Time to get rid of my Amex Platinum
UPDATE Aug 2019: Amex offered me 50,000 points to keep my card!
I've been on the fence for a while now, but the latest round of American Express feature cuts is the nail in the coffin of the Platinum card for me.
Yes, I love the 5x on airfare but the Platinum doesn't offer the trip protection like the Chase Sapphire Reserve. We've had at least one instance this year where that trip insurance would have saved us $150 in overnight hotel fees due to a missed connection. Those extra 2 points per dollar vanish fast under those kinds of numbers, so we actually still choose to put some of our flights onto our Chase card.
Yes, American Express is building their own airport lounges, but the dozen-ish lounges they have are legendary for overcrowding and are usually pre-security (and often in an entirely separate terminal from where you are), which is a lot more annoying than having one on the same concourse as your departure gate. Furthermore, the comically-early closing time of their LaGuardia lounge means that I've never actually been able to use an Amex lounge.
Yes, I do love the Sak's Fifth Avenue benefit, but even that's not a slam-dunk since you have to dig through their site to find something that qualifies for free shipping if you want to maximize it (lots of the food and gift items don't qualify!). Further, I use this credit to buy things I wouldn't otherwise buy, so it's very difficult for me to count that $100 as truly being worth $100.
Given how much we spend on dining and groceries, we've actually shifted most of our spending over to the (Rose) Gold card, so that plus our Sapphire Reserves should be more than fine going forward.
Full FlyerTalk thread is here.
UPDATE (6 July): if you jump to the end of that thread for the 6th of July it sounds like people are buying a single gift card, applying it as partial payment for a Delta flight, and then the remainder of the charge to their Amex is actually triggering the reimbursement. I'm going to keep my eyes on this to see if it's just a fluke or if that's the new normal.
I've been on the fence for a while now, but the latest round of American Express feature cuts is the nail in the coffin of the Platinum card for me.
- In April, they got rid of the Boingo Wi-Fi benefit
- Then, in May, they announced the end of the Priority Pass restaurant benefit
- Now they're taking it from "hard" to "next-to-impossible" to use the airline fee credit option
Yes, I love the 5x on airfare but the Platinum doesn't offer the trip protection like the Chase Sapphire Reserve. We've had at least one instance this year where that trip insurance would have saved us $150 in overnight hotel fees due to a missed connection. Those extra 2 points per dollar vanish fast under those kinds of numbers, so we actually still choose to put some of our flights onto our Chase card.
Yes, American Express is building their own airport lounges, but the dozen-ish lounges they have are legendary for overcrowding and are usually pre-security (and often in an entirely separate terminal from where you are), which is a lot more annoying than having one on the same concourse as your departure gate. Furthermore, the comically-early closing time of their LaGuardia lounge means that I've never actually been able to use an Amex lounge.
Yes, I do love the Sak's Fifth Avenue benefit, but even that's not a slam-dunk since you have to dig through their site to find something that qualifies for free shipping if you want to maximize it (lots of the food and gift items don't qualify!). Further, I use this credit to buy things I wouldn't otherwise buy, so it's very difficult for me to count that $100 as truly being worth $100.
Given how much we spend on dining and groceries, we've actually shifted most of our spending over to the (Rose) Gold card, so that plus our Sapphire Reserves should be more than fine going forward.
Full FlyerTalk thread is here.
UPDATE (6 July): if you jump to the end of that thread for the 6th of July it sounds like people are buying a single gift card, applying it as partial payment for a Delta flight, and then the remainder of the charge to their Amex is actually triggering the reimbursement. I'm going to keep my eyes on this to see if it's just a fluke or if that's the new normal.
Comments
Post a Comment