What if choosing the right credit card could transform your financial life? On this episode of the Observation Station, I'm Tommy Heitz, guiding you through the compelling stories of two financial titans: American Express and Visa. We'll explore their origins, acceptance rates globally, and how their fee structures impact where and how often you can use them. We'll also spotlight the extraordinary perks of the Amex Platinum card, from superior customer service to unmatched travel benefits. Hear firsthand how Amex came to my rescue when a travel mishap threatened to ruin my plans, and discover which card might be the perfect fit for your financial lifestyle.
But that's not all! We’ll also tackle the critical issues of credit card debt and impulse buying. With insights into how cards like Visa, Amex, and Chase Sapphire Reserve cater to different spending habits, you'll learn how to harness their benefits while avoiding high-interest traps and "buy now, pay later" schemes. To wrap it up, I’ll share an inspiring pep talk, reminding you to stay positive and resilient as you face life's challenges. Tune in for an episode packed with valuable insights and motivation, designed to help you make informed financial decisions and uplift your spirits as you head into the weekend.
What if choosing the right credit card could transform your financial life? On this episode of the Observation Station, I'm Tommy Heitz, guiding you through the compelling stories of two financial titans: American Express and Visa. We'll explore their origins, acceptance rates globally, and how their fee structures impact where and how often you can use them. We'll also spotlight the extraordinary perks of the Amex Platinum card, from superior customer service to unmatched travel benefits. Hear firsthand how Amex came to my rescue when a travel mishap threatened to ruin my plans, and discover which card might be the perfect fit for your financial lifestyle.
But that's not all! We’ll also tackle the critical issues of credit card debt and impulse buying. With insights into how cards like Visa, Amex, and Chase Sapphire Reserve cater to different spending habits, you'll learn how to harness their benefits while avoiding high-interest traps and "buy now, pay later" schemes. To wrap it up, I’ll share an inspiring pep talk, reminding you to stay positive and resilient as you face life's challenges. Tune in for an episode packed with valuable insights and motivation, designed to help you make informed financial decisions and uplift your spirits as you head into the weekend.
Do you ever lift your head up from your phone, look around and think to yourself my God, everything is weird. Well, we do A lot. This is the Observation Station, A unique, entertaining and hilarious podcast. If we observe it, we talk about it. Anything and everything, Anything and everything, Anything and everything. Let's get weird and let's have some fun. This is the Observation Station and now your host, Tommy Heights.
Speaker 2:
Hey, hey, hey, welcome back. It's going to be another episode of the Observation Station. Today's topic is going to be American Express versus Visa, so two of the biggest credit card lenders in the whole entire planet. So the breakdown today is going to be all the different things that the Amex and the Visa bring to the table as a whole, maybe a little bit of the origin stories, kind of just taking you back to where these cards started. So just to sit back here, relax. It's been a while since I put out an episode, wanted to just come back here and say that I need to have it where more and more episodes are just very fluent in the topics, to have it where it's digestible. Sometimes I like to go on rants, so that's another thing that I want to have where it just becomes more of a fluid conversation into the microphone and it's easy listen for people to just digest the information. Have fun, laugh a little bit. We're just chilling, it's not a problem.
Speaker 2:
It's Friday, a nice day outside here in sunny South Florida. It was raining a little bit here before. After those floods that we just had a few weeks ago started to have like PTSD to say, if it's going to rain too much. Where are your cars at parked? Because if anybody had seen the videos, I mean, the floods were just like it's like biblical. I think it was 20 inches of rain in 48 hours or something like that. So not a good time to have your vehicles stranded in the middle of the road. So yeah, let's get into it.
