American Express Business Explorer Credit Card

16.99% p.a.

$395

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American Express Business Explorer Credit Card Review

Review published: 19 July 2017

What's hot:

  • 100,000 bonus rewards points (min. spend applies)

  • 50,000 bonus points annually (min. spend applies)

  • 2 points per $1 spent

What's not:

  • $395 annual fee

Mozo snapshot:

Combining a low 16.99% interest rate with bumper rewards value, the newly launched American Express Business Explorer has the best of both worlds. Small and medium business owners who want more bang for their buck can score 100,000 bonus rewards points, plus 50,000 each year after that by meeting an annual minimum spend of $100,000. You’ll just need to weigh up whether the rewards on offer are worth the $395 annual fee.

Key features:

Let’s start with the basics. The Amex Business Explorer comes with a relatively low interest rate of 16.99% and up to 55 interest free days, making it super easy to manage your business’ cash flow.

Transaction data from your Business Explorer account can be fed straight into MYOB. Whether you have 10 employees or 50, business runs smoothly with up to 99 supplementary cards on offer. Business owners can manage all these cards from one statement, and rewards points on all cards are pooled - helping you reach that free flight or gift card sooner. The best part - there’s no fee for additional cards.

Primary cardholders can cash in on complimentary international travel insurance, but for overseas spending, keep in mind that there is a 3% foreign exchange margin on all purchases.

Now for the fun part - rewards. There’s a 100,000 bonus point offer up for grabs if you apply by October 2, 2017 and spend $3,000 in the first 3 months after approval. Savvy business owners can also get their hands on an extra 50,000 bonus points each year that they meet an annual credit card spend of $100,000, which shouldn’t be hard if you have a few supplementary cards contributing to the spend as well.

But the rewards value doesn't stop there. The generous regular earn rate of 2 rewards points per $1 spent applies to all purchases, except those at government bodies. But the good news is that unlike many rewards cards, you’ll still earn 0.5 points per $1 on these spends.

Points are uncapped, never expire and you can redeem them for a range of awesome rewards including flights, gift cards, and other retail products.

Who it's good for:

Available to small business owners with an individual income of $24,000 per year, the Business Explorer is a top pick for anyone who wants to manage their businesses cash flow and nab a bunch of rewards value at the same time.

Any catches?

The $395 annual fee is not to be ignored, so think carefully about whether you’ll get enough value from the rewards on offer to justify it.

If you’re planning to use the card internationally, it’s also worth noting the 3% foreign exchange margin on all purchases.

Revealing rewards

How do we do it?

To work out the "Rewards value minus fees" in our Rewards Revealer we:

  • calculate how many points you'd get each year,
  • figure out how many flights or gift cards or cashback credits you could get for those points,
  • work out what that's actually worth to you,
  • take off the annual fee you'd pay.

More details:

  • Our calculations are designed to help you compare the value of different rewards schemes. To do this, we've looked at earning a one-way Sydney-Melbourne flight excluding taxes and charges, a return Sydney-London flight excluding taxes and charges, a $100 shopping Gift Card and $100 cashback. Most cards will also offer other rewards, which may be worth more or less than the ones we've shown.
  • We have made no allowance for bonus points for using your card at specific merchants, introductory offers or special offers. We have not assigned any value to instant discounts, insurances, ticketing and concierge services or other such benefits.
  • Rewards value calculations do not take credit card interest into account. If you do not pay off your card each month you may be better off looking for a card based on interest rates than on the value of rewards.
  • In products that have more than one card, a different mix of spend between American Express / Visa / MasterCard will give different results. Mozo's Rewards Revealer lets you choose the mix based on the way you would use such a product, and gives you tailored results.
  • We assume flights purchased with airline points are 'classic' or 'reward' economy seats with restricted seat availability. 'Any seat' rewards will probably cost more.
  • To compare the value of flight rewards, we sample online retail flight prices once a quarter based on the average price on a Wednesday 3 months in advance but outside NSW school holidays. For domestic flights we take the lowest available fare from each flight on that day from Qantas Red e-deal, Virgin Australia Saver including baggage and Jetstar Starter including baggage. We calculate the average price excluding taxes and surcharges for each airline, and also the average across all airlines (which we use when rewards are travel agent vouchers). For international flights, we take the lowest available fares on that same Wednesday from each of Qantas, Emirates, Malaysian, Etihad, Singapore, Cathay Pacific and Thai, assuming a return flight 2 weeks later, calculate the average price before taxes and surcharges and use this as our assumed cost of a flight on any airline.
  • Shopping rewards are based on $100 gift cards from a major national department store.
  • We make every effort to ensure our calculations are correct and up to date but make no guarantees.

Rewards scheme

  • Transfer points to a range of airline programs or redeem your points for travel, gift cards, retail rewards and shopping gift cards.
  • Flights available with Cathay Pacific, Singapore Airlines, Thai Airways, Air New Zealand, Emirates, Virgin, Malaysia Airlines and other partners.
  • Get 50,000 Bonus Points annually for Business Loyalty.

Privileges

  • Travel Insurance
  • Account alerts by SMS

Special offers

  • Get an introductory 100,000 bonus points when you apply and are accepted by 2 October 2017, and spend $3,000 in your first three months

Value of rewards points

  • Need to spend $9,000 ()

  • Need to spend $5,200 ()

  • Need to spend $79,733 ()

  • Uncapped

  • Never

Details behind our 'value of rewards' calculations

  • 2 points per dollar on Amex, uncapped

  • 18000 points buys a Myer $100 Gift Card

  • 1 points buys 0.75 Velocity Points; 7800 Velocity Points buys a Virgin Australia Syd-Mel flight

  • 1 points buys 0.75 Velocity Points; 119600 Velocity Points buys a Velocity partner London flight

* How did we do it? Find out...

Rates

  • 16.99% p.a.

  • none

  • none

  • none

  • none

  • 55

Fees

  • $395.00

  • none

  • none

  • none

  • $30.00

  • none

  • 3.00%

  • $0.00

  • $7.00

  • $0.00

Other financial bits

  • $30.00

  • 2.5

Features

  • unlimited

  • none

  • Monthly statement meets ATO requirements for GST reporting.

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