Buying a Car with a Black Card
If you’re a black cardholder, the sky is supposed to be the limit on what you can purchase, within your means of course. Have you tried buying a car with it? Good luck. Many car dealers restrict the amount you can charge to a card, saving on the merchant fees they have to pay (2.1% & higher). Some people would like to purchase a car on their charge/credit card to get the points, the points could potentially pay for a vacation or a honeymoon. While dealers will almost always balk at letting you do this, there are some ways around it, but often times you will end up not being able to charge the car to your amex. In fact, you will probably have an easier time charging it to a Visa or Mastercard.
Tips on negotiating with the dealer:
- Negotiate a slightly higher price for the car if you really want to pay for it with a card. This will cover their merchant fees.
- If you’re trying to pay for the car using a Visa or Mastercard, show the dealer the terms of service that state they can’t impose a maximum charge amount. This will probably piss the dealer off, but when threatened, most will buckle. American Express however, is ok with a dealership setting a maximum they will charge to a card.
- If you’re trading a car in, a deal can be worked on the trade in value to allow them to accept a card.
The bottom line usually is that if you want the best deal possible, paying with a card is not going to allow it. If you do end up purchasing the card on your Amex, or even the majority of it, it is best to call Amex and notify them of a large incoming purchases, as they have been tightening the leash on spending abilities. There are some dealers though that will let you charge the whole car to a card, it isn’t unheard of, but odds are most dealers will limit you to <$10,000. Here is a video of a guy buying a new Rolls Royce and not being able to charge the whole thing to his black card.
Has anyone had success paying for the total amount on charge card?
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Comments
If you have the money to buy a car outright why would you charge it to any particular colour of amex charge card unless it was a business purchase or you wanted to look like a flash dipstick?
I understand that using an AMEX has benefits when paying for services or products (you might get something for free or a higher level of service) but for buying a car?
If anyone has bought a car on an AMEX black (or an colour) have you got anything for free out of it because you are a cardmember?
And why pay more for the vehicle for the privilege of flashing the metal?
Surely you’d charge it to a debit card or finance.
If you are happy to pay more for the privilege I’d say it shows that you might just have more money than sense.
Mitch doesn’t understand the value of Membership Rewards points. My last two vacations have been gratis thanks to MR points.
Brian
I don’t understand the finer points of Rewards (I’m a credit not charge customer) but can imagine you have to spend an amount that would make me faint in order to rack up the points because Amex get the charge from the merchant (2% of transaction value) for processing the transaction, plus your annual fee so they make a fair old whack out of it so I’d question whether the rewards were truely free or not.
I did apply for membership rewards (£23 a year think it was) but it appears that in the UK at least you cant get membership rewards if you are a platinum moneyback credit card cardholder.
I think thouh that even if I end up a company IT director or CTO (which is my career aim) I’d steer clear of an AMEX charge as my vice is computer hardware and gadgets and it would be just too tempting.
I have to say though, I have always received excellent service from AMEX (proabably the best in terms of the cards I have and although not the cheapest in terms of interest, I get cashback on it too so cant complain.
Does anyone think the card will be easier to obtain with the incredibly weak economy? AmExs stock hasnt been holding up very well , which makes me think they could use more of those hefty fees…?
If you are paying cash for anything these days. You are not at all financially with it. With the points that you receive from the black card– you have to use it. If you are financing a car–you probably do not have a black card or you may not have one in the near future.
I would rather see AMEX raise the limit for the card and offer better benefits. There are already enough people with it and to be honest, I wasn’t impressed with the reservations for a restaurant I went to last week. They need to make it worth wild for me to keep the card unless more and more people are going to go back to the platinum and save on the fees.
I use a card to pay for almost everything though as I don’t have more money than I know what to do with I use a Visa or Amex platinum credit card (amex is my preferred because of the cashback and the good customer service I’ve always received from their customer service operation in the UK)
Fair enough, I’ve done a bit more research since I last posted and yes I can see the benefits but I can also see from a business point of view why they would be reluctant to accept an AMEX for a large purchase because of the fee that they’d have to pay.
Mitch, do you mind emailing me outside of the forum? I have a question for you. whytehmg@gmail.com
thank bro
Hi Frank
Sure other posters would be interested in your question and my answer so why don’t you post it here and I shall post my response
Thanks man
It really isn’t complicated - Amex needs to make money on a transaction. They may give a bit of that earned money back to the “customer” so the customer feels like they are getting a lot “gratis” as Brian says, but come on guys, this would be no different than saying you need to drop a bundle in Las Vegas, but hey, we got a free room and they paid for our meals! Bottom line, 2nd law of Thermodynamics - you can’t make something out of nothing! Therefore, the only advantage of using the card has to be to “flash it” when buying a car!