Speaker 2:
Today it's going to be a little bit of breaking down what it is to have these two cards, how it is perceived, at least from a domestic standpoint and an international standpoint. So let's start off with Visa. Visa is pretty much accepted anywhere, and the whole thing about Visa I like to have when I take overseas is it's not only accepted domestically but internationally. There's never really a problem. Amex is, uh, not the case unless you're in major metropolitan cities like london, berlin, things of that nature. And even if not everybody accepts American Express, I learned when I got older it's like why do some of these gas stations not accept American Express? Well, it comes down to the fee that the credit card processing is a little bit more than Visa. So that's a reason why some people don't overall accept American Express. But the thing is it's been a while since I've been in a gas station where it has a cardboard makeshift sign on it that says you need to be spending at least $5 for credit card purchases, or a 5% fee or something's or whatever fee on there. It's like, first off, this is illegal. But uh, I mean, look, every every day.
Speaker 2:
Credit card use is so much better overall than having a debit card. I'll tell you exactly why this is great. When you use a debit card, you're at risk for the card to be used and and it's like, oh my gosh, that's kind of straight from the bank itself money, the credit card. If there's a fraud, there's insurance. I mean, if you have a good credit card, like a Sapphire Reserve, something that you pay a pretty decent annual fee, if you're paying over $200 for the annual fee, you'll get pretty good service.
Speaker 2:
There's not a reason for me to be taking the American Express off my list because of all the different perks that it brings to the table. There's a lot of travel perks, especially for travel, travel insurance. It's all baked into the card. If you book with the amex platinum, some people say, is it really worth 695 dollars a year, as it is currently? Absolutely, if you travel, and I would say if you travel at least like five times a year on an airplane yes, five times a year at least. It's totally worth it. Here's exactly why the Amex the customer service is second to none when you have the Platinum.
Speaker 2:
I don't know what it's like to have the Black Card, also known as the Centurion Card. I have no idea. It's got to be some other level. But what I can tell you is from first-hand experience. One time I was flying to a wedding and everything was booked through the Amex card, so from there you had it. Where there was an issue, I had one flight to the airport, because it was a small airport. I was flying into Aspen Airport where the flight was so delayed and it was the last flight to Aspen that I had an entire day that I had to stay in Houston, which was a connecting flight. I had no plans on staying in Houston, so the Amex. When I got finally to the hotel, I had to explain to them what happened. Everything was booked through the portal, so there's a record of all the different things that I booked. It shows the delays of the flight so they can correlate as a representative to say oh well, yeah, this definitely did happen. It's something I'm going to need to rectify as a platinum member. So they conference in where I don't have to handle this.
Speaker 2:
It's nice, where you just kind of sit back and relax. It's kind of like having a travel lawyer in a certain sense, and they deal with the front desk, explain the issue and da-da-da-da-da, and who knows what they can do. They could probably have it where they can retract a transaction based on some kind of contract stuff. Who knows? I'm not reading that far in the fine print, but it ended up, long story short, where the lady had told me everything's taken care of, your room has been. Your room charge will be refunded. Da-da-da-da-da, because she just explained kind of just some corporate stuff. But I thought to myself oh my God, thank you so much. And then you see an email coming back your room has been refunded for one night. Da-da-da-da-da, just some formal letter here. It's pretty nice to have it where it just comes about.
Speaker 2:
That service when you're traveling comes in handy. Comes about, that service when you're traveling comes in handy. Especially Amex. If you have a round trip that you paid for, say that and the thing is it was just a one-way trip so I kind of got it screwed on this one. But if you have a round trip, say, you have a problem and you're traveling, say, to an international country it's a little bit better to explain and there's a problem so that you can't leave the airport, there's an issue with whatever it is the plane, da-da-da-da.
Speaker 2:
Amex gives you a credit to go to a hotel or whatever it is. It's like $500 for the night, something like that, and they can do that for like three nights. Or you have to prove what happened. There's like a delay past like six hours or something like that. So the bottom line you're just getting so many more perks. It's like having a shield when you're traveling.
Speaker 2:
The sapphire reserve is nice. There's definitely a lot of perks to that. The lounges, actually with the Sapphire they're building more and more and more, because everybody is competing for lounge access of like which one they can get into and the status, the Platinum bar. None is much, much, much better when it comes to that. But the Sapphire really does help you out with a lot of different things. I haven't used it for car rentals, but it's like primary insurance with the Sapphire, with the Amex it's like secondary insurance, so that means that it hits your insurance first and then it goes to the secondary, so I don't really know how that is. God forbid. I haven't had to make any insurance claim yet in my life, so take it as you will.
