the minimum spend requirement. If for some reason this does not occur, please feel free to reach out to us again.
Hi Daniel
I had applied through the PointsHacks promotion back in May but I never got my bonus 50k points and instead amex told me that the offer only started on the June 3rd. Would you be able to help me on this?
Thanks!
Hi Raymond – please fill out the form at this link here, so we can try to help you out: http://go.pointhacks.com/offer-help
Hi there,
I had applied for a platinum edge card last week but I have not received any update or any email asking for any documentation.
Could you please advise me how long does it take for them to revert back?
Cheers!
Hi Ankit
You’ll need to contact Amex directly with this enquiry, and to follow up on the status of your application.
Cheers,
Daniel