Buying a Car Using Amex Platinum

[Anonymous]

I really don’t see the difference between allowing one person to spend $40,000 on AMEX or 40 people to spend $1000 on AMEX. At the end of the year the business is still paying AMEX the fees.

[Anonymous]

Are used to work at a high-end hotel that did weddings in big events we have clients all the time pay for the entire wedding with their American Express card sometimes $50-$60,000. The same with hotel rooms business is booked blocks of hotel rooms for their clients and the bill can be in the tens to $20,000 range and it gets put on the company credit card.

[Anonymous]

There was a guy who bought a Modigliani and put it on his Amex. 170 million dollars.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I really don’t see the difference between allowing one person to spend $40,000 on AMEX or 40 people to spend $1000 on AMEX. At the end of the year the business is still paying AMEX the fees.

39k in revenue not subject to a fee on 40 cars vs the entirety of one purchase subject to fees and you don't see a difference?

[Anonymous]

There is no way the dealer is not many up this money in some other way. The dealer does the screwing, not the other way around.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Are used to work at a high-end hotel that did weddings in big events we have clients all the time pay for the entire wedding with their American Express card sometimes $50-$60,000. The same with hotel rooms business is booked blocks of hotel rooms for their clients and the bill can be in the tens to $20,000 range and it gets put on the company credit card.

They do it because peopel aren't financing (compared to buying a car) so they need to have a way to accept that much money; and the margins are so high that they can afford to eat the processing fees.

Margins on new cars are not great -- dealership make the bulk of their _profits_ from service and parts.

[Anonymous]

I bought a car on my credit card at Jack Taylor Toyota in Alexandria back in 2016. There were no fees.

I tried again in 2020 at a different dealership (VW) and there were fees for using a credit card plus a jump in price because I lost all of the discounts they only offered if you used their financing. We ended up getting the best deal by getting a 24-month car loan. We had to make 3 payments to avoid a prepay penalty so we paid off in 3 months. We saved a lot over buying with our credit card even when I estimated what we'd get in cc points.

OP, what is the refinancing part? I didn't think you could refinance a credit card unless you transfer the balance to a different card but maybe I'm clueless.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I bought a car on my credit card at Jack Taylor Toyota in Alexandria back in 2016. There were no fees.

I tried again in 2020 at a different dealership (VW) and there were fees for using a credit card plus a jump in price because I lost all of the discounts they only offered if you used their financing. We ended up getting the best deal by getting a 24-month car loan. We had to make 3 payments to avoid a prepay penalty so we paid off in 3 months. We saved a lot over buying with our credit card even when I estimated what we'd get in cc points.

OP, what is the refinancing part? I didn't think you could refinance a credit card unless you transfer the balance to a different card but maybe I'm clueless.

Really, the only reason to do this with Amex Platinum is that car dealers usually code as "Small Business". Which means that this transaction, for me, generates 15 times the normal points. So a $50,000 car is worth 750,000 miles/points. That equates to about $15,000 benefit as I use them. Getting a dealer to take the card is one thing. Leg work. There's always some dealer who will or I know someone who's a friend of a dealer. The issue is that I don't want to spend the money outright right now and that's where the problem is. I would like to buy the car, get the points and then finance the purchase using a car loan at 1-2 percent. Refinancing a car is generally easy. Problem is that banks only want to refinance other banks' financing. I almost got a banker to do it, but at the end the manager would only extend a personal loan. That diminishes the value considerably. I have time. In the end I'll probably just buy the car and be a pig not a hog.

[Anonymous]

Dealers will not sell to you if you use outside financing. They have zero need to do anything different for you. They will sell the car tomorrow to someone that will finance thru them.

[Anonymous]

depends on the dealer - no dealer would do more than $10K charge on a credit card.

[Anonymous]

Our Mercedes dealer only let us charge $2000 on our Platinum.

[Anonymous]

Well, what happened OP!?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DH and I tried to do this last year and the dealership would only allow $2000 or $2500.
Good luck, I hope that you can do it😛

In 2010, I got Don Beyer to let me put 25% on a credit card.

Except it’s 2022. Not happening today.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Dealers will not sell to you if you use outside financing. They have zero need to do anything different for you. They will sell the car tomorrow to someone that will finance thru them.

Not true. No car dealer is gonna refuse to sell you a car.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Dealers will not sell to you if you use outside financing. They have zero need to do anything different for you. They will sell the car tomorrow to someone that will finance thru them.

Not true. No car dealer is gonna refuse to sell you a car.

Yes, we had an issue as I custom ordered a car and the dealer was really upset I wasn't financing it. I always said cash so not sure why they thought I was financing. I almost walked as they were so nasty.