Speaker 2:
But to revert back there, I mean, look, the Visa and Amex. The difference too. When you go, take a card like a Visa, there's almost zero problem of having it where a merchant, even in small foreign stores, accept, and it just makes life a lot easier. There's almost no point of having the Amex Platinum or Gold or whatever Amex as it is as a matter of fact, when you're traveling, besides having it just in your room, because when you go to the airport, you need to show it for international travel lounges so that you can get in for free. So, visa, the way that these guys started, if I read it correct, is that they were lending money out there and they were trying to have it where they started their own lending business. It's an interesting story how Visa started. It's like a multi, multi-trillion dollar company at this point, if I was correct and read.
Speaker 2:
Think about the amount of times that they get paid. Every time the card swipes any credit card card company, anytime that card swipes, they get paid, and if you are late, also the late fees. That's just like icing on top for these companies. So that's why they give these perks that are so enticing, because they're thinking okay for the major population of consumer debt that's out there, people are just going to be spending and not having it where they're paying it off, because if you're not paying it off, there's no points that are coming off to you. Plus, they get to get your late fee penalties, which, honestly, is like the biggest waste of money for people. So many people have consumer debt. That is so unnecessary, especially.
Speaker 2:
One of the biggest things is coffee. If you go out there sometimes a guilty pleasure, but it's really not even spending money. The only way I really go, for the most part, is because I got a gift card. So it's not like I'm spending money unless it's like $4 or $5 over what like a $10 gift card. So I'm just, you know, spend four bucks on the card. So neither here nor there, though some people that they go drive all the way to like a Starbucks sit in the line there to pay for that and you're thinking to yourself oh my God, if these people have debt on whatever card they're using, this coffee doesn't cost $7.50. This thing is like ending up being like a $29 coffee by the time these guys pay it off. God forbid and think about it like this $29 just one day. If these people are repeating this and just running the tab up, I'd like to at least take it to see who has a credit card that they just spend and spend and spend and spend. They keep opening up lines and, uh, there's people that are just like that because they say that they're addicted to shopping or something like that. At this point, when you go out there spending on cards, um, there's.
Speaker 2:
I felt like there was so much more fun things to be buying as a kid, like when I was a kid, the KB Toys. If anybody remembers that store. There was like super soakers where they're like the water balloon fights. Oh my God, those were the coolest. If you remember water balloon fights back in the day, it was the best. There was the super soakers, the. What other stuff? Man? The water balloons. You know what we would used to do? Take a, that was funny. We would put cold water, just throw it at people and man, it would be terrible because it would be like the coldest ice water, like woo.
Speaker 2:
So, but you know, buying stuff now having it where my first card was a Visa of Freedom. So the nice thing about that is where a lot of categories are 5% for a few months, like gas, or 5% buying at Walmart, which I almost refrained from wanting to go into. That's like a Navy SEAL operation You're in and you're out so quick because the stuff you see around there like oh my God, god, did I make it this far? That I what you know, I'm not trying to down walmart, it depends what town it's in, but for the general walmart population they don't have pages online about people of walmart for nothing. So and those people that check my receipt there, the people that they excuse, this isn't costco. I just walk past, I just say hi and just walk past. I'm like, are you serious, please? You're not checking my receipt. This is theft prevention. It used to be called a greeter. There's no greeter anymore there. That's theft prevention.
Speaker 2:
So but the consumer debt it's getting pretty bad. I just want to see what it's going to be like at the end of the year here, because if it's this bad at the middle, a little bit past the middle of the year now, it's going to be July at the end of the week here and it's going to be interesting. A lot of things probably are going to be going on sale for Christmas, because it's going to be where not many people are going to be able to afford it. Even at the credit card lines right now, the APRs are going to be going up, up, up, up up. Interest will be nuts. They'll be barred from having to open any access to lines. So I mean, look, it is what it is with people. It's their own choice. It's the United States here.
