American Express Business Explorer Card

Business owners can earn 100,000 Membership Rewards points when taking out a new American Express Business Explorer card. In order to be inline for the bonus, you will need to apply for the card by February 4, 2019. You will then need to spend $3,000 in the first three months following card approval.

In order to be eligible for the points, you must not have held held any other Card product issued by American Express Australia Limited in the preceding 18 month period. This exclusion does not include bank-issued American Express companion card. So, you are still eligible if you have held a card from Australia New Zealand Banking Group Limited, Commonwealth Bank of Australia, National Australia Bank, or Westpac Banking Corporation.

American Express Business Explorer Card

The American Express Business Explorer card is the business version of the personal  the Explorer card. While they share similar names,  and the card features share some similarities, there are some key differences in the cards. These differences mainly revolve around the different target market of the two cards.

The card has an annual fee of $395, but for that, business owners stand to earn a whole lot of points.

The card earns Membership Rewards in the Gateway program. It is important to note that while the program offers transfers to airline partners, the transfer rates are different what you might expect from the Ascent program.

Business Explorer Card Points Earning

The Business Explorer card comes with the opportunity to earn 100,000 bonus points as a sign-up bonus. There is also an annual bonus of 50,000 points that may be paid on each card anniversary.

As you might expect, there are spend criteria that need to be met in order to get the points. For the sign-up bonus, you will need to spend $3,000 in the first three months. As is the norm with many American Express cards these days, you need to be a new cardholder to be eligible.

On top of that, there are 50,000 bonus points up for grabs each year. There is a spend requirement for this, and you will need to put at least $100,000 through the card each year to get the annual bonus.

For day to day spend, the card earns 2 Membership Rewards points per dollars spent on the card. There are some exceptions, such as ATO payments, where the earn rate drops down to 0.5 points per dollar.

Using the Points

After earning the points, there are eight different frequent flyer programs that you can transfer the points to, These are

• Virgin Australia Velocity,
• Singapore Airlines KrisFlyer,
• Cathay Pacific Asia Miles,
• Malaysia Airlines Enrich,
• Emirates Skywards,
• Etihad Guest,
• Thai Airways Royal Orchid Plus and
• Air New Zealand Airpoints

For all except Air New Zealand, the transfer rate is 4 Membership Rewards points to 3 Frequent FLyer program  points. Air New Zealand offers Airpoints, and here the conversion rate is 400 Membership Rewards points to $3.00 in Airpoints currency.

Working through the maths of the earn and burn, shows that you will be earning 1.5 points in airline points for each dollar spent. This is quite a decent earn rate in the scheme of things.

Membership Rewards points can also be used on a range of goods and services. Most people, however, find the best value when transferring to one of the airline partner programs.

*NOTE: Point redemption rates will change as of 15 April 2019. Please click here for further detail.

Card feature Summary

Other Features

The card comes with the ability to access the American Express lounge at Sydney Airport on two occasions each year. The card can be used with Apple Pay, Samsung Pay and Android Pay.

Further information on the card can be found on the American Express website.