there welcome to the channel my name is mark and in this video i'm gonna break down the seven steps that you can take to get started with amex american express has so many different cards and a lot of those cards have really high annual fees and if you're a beginner and trying to get into american express it might be kind of complicated to figure out what you should do first should you get the platinum card if so which one there's a lot of different ones should you get the gold card should you look at the blue business plus card there are so many different cards to look at and it can be pretty complicated when you're first trying to get into their ecosystem also amex mr points aren't exactly the most straightforward and easy to use there are so many different ways to redeem them and all of those different ways to redeem your points there's different values associated with those like typically when you redeem an mr point for statement credit it's only 0.6 cents per point but people on youtube always talk about how if you transfer your points out you can get like two or three x but if you're a beginner you might not know how to do that so knowing all that i designed a seven step method that can help you get started with american express now before i get started talking about that i'm gonna ask you to give this video a thumbs up and also make sure that you subscribe to the channel and turn the notification bell on also down in the description of this video i refer links for amazing credit cards and also a referral link for racket now right now if you use my link to sign up and spend 40 on a qualified purchase you're actually gonna get forty dollars right back that is the highest racketeen offer i've ever seen i think it is a really good opportunity for you to make some free money all right intro out of the way let's get started with step number one now step number one might kind of annoy you but it is what it is i do think it makes the most sense step one is actually you to get started with chase first that's right you need to get all of the chase credit cards that you want before you go to annex i've actually made a guide in a video and i'll link it right here on how to get started with chase and i go over all that i'm not gonna waste time talking about that in this video but i think that you need to get at least five or maybe even six chase credit cards first before you get started with amex now that is due to the fact that chase has the 524 rule in place and also the fact that chase credit cards are just extremely valuable and definitely worth getting and since amex doesn't have a rule like 524 it just makes sense to go ahead and start with chase before you get over there in the mx side of things now if you want to blow by that obviously you're allowed to you can proceed to step two if you don't want to spend the time to get chase cards but just keep in mind you're gonna regret it the next time that csp 100k offer comes around if you get five amx cards and you don't have any chase cards then all of a sudden the chase bonuses bump up and you're locked out due to the fact that you're over 524 you're gonna be pretty upset start with chase lock in all those welcome offers get the freedom unlimited get the freedom flex get the csp get the world of high get the marriott boundless get all of those amazing chase credit cards and you'll definitely be happy that you did it that way but now that you're done with chase it is officially time to actually start with amex and that is gonna be step number two now step number two is another step that you could potentially skip depending on how you value this card i think it is worth getting you might not that's all there is to it first card that you're gonna get with american express is going to be the charles schwab platinum card now if you don't care about the charles schwab version and if you'd rather get the higher welcome offer with the vanilla platinum then go ahead and do that go ahead and take the higher maybe potentially targeted offer on that but if you don't care and you want to just take the 100k mr points get the charles schwab version so you can cash out your mr points if you ever need to you don't have to do it right it's just when you have the charles schwab version you are able to do that when you have the vanilla platinum card you are not able to do that that's all there is to it i've made a lot of videos in the past talking about the differences between the two and i think the clear winner is the charles schwab version now the platinum card does come with a whopping 695 annual fee so you definitely have to make sure that the card makes sense they offer a wide variety of coupon style credits that a lot of people are annoyed with i myself don't really love all the credits offered but i get so much value from the card i would never close it all of the lounge access all of the travel perks and benefits and of course the option to cash out my mr points with the schwa platinum version makes this card worth getting and keeping for me now i suggest starting with the platinum card first because it is amex's highest level card and it typically also has the highest bonus associated with it amex has a once in a lifetime rule meaning that once you get the card and get the bonus one time it doesn't matter even in 20 years from now you will not be able to get that bonus again on that same card even if you close it so it makes sense to try to find the highest welcome offer possible on each other cards but that's essentially step number one start with the platinum and then work your way out from there let's move on to step number two step number two is actually going to be going for the gold card and again you're going to be searching for the highest welcome offer possible sometimes when you use people's referral links you can get a high welcome offer i think right now the referral link that i have in the description is showing 75 000 points i'm actually already maxed out on referrals so don't feel like you have to use mine in fact i wouldn't get any value from it at all so maybe look at potentially using the spouses or friends or someone else that you know on youtube look at using their referral link for the gold card to see if you can find a pretty high elevated offer now the gold card is not as fancy as a platinum but it does still have a ton of offers such as earning 4x mr points on us supermarkets and u.s restaurants there's also up to 340 in potential credits that you can use and again those coupons i mean sorry credits are going to be broken down into 10 a month in different categories the annual fee is 250 so if you're able to max out those coupons then you're actually gonna be able to drive that annual fee down pretty low but already with the two cards i've talked about we're looking at annual fees pushing up to a thousand dollars amex cards have high annual fees that is all there is to it they offer the coupons to offset the value so if you're already kind of being scared away from amex because the annual fees amex in general might not be for you it is not for everybody i like it a lot but that does not mean you have to if you yourself are not going to get value from these credits if you cannot justify the annual fees do not get into amex unless you're just trying to get the bonuses because the bonuses are extremely lucrative but