American Express Plum Card Review

I signed up for the American Express Plum Card and received it in May 2009. The card looked very nice with a reddish color. There is an annual fee of $185 for the card, however my first annual fee was waived. That was when I decided to give it a try for a year. The Plum Card is for business, so I registered my business name on the credit card and was approved.  (However, I do not think that a business entity is required. Some people had signed up for the card with their personal names as the business and were still approved.)

The main selling benefits of the card are:

• Pay in full within ten days, get a 1.5% discount.

• OR pay as little as 10% and take up to 2 months to pay off the balance, interest free.

And the other benefits are:

• No Pre-Set Spending Limit, so your purchasing power can evolve with your business.
• OPEN Savings^® to help improve your bottom line with automatic discounts from our partnered companies.
• OPEN Forum is the online community designed to help you find valuable connections and information to manage and grow your business.
• Emergency Services and Customer Service to give your business 24/7 security and protection.

I enrolled in the “Pay in full within ten days, get a 1.5% discount” option because I felt the discount would benefit me the most. Over the course of 12 months, I saved $115 with my business expenses by charging them to the Plum Card. I thought that the savings were great, however, for my level of spending, the steep $185 annual fee would be an overkill. Also, I had no more business now, so the card had to go.

Plum Card Cancellation

After one year in April 2010, my one year trail period was over. I liked 1.5% discount in the benefits of the card, but I felt the annual fee was too high for my needs. I could not justify the $185 annual fee. When I canceled the plum card on the phone with American Express, the representative explained all the benefits to me again and tried a last attempt to keep me as a Plum Card holder by offering a WHOPPING $20 savings off the annual fee. Seriously? I wanted to laugh out loud, but held my composure and politely declined. I told him that I had other cards that offer me the same benefits with no annual fees.

To sum it up: Plum, you were great when I borrowed you for a year; you were stylish and had great benefits, but you would be too expensive for me afterwards.

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