Brock
I suppose it depends very much on what risk they are prepared to accept.
Obviously, requeirements for centurion are higher than for the Green, gold or platinum cards and the cardholders will more lilely hvave the resources to pay but there’s always a rick that a customer will just run up the charge and not pay up.
Looking at the last results from Amex, Kenneth Chennault said that it was evident that even some of their top spenders were feeling the pinch and defaulting on payments so they are reducing lines of credit so I’d say if anything it will be harder and not easier to get any sort of AMEX card in the near future.
The first thing they have to do is reassure their shareholders and so for the moment I reckon their focus will be on managing their cards in force (charge and credit) rather than acquiring new business in order to try to regain some of their lost share value and regain their top rating with all of the investment rating agencies.
I should point out that I have nothing to do with AMEX (apart from being a credit card customer) nor stock broking (I work in IT) but just have an interest in business.
Hey Guys,
I have bought 3 cars so far on my Centurion Card, I will speak from REAL experience how it works. First of all, Mitch is 100% Correct. If you are not a repeating customer, they will question whether to do it or not. Second, the smartest way is to agree on a price for a car, find out what the rate is, add it to the price your paying on the vehicle, and make sure they will let you charge it to the card. As Mitch previously said, having a relationship w/ the dealer is an asset, as they know you are 100% financially secure and will pay the payment ( A neighbor of mine is a very famous music producer, has a black card, and we saw his Ferrari, motorcycle, and bentley repossessed over the past few months, also his home is in the process of foreclosure, so just having a Centurion card doesn’t mean you will pay). Next, the smartest thing to do is to contact AmEx, ask for a supervisor or financial account analyst on staff, tell them you are going to purchase the vehicle using your card, tell them you have spoke to the dealer about it, and if they want, they may contact the finance manager to verify. Next, you SHOULD pay the entire amount of the car before you purchase the vehicle on your card. Why? IT WILL INCREASE YOUR LIMIT IMMENSELY!!!! Anyone that thinks this card doesn’t have a limit its wrong. You can have a $30k limit, 300k limit, or over a $3M limit. it all depends on your financial status, security, and credit. If you pay in advance, its a token of good will on your behalf, and proves no risk to AmEx. I found the first time I purchased a vehicle w/ the card that by doing what I wrote above, it will ensure AmEx, and the dealer(s) that you and an excellent customer. As mentioned above in the post, the points are incredible. For example, after buying 3 cars on the card, the points were enough to get a Lamborghini on a 12mo. lease from AmEx and Chicago Lambo., as well as a yacht charter on a vacation. POINTS ARE MONEY !!! Most people dont realize that but they really are, so by spending cash on a car, you are really loosing money, as the depiction is in effect the moment you sign the papers. However, if you pay on your card, the depreciation is there, but no matter what the price of the car is, or the depreciation, mostly likely, if you use all the points you earned, its greater in the dollar amount than the depreciation amount. For example, if you were to buy a car thats not an exotic, say a Range Rover, the points can pay for some very exquisite gifts for your family members through rewards first, or a nice present for yourself for being blessed, and having accomplished what you have in life to get you to this point where you take advantage of the perks that only 1% of our population has, so you treat yourself 
Last months I bought one car on my Centurion. I only spoke by the Phone with the Car Dealer regarding the Price and the payments Method. We agreed on the Price and I suggest to use my Centurion and they agreed to accept. Without contacting Centurion Service regarding buying , without paying the entire amount off the car. The Car Dealer was totally new one for me.
Normally they don´t accept credit cards for buying the Cars.
In this case they made exception to the rule . Where? In Europe of course.
BTW. I´m not from US
As the Finance Manager of an Audi dealership I get requests weekly from clients wanting to make full payment for their vehciles on credit/charge cards. Standard practice is for the business to ‘on cost’ the merchant fees to the clients however for a select few clients (repeat buyers) we are willing to negotiate or waive the fee.
I recently processed payment on a centurion card for an Audi R8 which was AUD$280k. The client had already contacted Amex for approval and had to ‘pre-pay’ half of the amount prior to the transaction being approved.