now let's move on to step number four and that's actually going to be get the blue business plus card now this card finally is our first that does not have an annual fee and it actually rounds out our amex trifecta this card is simple you earn 2x mr points on everything and that's it it's capped at 50 000 so if you spend more than 50 000 in a year on that card after that you're 50 000 and one dollar it's gonna be earning just one x but assuming you spend less than 50k a year on the card two xmr points on everything which means it is our catch-all card if you're not traveling or not dining or shopping our grocery store you're gonna be using the bbp since it has no annual fee it's extremely easy to justify now the one problem with the card is the fact that it is a business card and a lot of you guys might not necessarily have a business and you might think that you're not eligible to get the card that's not actually the case you can get the card without a business if you want to know how to get the card without a business dm me on instagram and i'll walk you through the process entirely for free i'll do it just to help you out i've coached a lot of people on how to get the bbp and i'll definitely help you as well i enjoy doing it and people always act like just because they don't have a real business they can't get the card and i always like helping them out but at this point we now have the amex trifecta completed and it's time to move on to step number five now this is really where things can start to vary and you can start to go your own way with it i think what makes the most sense next is to look at either the hilton cards or the marriott bomboy brilliant card or you could look at both of those amex has three co-branded hilton cards they have the regular hilton honors card the surpass and the highest level the aspire card the aspire card is the one that i have and is hands down one of the best travel credit cards on the market it offers diamond status just by holding the card which is actually hilton's highest level of status there's also like 700 worth of credits and the annual fee is only 450. so if you even stay at hilton resort once a year with that card you're pretty much going to come out about a thousand dollars on top which yeah right there just makes it 100 worth getting but also the surpass is pretty good value and of course the hill and honors regular card with no annual fee is good value as well but if you don't necessarily like hilton and you see yourself as more of a marriott person then definitely look at the marriott bon voy brilliant card card is the same 450 annual fee but it doesn't offer that highest level of status it only offers gold's that is what you actually already have with your platinum card but there are plenty of other benefits and perks of that card so either way step number five is looking at a hotel card and finding one that gives you the best value and also again you could just go ahead and get both the aspire card and the brilliant card pay 900 annual fee if you're a big traveler you're definitely gonna get the value back step number six again is totally optional i think that after you have all those cards you might not be interested in this step but if you are i think step number six is going to be looking at the delta cards the delta cards are actually really good and delta is my preferred airline of choice which is kind of why i'm so into the amax ecosystem but either way they've got the blue they've got the gold they've got the platinum and they've got the nice purple reserve card and all of them have unique benefits and offerings the platinum and the reserve card are the highest level and they come with the biggest annual fees but they also offer companion certificates which is actually going to be able to get you a free flight every single year and that's kind of why most people are able to justify those high annual fees when you pay an annual fee that high you expect to get big value back and the platinum of the reserve allow you to get essentially a free plane ticket with that so that can totally offset the anal fee if you know what you're doing my wife has the platinum card and i think that that's kind of the sweet spot if you don't always necessarily fly first class and it might not be a big deal to you and i think that the platinum card is going to make the most sense for the most amount of people i've made videos overviewing all four of those cards if you're interested click on the links right up here where i talk about those cards and that's essentially it now it is time for step number seven which is basically the stage that i'm at now and it is just bonus hunting right again i already talked about at the beginning of the video amex has the once in a lifetime rule so at this point you have all your cards you have your trifecta you maybe have a hilton or a marriott card maybe you got the delta platinum and now is essentially just time to shop around for some good value if you see that green card when you see 50 000 points after just 2k spend and you're like dang that's a good deal go ahead and get that card it's probably not going to ever get much higher than that that's the highest i've ever seen you know maybe it bumps up to like 60 in a couple years but still if you're looking for a good bonus right now you can lock in 50 000 mr points you can transfer that out to any partner and get huge upside value from that you could also start to look at the business platinum or the business gold cards if you can again justify the annual fees and if you can hit those pretty high minimum spends if you're able to do either those two things again those are two other cards that you can get some pretty high bonuses from so that number seven is essentially just shopping around for high bonuses and basically wrapping up all of those cards with amex amex has a few rules basically you're allowed to have up to 10 of their charge cards and you're allowed to have either four or potentially five of their true credit cards in my next video i'm gonna go over all the amex application rules for 2021 that way if you have any questions hopefully i'll get that video up soon and i can answer your questions more about how you can apply for these cards i did that video about a year ago and it's a little bit outdated now some of the rules have changed so i definitely need to make an update video very soon but guys what do you think about these seven steps do you think i'm right do you think i'm wrong what would you change about my method let me know all of your thoughts down below of course if you have any questions also let me know about those down below and again don't forget to check the description of this video for some awesome referral links for credit cards and also rackets and get that forty dollars guys it's a really good deal also racketing is offering huge bonuses right now on their cash back for shopping at a lot of their stores so it is absolutely worth signing up right now all right guys that is all that i have i'm gonna wrap this video up don't forget to give it a thumbs up and also don't forget to make sure that you're subscribed to the channel and have that notification bell turned on thanks again so much for watching all the way until the end relations mean a lot to me but with all that being said see you guys next time [Music] [Music] you