Some time ago, I conducted a credit card survey among personal finance bloggers. One of the questions that I asked was “what was the first credit card that you got?” Almost everyone who took part in the survey could not remember. Most got their first cards in college. Unlike many folks, I did not get a college credit card. Instead I got my first card after I got my first job. Here’s the quick story.

I first job was a sales position in the financial industry. Back then, I corporate card from the firm I worked with. It was an American Express Corporate Card. If I recall correctly, it was a the Green Corporate Charge Card. The arrangement that the firm had with Amex was that the membership reward points that employees earned went into the Employees account. That is not always the case as the second firm I worked for gave me an Amex Corporate Card but I could not earn points.

So my rationale was since I was earning Membership Reward Points on the corporate credit card, I might as well use Amex as my main card and earn more points. I was deciding between the green card and the gold card, but ultimately settled for the gold card? Why? don’t really remember? maybe it looks nicer?

Well, I was with my first job for about eight years and within that period, I have chalked six figures in membership reward points. All most all of my points were redeemed for business class flights! There were times when I went a couple of years without redeeming them. But since Amex Points do not expire, that wasn’t an issue at all. I took flights to Europe and many other places. It’s really nice when you do not have to pay for them!

The one thing I did not do was to redeem points for things like merchandise, gift cards and other stuff. After I started this site and did more investigation into reward programs, I realized that I had made the right choice. By transferring points to airlines and find the airline (and partners) that required the least points or miles, you got so much more of your rewards than any cash back or merchandise stuff that credit cards program offer.

Well, I guess Amex have me hooked and a couple of years back, I upgrade my card to the Platinum Card. Part of reason was to check out the concierge service and the companion ticket features (which has since been discontinued). The other reason was I really wanted to write a solid review of this card and could not do so without having it?

Along the way (and at present), I carry a few cards. But the main card I use now continues to be my Platinum Card. I have nothing but good things to say about Amex (though some would disagree), but they have been good to me. But anyone looking for a good reward card, I would have no hesitation recommending starting off with the American Express Rewards Gold Card.

I’ll write another post soon about all the other cards I have and why I have them. But in the meantime, please share with us :

This entry was posted on Friday, October 2nd, 2009 at 12:11 and is filed under My Credit Card Experience. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.