American Express - Blue Review

I applied for a Blue by American Express card towards the end of 2005.  The last thing I needed was another credit card, but I also thought that the 0% introductory interest rate could come in handy for anything major (i.e. car repairs).  And with that rate being good for a solid year, why not take advantage of it?

Well, it's been well over a year now, and I still have this card, though I'm not sure why.  It rarely, if ever, gets used.  Most day to day purchases that I need to use a credit card for go onto my Discover Card.  Towards the end of 2006 I applied and was approved for a Chase CashRewards Card, which also had a 0% introductory rate for 12 months.  So I'm not really clear on why exactly I haven't closed this account out yet.

There are some positives, though.  For one, AMEX offers a points based rewards program.  While this means nothing to me now, I was able to get some nice rewards based on the large purchases I put onto it, and letting the points accumulate.  I'm a free gift card junkie, and AMEX has a large number of partnerships with merchants.  They also have a nice partnership with TicketMaster, meaning you can cash in some or all of your points towards the cost of tickets to sports events, concerts, or theatre events.

Second is that Blue, unlike many of AMEX's other cards, carries no annual fee.  I always thought an annual fee was ridiculous.  So let me get this straight, I have to pay you for the priviledge of being able to use your card?  Bite me.  But with no annual fee, and the non existant introductory rate, it was a very appealing card that would fit a specific purpose quite well.

AMEX offers you a variety of ways to access your account, aside from the monthly mailed statement.  You can access your account online, and can even get detailed information over the phone.  I found all of this to be very convenient, especially when I got locked out of my online access and had to depend on the phone information to stay up to date.

Sadly, once the introductory period was over, the rates shot up to about 24%.  I even called American Express to see if they could do any better, but I got a "sorry, we can't, thanks for calling" response.  That is, when they actually bothered to respond.  The wait times whenever I've called have been atrocious, anywhere from 10 minutes to a half an hour.  Someone over there needs to hire some call center reps, and pronto!

Blue is nothing special.  If you see a nice introductory offer the way I did, it's well worth it.  Otherwise, not much separates it from the rest of the credit card pack.