Jumeirah One disappears as a redemption from Amex International Currency Cards

American Express has, for many years, issued two cards for anyone globally who would prefer to bank in US$ or Euros rather than their home currency. This includes UK residents.

These cards are known as International Currency Cards, with the individual cards known as the International Dollar Card (IDC) and International Euro Card (IEC).  Each is available in Green, Gold and Platinum versions.  The cards are run from Brighton which is very convenient if you have any issues.

There was no sign-up bonus for the Gold or Green card.  However, the Platinum International Currency Card offered a sign-up bonus of 30,000 Membership Rewards points. This was very handy, because you could get this bonus irrespective of any other American Express cards you held. It would also not impact your future applications for UK cards.

The key upside was that the International Currency Cards have different Membership Rewards partners. These include Jumeirah One, Qatar Privilege Club (less useful now that Qatar has adopted Avios) and Malaysia Airlines. They also retain a 1:1 conversion rate with Singapore Airlines which beats the 3:2 rate offered by the UK programme.

Unfortunately, Amex has recently taken the International Currency Cards off the market. If you don’t have one, you’re not getting one.

If you DO have one, one of the benefits seems to have gone. Jumeirah One has disappeared as a transfer partner.

10 years ago this was the greatest deal around. Jumeirah resorts in the Middle East are ludicrously expensive but you could pick them up with a points transfer. I was getting 3p-4p of value per Amex point.

Sadly Jumeirah One went revenue based. Each point is now worth around 1.5p, so the 4:1 transfer from American Express ICC Membership Rewards became pretty pathetic. Plenty of transfer partners offered far more value, especially Singapore Airlines with its 1:1 transfer rate.

I am tempted to shut down my ICC card entirely. Even retaining the ability to transfer to Singapore Airlines at 1:1 isn’t necessarily worth the annual fee.

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