Are Platinum & Gold Credit Cards Worth it?

Just like driving an expensive car or owning an lavish home, people like to own the prestigious and status associated with a gold or platinum credit card.

Whether they’re worth it or not comes down to two things: You can pay for the status associated with the card for your own self enjoyment, or take advantage of its many luxuries and benefits.

The advantages and disadvantages of a prestige credit card include:

The Pros:

• Generous reward programs with high point conversion rates.
• Travel insurance and benefits
• Purchase security and warranties
• Prestige personal service and 24/7 assistance
• High credit limits

The Cons:

• High annual fees and interest rates.
• Good credit history and high annual income necessary for approval.
• Can be a potential waste of money if the features are not being used.

While some will simply own one of these cards for the sake of status and pride, few will take full advantage of the many features they offer.

Most of these cards will feature the majority of these benefits, some less and some more:

Features of Gold and Platinum Cards

• Domestic and International Travel Insurance: This is the standard feature which most gold & platinum cards offer. While the extent of cover may be limited depending on the card’s annual fee and level of bank service, it is a convenient mode of insurance rather than separately organizing it yourself. Make sure you carefully review the extent of your cover as it may not include cover for your family or for ski accidents for instance.

Travel Inconvenience Cover, Transport Accident Cover and Medical Insurance are all potential inclusions in the extent of your insurance.

• Generous Rewards Program: Most providers will typically offer 3 versions of the same card. For example, the hypothetical ‘Bank of Australia‘ offers the Ace Standard, Ace Gold and Ace Platinum credit cards. Each consecutive card has a higher annual fee, but a higher reward point conversion. 
• Ace Standard offers 1 reward point for every dollar, at an annual fee of $80. 
• Ace Gold offers 1.5 reward points for every dollar, at an annual fee of $150. 
• Ace Platinum offers 2.0 reward point for every dollar, at an annual fee of $299. Australian banks tend to follow a structure similar to these, but will vary in their own unique ways.

• High Credit Limit: If you’re ever in need of a lot of credit, whether it’s temporary investment, expense covers or an emergency, take comfort in knowing that up to $100,000 of credit is at your hands.

• Hotel and Flight Priority: Some providers will offer a complimentary free domestic flight or night in a hotel every year. Others will offer priority in ticket bookings, and will do the hard work and effort in booking your accommodation and flight routes.

• Purchase & Refund Protection: For international purchases, some cards offer up to and even over 90 days purchase and/or refund security as standard.

• 24/7 Concierge Service: At any time of the day, any place, you can call your card customer service line and request practically anything, from a taxi, purchase tickets or ask a general knowledge question.

• Entertainment Discounts: Banks will often provide advance tickets or discount prices for a wide range of entertainment services and shows.

How to Determine whether a Gold and Platinum is Suitable

Touching on the metaphor in the opening paragraph, what good is paying for 6 bathrooms in your house or a performance 4WD if you never go off-road?

Likewise, these cards have countless benefits – however, they’re only truly benefits if you actually take advantage of them. To the rest of us, they’re simply bells and whistles.

To truly get your dollar value from prestigious cards, you need to pay your balance in full regularly to bypass the high interest rates, and take full advantage of it’s travel, luxury and entertainment benefits to make the relatively high annual fee worth it.

For more information and access to Australia’s leading prestigious credit cards, compare Australia’s gold and platinum credit cards here.

If you’re after a quality rewards program but can’t afford a Gold/Platinum card or don’t meet the prerequisites for approval, compare regular reward credit cards here.

Check out today's featured offers:

Westpac Low Rate	Citibank Clear Platinum	Qantas AMEX Discovery	ANZ Platinum
0% p.a. for 6 months on purchases & balance transfers	2.9% p.a. for 12 months on balance transfers	$0 annual fee Up to 10,000 Bonus QFF Points	0% p.a. for 6 months on purchases & balance transfers

Subscribe to our newsletter and get "The Ultimate Guide to Balance Transfers"

Popular Credit Card Offers

			Interest Rate (p.a.)	Balance Transfer Rate (p.a.)	Annual fee	Cash Advance Rate (p.a.)
	Westpac Low Rate Card - 0% Offer	A credit card with a low rate offer on both balance transfers and purchases, plus a low annual fee.	0% for 6 months (reverts to 13.49% )	0% for 6 months	$45	21.49%
	Citibank Clear Platinum Card	Competitive interest rate on purchases and balance transfers offer.	11.99%	2.9% for 12 months	$99	21.74%
	St George Vertigo	Take advantage of this great offer from St.George with a low rate on purchases and a low balance transfer offer.	13.24%	0.99% for 12 months	$55	21.49%
	ANZ Platinum Credit Card	An introductory interest rate offer on balance transfers and purchases, plus a $0 first year annual fee.	0% for 6 months (reverts to 19.24% )	0% for 6 months	$0 annual fee for the first year( $87 thereafter)	20.99%