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I ran a quick poll the other day and I found the results interesting. For those of us with a few more miles on the odometer we all remember the old “chunk – chunk” sound when you had to put your credit card, with raised numbers, into one of these machines (and the answer to the poll btw):
This way you got your receipt with the card numbers on it and the merchant had real proof that the card was in fact used as the numbers would be imprinted. But clearly today that is pointless. I can not tell you when the last time I have ever had a merchant pull out one of those old units to process my card (can you?)! Today we are all about the magnetic strip or the slow changeover to the chip readers. Thus no need for raised numbers.
To that end I requested my new flat and metal The Business Platinum® Card from American Express OPEN. When I talk to frequent travelers, new or old, I always tell them there is one single card they ALWAYS must hold and it never EVER leaves my wallet and that is this card.
You see my point. If you don’t HOLD this card you, IMO, just don’t get it and see the value no matter what other cards you are paying large fees for each year. Anyway, you can now order a “flat” card if you hold the card and it is very simple.
Just log in to your Amex account and scroll down until you see the link to replace a card.
Next, under card management you simple choose the metal replacement card. You can still keep using your old card until the new on arrives and you active it. Simple and done.
Now why do I love this so much? It is not about the metal inside and I know some gripe all these new metal cards make their wallets more heavy. OK maybe so but I have A LOT (I mean a lot) of cards in my wallet so I can get max value no matter what I am buying (or meeting some kind of spend). Not having raised numbers makes my wallet so much let “fat” and that matters more to me that anything else.
What do you think. Do you hold The Business Platinum® Card from American Express OPEN and are planning to replace it with a metal card? Do you like the cards with non-raised numbers? Do you have an issue with the metal inside these cards? Let us know! – Rene
Advertiser Disclosure: Eye of the Flyer, a division of Chatterbox Entertainment, Inc., is part of an affiliate sales network and receives compensation for sending traffic to partner sites, such as CreditCards.com. Some or all of the card offers that appear on the website are from advertisers. Compensation may impact how and where card products appear on the site. This site does not include all card companies or all available card offers. Opinions, reviews, analyses & recommendations are the author’s alone, and have not been reviewed, endorsed, or approved by any of these entities. Some of the links on this page are affiliate or referral links. We may receive a commission or referral bonus for purchases or successful applications made during shopping sessions or signups initiated from clicking those links.
Responses are not provided or commissioned by the bank advertiser. Responses have not been reviewed, approved or otherwise endorsed by the bank advertiser. It is not the bank advertiser's responsibility to ensure all posts and/or questions are answered.
I have the Chase Sapphire Reserve® card, and your piece really hit me because I had to use my card in the old fashioned way a couple of weeks ago. The merchant’s internet payment system had just gone down, so she opened a drawer and whipped out one of those old school imprinters. I knew immediately what it was and I remarked that I hadn’t seen one in a very long time. She said it comes in handy on the rare occasion that she can’t connect electronically, and keeps it so she doesn’t lose sales. She laughed and said that most of her younger staff had never seen one before, so there is a learning curve involved. Since the card is flat, she had to write in the numbers, but it worked.
Funny. I actually cancelled my Amex Platinum because they replaced it with metal and wouldn’t let me keep plastic. Sapphire Reserve will send out a plastic card on request. There’s nothing worse than being behind someone in line at the checkout who clanks down a metal card thinking it’s cool. Plus, as you say, I carry a money clip in my front pocket and metal cards are uncomfortable to carry around
More than 1 metal card sets off the darn metal detector at checkpoints. Means I have to remove the cards from my pocket now.
What’s the point of the metal? You can have a plastic flat card just as easily (I have a couple) and they are lighter too. The metal is there only to impress.
Actually, I have had to scramble for an embossed plastic card a few times recently while traveling abroad. Guess some of us are about substance over style. I literally have never had anyone appear to be impressed by the clunk on the counter, least of all myself.
Good question, though.
So which is better to have the Business Platinum Amex or the Person Platinum Amex?
we like the Kool metal cards!!
I saw an old machine few weeks ago at one of the Guitar Center Rentals. I guess I’m lucky haha!!
Here at home there is always a chip reader and a few years ago there were magnetic stripe readers. But in the US I stumbled upon those imprinters from time to time.
Ich think usually it was at some EconoLodge. Yeah, often we stay at budget motels. Though we are at a Hilton right now.
Anyway, from traveling to the US I know that those raised numbers serve(d) a purpose.
I have never set off a metal detector nor had any problems using it, so I guess I will keep it.
Flat is good, but Chip & Pin is better.
The American Chip & Sign cards leave us with no security at all out side the USA and even not as much here.
These metal cards are horrible and I’m a millennial – the age group they are trying to attract! They clank when you set them down, they set off the airport metal detector, and they get stuck in automated credit machines/kiosks. I’ll stick with plastic cards!
I remember the old carbon copy devices from when I was little. Somebody has used the old fashioned carbon copy device twice in the last year on my card – a limo company and a restaurant that had an internet outage.
My wallet never set off the metal detector at the ballpark until the new Platinum Card. Now it slows down the line to get in.
I do not like the metal cards. They will get stuck in some automatic cc readers.
Hate them. Heavy, and lack of flexibility makes my wallet less comfortable for back-pocket carrying. I purposefully put a bend in mine so it would conform with the curve of my well-worn-in wallet. We’ll see how that works in a card reader…