Speaker 2:
People have their own free will how to use the cards. A lot of times, also with the Visa, if you get a no credit card fee card, they're great to have it where it's uh, starts off your report, like for equifax. That's what I would say is the best thing is to get a, a chase card or whatever it is. I I refrain from using Wells Fargo, even though Wells Fargo, william Fargo, was part of the. I think it was part of some aspect in the founding of American Express. So there's a lot of things out there.
Speaker 2:
In retrospect, where consumer debt, you think to yourself why do you spend this money? Okay, well, it's an impulse buy. A lot of times. Introspect, where consumer debt, you think to yourself why do you spend this money? Okay, well, it's an impulse buy a lot of times, so that impulse buy the credit cards, no matter visa, american express. They love impulse buys because it's just like every single thing that you swipe the, the company has to spend two percent or like three and a% on Amex, that it doesn't matter what you buy. That's why they love, love, love for you to keep spending. It doesn't matter which card you have. The consequences are real.
Speaker 2:
It's just me observing and seeing what it is that people think this is just like funny money when the like what is it Like a firm or something like that the pay later, buy now. Like what is it like a firm or something like that, the pay later, buy now, pay later. What a great way to get somebody where the pain isn't right now and it's just put off for like 24 months or something like that. My God, the people that do that stuff. That's another thing where, if you really think about it, it's just interest on interest on interest, because if you put that, I don't know how that would work. I mean, if you would put it on a credit card, you're already in debt paying the interest on that which, who knows? Maybe virtually 30% interest per month carrying over, plus whatever the interest is on the pay later. That you haven't done that balance.
Speaker 2:
Think about the stuff that you buy, like sneakers. If you buy sneakers on a credit line where you're paying installments on sneakers, please, I mean you need to get your head straight. This is screwed up so well. I just want to have it where. Look the whole part of Visa versus Amex. It's not saying you know who's better, who's worse. Everything is a tool. It's just like money. One is good in one place, one is good in another, like the Amex gold. Perfect for grocery stores and restaurants, where the platinum is pretty much solely good on travel, almost only anything that's travel related. So the sapphire reserve is good for travel and dining, so everything is. It's just like saying those are just the, the cards that I'm carrying. It's not something where I'm saying that people are going to be paying high annual fees for those cards.
Speaker 2:
The whole thing is watch what you're swiping on. This is a public statement. Do not have it where impulse buys get you Right now. It's a time to figure out. Keep your credit score high. Don't be buying stuff that you don't need. It doesn't matter who it is. It could be a Chime credit card. Who knows what? It is Apple Pay with a secured card that you have to call somebody and they have to note down why you're purchasing a $10 pack of socks or something. So get it together everybody.
Speaker 2:
Look, observation Station is here just to tell you what I see, not what anybody else sees. It's just something that I'm just letting the world know right now. Do what you need to do. If you're going into debt, know it's consciously your decision. No matter what it is, it's your choice. So all right.
Speaker 2:
Well, with that being said, the next episode is going to be what to do about feeling stuck in life. Just going to be going over the feeling like you're stuck in a rut, things that aren't progressing, stagnant. You just feel like what are you doing with your life? Is it going to be progressing or is it just going to be staying there for the rest of your life? There's a peak and you've hit the valleys and there's no going up from there.
Speaker 2:
It's Friday. Don't be that depressing, but it's just kind of having it where it's. Just you've got to make yourself fly. Don't hold your wings back. Let yourself fly. This isn't a life that was given to you just to have it where, moping with your hands in your pocket and the head down. No, put your head up. It's going to be tough out there. You're going to get kicked, punched. Whatever it is it easy. And you know, next episode is just going to be some self reflection happening between the listener and myself. Hope to see you there. Glad to have you here, at least right now. Have to be grateful for everybody that tunes in.
Speaker 1:
Have a great weekend, guys alright, bye, bye, all right, bye-bye, that would help too. See you next time on the Observation Station.
