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The American Express Air France Gold card: a good credit card for travelers?

If you wish to obtain a sponsorship and benefit from :
– The free card for the first year
– 10,000 Air France miles free
– 50 € voucher for Air France KLM


Click here!

In North America, credit cards are used to accumulate points that can then be turned into an advantage

To my knowledge, the only card with a slightly similar mechanism in France is the American Express card

The first year was free, so I decided to try it out and see how it went

The different types of bank cards

Let’s start by explaining the different types of credit cards that exist

  • Immediate debit cards. The amount is withdrawn instantly from your account
  • Deferred debit cards. The amount is debited from your account later
  • Credit cards that allow you to spend on credit. At the end of the month you receive a summary statement of your spending. You can repay all or part of it, in which case you will have to pay interest (which can be very high)

In France, the vast majority of cards are immediate debit cards.
American Express falls into the category of deferred debit cards.
Credit cards are very common in North America, much less so in France
.
I think that consumer credit cards like Cofinoga or Sofinco should get close to it but it’s quite toxic

How an American Express card works

Concerning American Express, the operation is as follows

You have a payment card with which you can make purchases online or in stores. Amex isn’t accepted everywhere. However, you can associate it to your Paypal account which considerably increases the websites on which you can use it.

At the end of the month, you receive a statement of your expenses and a few days later, the amount is debited from your bank account whose RIB you have given to American Express. American Express isn’t a bank, so you do not deposit money on an account with them

In France, American Express is often used by employees who travel a lot and have to advance expenses. This allows them to manage the time between the expense and the reimbursement by their company

The principle of points

On top of that, every time you pay with your American Express card, you earn points that you can turn into gifts, vouchers or simply cash

For merchants who accept payment via American Express, the commission is higher than for a traditional bank. American Express can therefore afford to “redistribute” part of this commission to its customers.

Quite frankly, unless you’re spending crazy amounts of money, don’t expect much from your points

With a “basic” American Express card (there are several types of card), you collect one point for every euro spent. Knowing that 1000 points can be converted into 5 euros. This means a “payout rate” of 0.5%, no need to jump to the ceiling..

I have chosen an American Express Air France card, the points are converted into Air France miles. With each purchase, all of your miles have their life extended by 2 years, no risk of seeing them expire

If you wish to use your miles, study the “payout rate” by calculating the value of your Air France miles, it can vary greatly depending on the flights.

In this example, Air France offers me to buy a flight Miami – Point à Pitre for 13 000 miles + 9 €. Without miles, the ticket costs 235 €.

A quick calculation can determine that a mile is “worth” in this example 1.7 cents, which is quite interesting. This represents a “payout rate” of 1.7% which, from my little experience, isn’t bad at all.

The first time I used miles was for a flight from Lisbon to Beauvais with Transavia. The payout rate was only 0.4%, which is much less interesting… I would have done better to keep my miles and use them for another flight.

As digital nomads, we have the particularity to pay our “rent” via Airbnb by card. In cumulation over the year, this can represent important sums and thus a good packet of points but it isn’t with that that we are going to offer ourselves long distance plane tickets for free..

It is also possible to convert miles into Accor Hotel Rewards points at the rate of 4 miles for 1 Rewards point. Knowing that 2,000 Rewards points allow you to obtain a €40 discount. This makes a redistribution rate of 0.5%.

To delve into this point, you can read this article on the value of Air France miles.

Forget about ATM withdrawals and foreign currency payments

Each cash withdrawal at the ATM is subject to a 2% commission from American Express, so it’s of no interest unless we have a problem with our usual bank card

Payments in foreign currency are subject to a 2.8% commission, here too an N26 or Revolut card will be more interesting

A real advantage over car rental

With an American Express card, you get a 15% discount on car rentals at Hertz, but that’s not the only advantage

Various insurances are linked to the American Express Air France Gold card but the most interesting is the one insuring rental cars

If you are used to renting vehicles, you know that rental companies offer you a “deductible buy-back”, which means paying an option that will allow you to pay nothing in case of an accident with your car

With American Express Air France Gold, there is no need to buy back the deductible, you are covered

This is one of the big differences between an American Express Air France card and a classic American Express card that does not include this insurance

I recently rented a car for 3 days in Canada. I was able to take a rental without insurance since I was covered by my card. Without this coverage, I would have had to take out insurance which would have cost me €80

On top of that, you can get miles when renting a car, I recently obtained 500 miles for reservations at Avis and 200 miles at Europcar.

EDIT: Another advantage, and not the least, American Express guarantees that you will be able to take possession of your rental car? Indeed, many rental companies abroad ask for a “credit” card when you come to pick up the vehicle. However, in France, the vast majority of cards are “debit” cards (we are used to talking about “credit card” but it is an abuse of language). Every day around the world, many French people have unpleasant surprises and have to pay for expensive additional insurance because they don’t have a credit card. An American Express card being considered as a credit card, you won’t have this problem.

A payment in 3 installments free of charge for Air France / KLM tickets

If you purchase Air France / KLM tickets using your American Express Air France card, you can benefit from a payment spread over 3 monthly installments at no charge.

After purchasing your tickets, you must log into your American Express account and click on “pay 3 times free of charge”.

This possibility only concerns purchases of at least 50 €.

Interesting offers

American Express regularly proposes offers valid at certain partners (e.g. “10 € refunded from 70 € spent on the Sephora website”). Honestly, it’s rarely very interesting and I didn’t pay much attention to it. But from time to time, there are good surprises like: spend xx€ in any store/site accepting American Express, you will be reimbursed up to xx€. These offers aren’t activated by default, you have to log in to the application or the website and then choose to participate in this or that offer. As a precaution, I subscribe to all the available offers 😀 it doesn’t cost anything. Once you are registered to the offer, you will automatically be refunded if you use it.

Tariff and conclusion

The American Express Air France card is free the first year and costs 165 euros the second year. Please note that on the anniversary date, I contacted the support team and told them that I wanted to cancel, they easily offered me the free card for the second year.

Small regret, the American Air France Gold card does not allow access to airport lounges. You will need an American Express Platinum card for this.

If my spending level is clearly not sufficient to be able to offer me free travel, the accumulated miles and rental insurance savings already cover the price of the card after 6 months. I should therefore renew it for next year.

If you wish to obtain a sponsorship and benefit from :
– The free card the first year
– 10 000 Air France miles offered
– 50 € voucher for Air France KLM
Click here !



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