Business owners: AmEx cards for sales employees?

[markstanco 12424]

Doing this. They pay for flights and rentals and hotels and the company gets points back.

 

Question is, we have 4 of us on the program on the gold card status. If I upgrade to platinum they can hit is admirals club and the delta club and whatnot. That's an additional 1400 a year. Is this 1400 number a year negotiable with amex?

[troph 23963]

I don’t know if it’s negotiable but it’s worth it. One of the best rewards cards out their. Chase sapphire preferred is maybe better but not if you need unlimited charge limits that Amex provides. We use the platinum card and totally find it worth it and wouldn’t like spending that kinda cash for fees but we get way more than that in value per year.

 

[BearSchlong 7965]

I wouldn't work for anyone who didn't let me keep my miles/points unless they made it up with a finominal comp plan.

[troph 23963]

Well in our case we purchase $80-100k of building materials per month, so it’s not employee travel. PMs have a solid comp package though.

[luke duke 6359]

I wouldn't work for anyone who didn't let me keep my miles/points unless they made it up with a finominal comp plan.

Yep, the only reason that I don’t mind a little travel is that I can use my own cards and keep the points that I can use with my family. If I couldn’t keep the points I wouldn’t go out in the field nearly as often.

[orange dream 1199]

On 2/15/2020 at 8:44 AM, troph said:

Well in our case we purchase $80-100k of building materials per month, so it’s not employee travel. PMs have a solid comp package though.

What kind of business are you in?  I thought you were a lawyer of some sort.

[Seger78 237]

On 2/14/2020 at 11:16 PM, BearSchlong said:

I wouldn't work for anyone who didn't let me keep my miles/points unless they made it up with a finominal comp plan.

I didn't know this was an option for a lot of companies, so I'm a little jealous. When my company got acquired the worst thing that happened was being forced to use a company credit card instead of my personal card. Still get all the airline and hotel points etc., but I really miss the credit card miles.

[StruggleBus 3922]

51 minutes ago, orange dream said:

What kind of business are you in?  I thought you were a lawyer of some sort.

Everyone on surly is a lawyer. Problem is that most have already been disbarred. 

[Gil Bang 25507]

What kind of business are you in?  I thought you were a lawyer of some sort.

Same

[bluto 4800]

Got bitched at by cfo for using personal card and expensing something instead of using company card “if you want the credit card points you can pay the bill”.... nothing in the employee handbook about company card so meh. my $5k of annual cc expenses are worth a shit ton more on a minimum spend bonus than the company’s shit 1-2% cash back.

 

[StruggleBus 3922]

Your CFO would have hated the sales team at my last job. Half of their credit card charges were the field sales teams fucking around at bars in random cities. 

Anyway, we all got fired. But we had a damn good time.

[troph 23963]

Partner/girlfriend builds does real estate development, I run finance, legal and investor relations for her as well as the corporate lawyering gig on my own.

 

 

 

 

[TTU13 108]

I didn't know this was an option for a lot of companies, so I'm a little jealous. When my company got acquired the worst thing that happened was being forced to use a company credit card instead of my personal card. Still get all the airline and hotel points etc., but I really miss the credit card miles.

Allegedly, if using a corporate AMEX card you can pay $150 (can’t remember the exact amount) and actually collect the points as well if you get a personal card as well. However, your company accounting department has to pay rather quickly otherwise you lose the points.

With the corporate approval process of releasing funds (submitting your expenses through Concur, then your boss approving, then accounting approval process, then releasing funds) the lag time apparently prevents you from collecting your points most of the time.

I had a coworker who travels pretty regularly say he tried it one year and barely broke even on it.

I never looked into it, since my travel/expenses are usually hard to predict and my boss takes forever to approve expenses. Just figured I’d throw this out there. It all may be a crock shit.

[52-80 18962]

14 hours ago, orange dream said:

What kind of business are you in?  I thought you were a lawyer of some sort.

bird distribution.  he transitioned from his former profession in bird law.

[Nice Guy Eddie 13269]

Worked for a large company that had Amex turn off all points on corporate cards. They felt it encouraged poor financial decisions. 

which can be true. I remember working at a startup where the IT guy would buy corporate laptops at CompUSA because of their giveaways. Recall he came back with a golf driver one day with the laptop.

[troph 23963]

7 hours ago, 52-80 said:

bird distribution.  he transitioned from his former profession in bird law.

uh, yeah, that's it?

[kmac30 416]

About 12 years ago I used to put 200-350k on our business Amex every month. All points went to me. Ran that way for a couple years. That was fun. /csb

[BearSchlong 7965]

23 hours ago, Seger78 said:

I didn't know this was an option for a lot of companies, so I'm a little jealous. When my company got acquired the worst thing that happened was being forced to use a company credit card instead of my personal card. Still get all the airline and hotel points etc., but I really miss the credit card miles.

I still have to use my USBank MC which integrates through Concur for Flights, Hotels, and Rental Cars - but I get to keep the Southwest, Marriott, and Hertz points from those stays - so it's not the higher point total as if I used my Southwest or Bonvoy credit cards, but it's still something.  Just wanted to clarify because I think we are in the same boat.